For nonprofit organizations, digital marketing is a landscape of both challenge and opportunity. The opportunity: More ways of reaching people on a more personal basis than ever before. The challenge: Cutting through all the noise and developing best practices.

Websites, email, social media, online fundraising, and Web advertising all offer ways to connect with donors, volunteers, and supporters. All have value as marketing and fundraising tools. And all are continually shifting in terms of how people receive and perceive them.

So how are today’s nonprofits using these tools? How are they faring at developing best practices? How are they overcoming the challenges of the digital landscape to take advantage of the opportunities?

We’ll provide some insight into those questions in today’s post as we look at a handful of telling new statistics from the 2015 M+R Benchmarks Study.

About the M+R Benchmarks Study

This study collected data about email messaging, email list size, fundraising, online advocacy, web traffic, Facebook, Twitter, and mobile programs from 84 nonprofits for the calendar year of 2014. Download the full 2015 M+R Benchmarks Study here.

Nine Notable Nonprofit Digital Marketing Statistics

Here are some key findings from the 2015 M+R Benchmarks Study that popped out to us:

1. 13% increase in online revenue for nonprofits from 2013 to 2014
2. Nonprofits raised an average of $40 for every 1,000 fundraising emails delivered to supporters in 2014
3. Nonprofits raised an average of $612 in online donations for every 1,000 website visitors in 2014
4. 7.6 out of every 1,000 website visitors became donors in 2014
5. 13% of visitors to an organization’s main donation page completed a gift
6. 11% average growth in email list size for nonprofits in 2014
7. 32% increase in online monthly giving in 2014 (compared to just 9% for one-time giving)
8. 76% of nonprofits invested in some form of paid web marketing in 2014
9. Nonprofits experienced an average 42% growth in Facebook audience and 37% growth in Twitter audience in 2014

Three Key Thoughts to Fuel Your Digital Marketing Strategy

So what can we glean from these numbers? Here are a few key takeaways to help you focus (or refocus) your digital marketing efforts moving forward…

• Make monthly giving a bigger part of your website and online fundraising strategy. Here are some tips to help you get started.
• There’s still room for continued social media expansion and engagement. Here are some ideas to increase the impact of your social marketing efforts.
• Make an effort to grow your email list and give subscribers more relevant information. Here’s a tactic you can use to maintain your list and provide better subscriber experiences.

You can download the full 2015 M+R Benchmarks Study here. And check out this great M+R infographic summarizing some of the study’s key findings…