12 Marketing Snafus Associations and Nonprofits Should Avoid in 2025

1. Assuming your audience knows what you know.

You probably spend 40 or more hours a week thinking about your work—your sector, its pain points, your organization’s mission. Your audiences spend roughly zero hours per week thinking about you.

Do not succumb to the curse of knowledge! Assume your audience knows very little about your work.

Make sure your content is simple and clear. Articulate your value, mission, and work like you would ‌to a six-year-old. What seems basic to you needs to be hammered into your audience.

2. Ignoring young audiences.

Gen Zers aren’t children anymore. The oldest Gen Alphas are about ready to start driving. One thing that rings true for both is that they care about social impact and many worry about how new tech will negatively impact their social lives.

Do your research. What are young audiences passionate about? They may not have the income of later-stage professionals or feel they have enough social capital to make a meaningful impact—but they will.

Don’t ignore the opportunity to give them a cause, a community, or a leg up on their careers. Invite them to volunteer or sit on a committee. Get them involved now.

3. Overlooking your real competition.

Every minute of every day, an unfathomable amount of content is published into the crowded room that is the internet. It’s easy to focus on direct competitors—e.g., associations that serve the same professionals, nonprofits working to solve the same issues.

Keep tabs on your competitors, but remember the biggest competition is a big, noisy internet. You need to stand out. You need to grab attention.

Relentlessly. Methodically. Keep your foot on the gas with your content cadence. But don’t fly blind. Make sure you assess what’s most effective and do more of that. A lot more.

4. Letting your branding run wild.

You wouldn’t trust a smartphone that looks different every time it loads the homescreen. The same goes for brands. Your audiences want to know you’re a steady hand.

That you are who you say you are.

To make your branding more consistent, you need a set of guidelines. You need your brand’s look and voice defined so that anyone who communicates on your behalf is on the same page. Keep it simple and make it easily-repeatable. Consistent branding might bore you. But it won’t bore your audience.

5. Underestimating the value of alt text.

Alt text is a brief description you add to an image upload. It’s a common entry on website backends and on social media. It’s also a vital component of making your content accessible to users who are visually impaired. That’s because screen-reading software reads it aloud to users who must use headphones to consume content.

Alt text is also read by search engines. It’s a factor in the way their algorithms assess topic relevance. Make sure your website’s images have alt text if it’s an option. Make sure your social media posts have alt text, too.

6. Forgetting to freshen up your social media.

The social media landscape has become so complicated that entire careers are made by specializing in just one platform. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and assume any social media presence is ‌good enough.

It’s not.

It doesn’t take much to reassess best practices once or twice a year. What’s the best caption length (hint: shorter is usually better)? What kinds of images are people using? What do your audiences engage with the most? Freshen up your social media. Be hip if you’re on a hip platform. Leave a platform if it’s underperforming or not where your audiences are—or if it doesn’t align with your values.

7. Asking misleading survey questions.

Want to know how you’re doing? Your donors and members can’t wait to tell you. Surveys are a great way to keep your finger on the pulse. But make sure your surveys follow a couple simple rules.

First, make your questions unbiased. Asking your audience how much they enjoyed your webinar may skew the responses more positively. Asking them to simply rate their experience forces them to reflect and be more honest

Second, make sure you’re only asking one question at a time. Sounds obvious, but we see it all the time. Don’t ask your members or donors how satisfied they are with your service and benefits. Split it up into two questions. Look for the words “and” or “or.”

8. Gating all of your web events.

When an association or nonprofit organization hosts a webinar, it’s usually to share important, relevant insights. It should be, anyway. But why make all of your relevant content inaccessible to prospective members or donors?

While it’s okay to put some of your web events behind a paywall or gate it to members-only or donors-only, consider making some of it available to all. There’s a reason Costco offers free samples—when you try something, you’re more likely to buy it.

Let your prospects sample your value. Give them something tangible that benefits them beyond the mere stated promise of value in your communications. Web events are a good start, but don’t be afraid to give other gated content away for free.

9. Leaving Reddit out of your strategy.

Compared to the broader social media landscape, Reddit is relatively small and a little slower-paced. But its users are dedicated to quality posts and engaging conversations.

That’s why Reddit posts often show up on the first page of Google search results, especially when the query is something like “what’s the best—” or “is X brand any good—” or “recommendations for—”. In fact, 100 users per second add “Reddit” to their search queries to find those gold-mine threads.

Your organization is uniquely qualified to offer authoritative commentary. So get in there. Post. Listen. Answer questions. Even create your own subreddit if you can.

10. Forgetting to personally celebrate audience milestones.

Retaining members is a big deal. Reaching a fundraising goal takes lots of good will from individual donors. These milestones should be celebrated, and they should be personal.

Personalize your follow-up communications. Celebrate your members and donors by name when possible—in emails, in social media posts, at live events, on handwritten thank-you cards.

Otherwise, it looks like you no longer care about them once you have their money. We know that’s never true. They might not.

11. Not taking a stance on important issues.

This is an especially big snafu for associations and nonprofits, who are often expected to be fierce advocates for their audiences. People look to these organizations as standard bearers, as thought leaders, as subject matter experts.

First, you must know what you stand for. What problems are you trying to solve? Whose lives—your members, clients, donors, etc.—do you seek to improve? If you can answer those questions thoughtfully, then you can take a thoughtful stance.

Don’t avoid it for fear of losing members or donors who disagree. You’ll gain others.

12. Downplaying podcasts.

It’s safe to say that podcasts are, at the very least, having a moment. It’s more likely to assume they’ll stick around as our media consumption is increasingly on-the-go. Why sit and read when you can listen to a podcast on the treadmill?

Roughly 42% of Americans listen to at least one podcast a month.

Find out which podcasts explore your area of expertise. Reach out to them, pitch a cool story or topic, or just make yourself available for expert commentary. If you’re feeling extra ambitious and have someone in your organization who knows how to keep a conversation going, start your own podcast. It’s cheap and relatively easy to run once set up.

Enough with the snafus. Let’s talk solutions.

Want a little more guidance on how, exactly, your organization can avoid these mistakes? Reach out. We have lots of opinions, love talking shop, and can’t wait to help you improve your marketing.