Digital Activism: Marketing for a Better Cause

This entire quarter, I wrote blogs on how a digital marketer can use different tools like SEO, A/B testing, and inbound marketing to help a business draw in more customers and increase return on investment. Today we will shift gears and look at how a digital marketer can use those skills and apply them to a cause that is working to make the world a better place through social marketing. 

What is Social Marketing?

Social marketing is often confused with social media marketing or cause marketing for a for-profit company, but it is an entirely different topic. Social marketing is "an approach used to develop activities aimed at changing or maintaining people's behavior for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole." Social marketing is used by non-profits to create real change in the world and often includes a call-to-action like donations and signing petitions. Social marketing aims not only to increase awareness or knowledge of an issue; it is to change how people behave.

Social marketing is a deep understanding of the people that you are trying to help. Policies, programs, campaigns, everything, should be built around those people, instead of thinking about what people need from your perspective. 

Cause I Care About

As a Christian, a cause that I deeply care about is the persecuted church. Every year, the number of people persecuted because of their faith in Jesus continues to grow. Despite this growing crisis, this issue is widely ignored by the media and often ignored within communities of faith. Christians, as of 2019, are the most persecuted religious group in the world.

I come from a family that escaped religious persecution from the communist Soviet Union, finding refuge here in the United States where we can freely worship Jesus without the fears of being fined or imprisoned. Still, in other countries like China, India, and Somalia, Christians can't do the same and live every day in fear.

Open Door USA

A non-profit organization that aids the persecuted church is Open Doors USA. Open Doors works to strengthen and equip the Body of Christ living under or facing restriction and persecution because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Open door distributes bibles, literature, media, leadership training, emergency aid, trauma counseling, and so much more to help the underground church. They also work to educate and mobilize believers in free countries like the US to identify with threatened and persecuted Christians and be actively involved in assisting them through donations and prayer.

Digital Tools

After examining the Open Doors' website and social pages, I've noticed they use several digital marketing tools to reach their audience.

Inbound Marketing: To educate people in free countries, Open Doors offers various sources to educate their audience to lead them to donate eventually. They write blog posts, host webinars, run a podcast, and release hundreds of videos and stories of individuals that face persecution today. On their website, you can see that they are guiding each visitor in their buyer's journey. Here on the right is examples of the videos that can be found on the Open Doors site.

Paid Social: Open doors invest money into paid ads to increase their brand awareness, generate leads, and reach an extensive group of people. Below is a paid social ad that I saw for Open Doors on my Facebook feed after I went on the Open Doors website. Paid social ads are great because you can target a specific audience by choosing demographics, locations, behaviors, and particular interests. You can see that this paid ad worked for Open Doors because it generated lots of activity, getting 2.5k comments, 2.5k shares, and 14k likes.

SEO: Open Doors is doing great with their search engine optimization. When I type specific keywords like "Christian persecution," "persecuted church," or "What is Christian persecution," they tend to appear first in the SERP. Appearing first in the SERP is essential because Open Doors will have increased visibility, rankings, and more traffic on their site. 

Using my Skills to Promote the Cause

Overall, Open Doors is doing a great job using digital marketing skills to promote this cause, but some areas could improve. I would apply my organic social media skill to improve Open Doors' organic content on their social pages. As of now, their Instagram following is at 29k. To increase it and bring a larger awareness to people, I would create video content, something they don't do now. According to HubSpot, one in four consumers actually lose interest in a company if it doesn’t have videos on their social page, and four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than reading about it. Now I know that Open Doors doesn't offer products, but providing videos on their Instagram page will keep people engaged, informed, leading them to donate.

Today is #GivingTuesday. Have you considered giving to a cause that you're passionate about? It's the perfect day to do so!

Alina