YMCA Digital Media & Search
Shifting to an online approach results in more awareness and program participation
About The Organization
The YMCA of Greensboro is a warm, friendly environment where people of all ages, races, faiths, beliefs, and physical and financial abilities participate in worthwhile programs and meaningful experiences that make a positive difference in their lives. The goal of the YMCA of Greensboro is to turn no one away because of inability to pay and to provide scholarships on a sliding scale to keep their membership and program fees affordable for those who desire to become a member of the YMCA family.
The Challenge
The Greensboro Y has a ton of programming and membership initiatives throughout the year, both for the region as well as individual locations. Promoting everything via traditional means such as direct mail has proven to be a big challenge and can cost a lot more than digital promotion. With much of the world shifting to online promotion, the YMCA knew it needed to expand into digital advertising.
The Solution
In collaboration with the Y’s marketing team, Fungi strategized on an annual plan to increase membership and program awareness throughout greater Greensboro. Our approach started with social media promotion, designing animated ads (sample below), and honing in on users in the local geography. More recently, the YMCA enrolled in the Google Grants program, which allows non-profits to advertise in Google for their target terms at no charge. Fungi worked with the Y team to get them approved for the program and manages their campaigns on a monthly basis to make sure they keep in compliance while reaching more local searchers.
The Results
Since launching the Facebook Ad campaigns, the Greensboro YMCA has reached over 136,000 people in the greater Greensboro region resulting in over 10,000 visits to their website (from Facebook and Instagram) and over 3,500 goal completions (membership applications and program participation). While Google Grants only recently kicked off, the subsequent traffic and visibility has already started generating memberships, participation in programs as well as group exercise classes.
Elizabeth Minehart
Director Of Annual Campaigns and Communications
“Fungi Marketing has been great to work with. They have been flexible to what we needed and our limited non-profit budget. They have provided great feedback and analytics on our Facebook Ads. Always on top of it and suggesting ways our ads can perform best. We have been so pleased with the results and with the ability to know we are getting a great product but don’t have to check in on it everyday. Plus they have been great working with our website vendor to get our google analytics worked out when we didn’t understand how to do that! The Fungi Team has been a dream to work with!”