Rare Disease Foundation Grows Donor Base

In the first two years of inbound marketing with Yodelpop, this medical research foundation experienced results including:

• Website Traffic: ⬆️ 75% monthly increase 
• Leads: ⬆️ 55% monthly increase 
• Donors: ⬆️ 2K increase 

Situation

This medical research foundation has raised millions of dollars to support breakthrough research, providing hope for a cure for a rare disease typically diagnosed in infancy. With a vast body of research that is much needed and sought after by the population affected, the foundation entered inbound marketing poised to achieve growth toward its fundraising and advocacy goals.

Challenges facing the foundation included:

• Donor database (Raiser's Edge NXT) disconnected from marketing platform (HubSpot)
• Lack of new SEO content regularly added to the website to increase traffic from ideal supporters
• Lack of conversion opportunities to turn visitors into leads (downloads, forms, calls to action)
• Lack of list segmentation to convert leads to advocates (form fields, personalized emails, contextual web content)
• Absence of automation / systems for engaging people who provide their contact information
• Competition from other organizations and experts
• No internal staffing for marketing 

In the first two years of partnering with Yodelpop, the foundation saw an increase of 75% in monthly traffic, a 55% growth in new contacts in their HubSpot Pro marketing CRM, and an increase of 2,000 total donors contributing to their cause.

Our Approach

Yodelpop worked with the organization’s team to create a nonprofit marketing plan that:

1. Create content-rich website and advertising assets that serve as a traffic magnet, drawing more visitors to the website and converting them to leads
2. Nurture leads to become members, leveraging a range of sophisticated tools in HubSpot's all-in-one marketing software
3. Refresh the organization's website to improve user experience and brand profile

Yodelpop’s specific strategies and activities to improve lead generation and nurturing with this client included:

• Gameplan
• Analyzed peers and competitors.
• Created key personas. Yodelpop helped the client identify and develop personas describing their ideal fundraisers, donors, and community members.
• Formulated a detailed gameplan ensuring effective use of resources throughout each month, quarter, and year.
• Inbound Marketing
• Created and implemented a content strategy with content preparation and optimization services to turn research, personal stories, and fundraising tools into polished downloads, blogs, videos, pillar pages, and other content that is found, used, and valued by the foundation's key personas.
• Launched a personal stories portal that resulted in 65 new patient story submissions with photographs in the first two years.
• Developed pillar pages—long, authoritative pages that answer key questions about the disease while accurately interpreting research and treatment data, attracting traffic with the goal of converting visitors into potential fundraisers and donors.
• Launched an educational blog—regularly publishing posts that answer key personas’ specific questions and challenges, and link back to the pillar pages to solve their biggest problems
• Engaged social media audiences by continually posting organic social content that answers important questions, draws them to the website, and converts them to leads
• Lead Generation and Nurturing
• Designed and implemented lead nurturing email workflows providing information and engagement tailored to each person, from parents facing a new diagnosis to supportive relatives to researchers.
• Created an e-newsletter that provides research updates and new sources of hope for patients, while driving traffic to the website and nurturing leads.
• Built dozens of conversion mechanisms on the website, driving visitors to take an action via forms and CTAs that match their stage of the buyer’s journey. Visitors provide their contact information and in exchange receive something of value, nurturing the relationship up to and beyond fundraising and donor conversion.
• Technology
• Provided a cost-effective, phased solution to bridge Raiser's Edge NXT with HubSpot Marketing Pro software, first with an import strategy, and then with the RaiserSync integration

• Advertising
• Used targeted social media advertising campaigns increase social following and promote new events and resources.
• Leveraged Google Ads grant program to promote the organization’s resources.

Impact

By implementing a content-based inbound marketing strategy using HubSpot Marketing Pro, in the first two years Yodelpop helped this medical research foundation achieve a monthly traffic increase of 75%, monthly leads growth of 55%, and an overall increase of 2,000 in quantity of donors.