Why Now is the Best Time to Reach Older Donors on Facebook
2 min to read ✭ Learn just how much of your older donor base is using Facebook and the best ways to reach them.
One of the biggest challenges for nonprofits recently has been, “reaching the older donor base through social.” The idea that social media is only for young people makes cosmetic sense. It seems like Facebook and Instagram are only used by teenagers sharing selfies and pictures of their food…but that is not the case.
Who is Using Social?
The data paints a different picture. It is 2019 and Facebook has over 1.6 billion daily active users, Instagram has over 500 million daily active users, and upwards of 80% of the U.S. internet logs on to Facebook alone. And your donors are on there too. Over 72% of online users who make more than $75,000 a year are on Facebook, while over 62% of online seniors over the age of 65, and 72% of people online between the ages of 50 and 64 use the platform. The older donor base is on Facebook, and they’re on it a lot— scrolling a little slower than the other generations perhaps—but they are there and not running ads towards them is missing a massive opportunity for growing your nonprofit.
How To Reach Them
Facebook is becoming a bit pay-to-play. However, if you want to keep growing your nonprofit and get more donations to help you achieve your mission, it is still the best place to do that. The attention on Facebook is incredibly underpriced and with the hyper-targeting that we can do nowadays, you can really laser focus your messaging towards that older demographic of donors.
Once you’ve decided to market to that older demographic through Facebook, you have to focus on staying top-of-mind with frequent ads and quality creative. It takes five to seven touchpoints prior to someone giving at times, so you have to focus on maintaining the frequency of those ads, and nailing your creative to make sure that they are compelling to your target demographic. This creative, of course, is easier to nail when you’re hyper-targeting to certain groups on Facebook that you know may be likely to donate to your organization.
Getting Results
Once you’ve nailed the creative and frequency of your ads, getting visual, compelling stories in front of your slower-scrolling socially conscious audience, you will see results. At Community Boost, we’re seeing 3-10x return on ad spend when we’re executing these Facebook campaigns to older demographics. That means valuable and scalable growth on the metrics your organization cares about— volunteers, donations, shares, even new hires— so you can achieve your nonprofit’s mission as efficiently and successfully as possible.
