Essential Marketing Tools for Nonprofits on Salesforce: A Guide for Admins

Nonprofits face the challenge of having to compete against large businesses for their constituents’ attention while often working with limited resources. The good news is that many of the same tools used by businesses are available to nonprofits on Salesforce as well – and often at a discounted price! Let’s take a look at these tools and dig into important pros and cons.

Understanding User Needs

Before diving in, it’s crucial to consider the perspectives of the two primary user groups:

• Salesforce Administrators: You need tools that are easy to implement, manage, and integrate smoothly with your existing Salesforce configuration. You want solutions that offer flexibility and scalability as your organization grows.
• Marketing End Users: Your team needs intuitive tools that streamline marketing processes. Features like campaign creation, email automation, and analytics should be user-friendly without sacrificing power.

Leveraging Salesforce’s Core Marketing Features

Before exploring additional apps, let’s not forget the built-in marketing functionality Salesforce offers:

• Campaigns: The cornerstone of tracking marketing initiatives. Campaigns allow you to link contacts and leads to specific events, email blasts, or outreach programs. Measure results, budget, and ROI to inform future marketing decisions.
• Reports and Dashboards: Salesforce’s powerful reporting capability shines in marketing. Build customized dashboards to track campaign performance, email open rates, lead conversion, website traffic, and more.
• Lead Management: The Salesforce lead object allows you to track potential supporters, segment them for nurturing, and measure how your marketing efforts translate into actual donors or volunteers.

Salesforce’s Native Powerhouses

Let’s move on to the heavy-hitters within Salesforce itself:

Marketing Cloud Engagement (formerly Pardot): An excellent option for nonprofits with a smaller audience who focus more on nurturing relationships with those already in Salesforce. This tool excels in email automation, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and in-depth analytics to track your ROI.
Marketing Cloud: This powerful platform shines in omnichannel marketing, enabling personalized communication across email, SMS, social media, and more. It’s suitable if a significant portion of your marketing targets individual donors (B2C-style).

Key Considerations (Pardot vs. Marketing Cloud)

• Cost: Marketing Cloud tends to be more expensive than Marketing Cloud Engagement (Pardot).
• Complexity: Marketing Cloud offers a wider range of advanced features, making it slightly more complex to set up and manage.
• Use Case: Pardot is often better suited for nonprofits with a smaller, defined audience. Marketing Cloud is preferable when reaching large audiences with diverse communication needs.

Top Third-Party Integrations

While the Salesforce solutions are great products, they may be more than your nonprofit requires. If that is the case, the AppExchange offers a treasure trove of plug-and-play marketing integrations. Here are some widely used options for nonprofits:

• Engaging Networks: A versatile platform combining fundraising, email marketing, advocacy, and peer-to-peer functionalities with a Salesforce integration.
• Mailchimp: A popular email marketing platform known for its ease of use. It has a limited free tier and affordable paid plans for nonprofits

Finalizing Your Choice

Now that you know what the marketing options are for nonprofits on Salesforce, it’s important to choose what’s best for your organization. You’ll want to align the tools with your marketing maturity level as we shared in a previous blog post. As always, we’re here to help you choose and implement the best system for your organization. Email support or contact us about our Salesforce Support services.