The marketing effectiveness of UK environmental charity websites compared to best practice

Abstract

All nonprofit organisations need to give attention to their marketing strategies in order to maximise the funding and support they receive and the numbers using their services. The web offers a new communications medium with which to achieve this. This paper compares suggested best practice approaches to web marketing using the websites of UK environmental charities as a type of nonprofit organisation. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications

Developing a Marketing Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations: An Exploratory Study

“…However, although the organizational employees are often passionate about their NPO's cause, they often lack business experience or long-term objectives (Bissell, 2003). Citing Akchin (2001), Wenham et al (2003) suggest that NPOs lack a customer orientation in their marketing practices, and few embrace a marketing approach to their marketing operations.…”

“…Another major failure of NPO's Internet use was poor ''capture efficiency'', or the failure of search engines to return the NPO's Web site near the top of the search list (Wenham et al, 2003). However, to resolve this, the NPO need only ensure the proper registration of a Web site with these search engines (Hart, 2002).…”

“…This in turn has resulted in greater interest from the nonprofit sector in marketing and in the importance of the marketing profession overall (Clarke & Mount, 2000;Katz, 2005). In general, NPOs did not use marketing techniques until the ''late 1960s and early 1970s,'' but it is now a well accepted-if often misunderstood-practice (Wenham et al, 2003).…”

The effects of donation button design on aid agency transactional trust

“…Based on the study 1 results, and what others who have examined charity web sites have reported (e.g. Sargeant, 2001;Sargeant and Jay, 2003;Wenham et al, 2003;Goatman and Lewis, 2007), it appears that most charity web sites are designed merely for what Rowley (2001) terms 'contact' purposes.…”

“…The increase in online fundraising may be due to aid agencies designing their websites based on the developing literature on aid agency web site design (e.g. Fox and Carr, 2000;Gueguen and Jacob, 2001;Sargeant, 2001;Wenham et al, 2003;Powell, 2005;Goatman and Lewis, 2007;Sargeant et al, 2007;Waters, 2007;Richard, 2008;Burt and Dunham, 2009;McWah and Carr, 2009). One issue, which is apparent in this literature and also in the e-commerce literature in general (e.g.…”