5 Ways to Easily Publicize Your New Nonprofit Website's Launch
Don't let your website launch fizzle out on you, get the word out!
1. Tell the full story—or as much as you can:
Launching a website is exciting from your perspective, but that’s because you’ve been part of the story behind why you needed a new site. If you could include your audience in on that narrative, they’ll likely feel more of an emotional pull towards the project. They could sympathize with your prior pains and be relieved to see them alleviated. As they navigate the site, they’ll be more curious about the various features as they see how problems were solved. You can explain this story via an email, blog post, infographic, video or a combination of the above.
2. Start with a soft website launch if possible:
Everyone wants to feel like they’re a part of something exclusive. Your nonprofit is the same; gather a list of your biggest donors, most active volunteers and community members. Send out a note introducing your new site, stating that you’d like them to be the first to try it out. Walk them through why you made the strategic changes you did so they can feel like they’re included in they have insider information.
This will get you a good amount of visits right from the start and could make these supporters feel excited to share your site with friends and visit it more frequently.
3. Get your entire nonprofit organization involved:
It’s not just your communications team’s job to get this site out there. It affects your entire nonprofit, so everyone should take part. To make it easier for them, give them ideas. Encourage them to share it on their social networks, via their emails, during their phone calls with donors / volunteers / the community, and in their email signatures.
The email signature could look something like this:
Jane Doe
Digital Marketing Strategist
CharityOne
P.S. Our website is launched!! We can’t wait to see its impact on our cause. Take a look at the transformation [link to the new website here]
4. Giving something away ALWAYS gets attention
So all these ideas are great, but sometimes people need a little extra incentive. This could include tickets to an upcoming event, a free item donated by a local business, free nonprofit merchandise or a free resource like a webinar. In order to win, have them come to a landing page on your new site and fill out their contact info.
5. Take every opportunity to talk about your nonprofit website launch
It may get tiring to constantly bring up your new website launch at all your meetings and during phone calls, but in doing so, we promise it makes a difference. When people hear someone talk about a project that has tangible results, they are more likely to check it out. People like to see others excited about their work.
Best of luck with your website redesign project!
We hope these ideas help you to see an increase in traffic right after your launch...if you need help with post-website launch SEO, social media strategy, Google Analytics or online donation setup, feel free to reach out to us!