Case study
John Nurminen Foundation boosted the effectiveness of their digital marketing
Results in brief
+90 %
growth in organic search traffic
-30 %
lower acquisition cost in keyword advertising
About the organization
The John Nurminen Foundation aims to save the Baltic Sea and its heritage for future generations. Through its projects, the donor-funded foundation works to reduce environmental problems such as eutrophication and habitat loss in the Baltic Sea, and to strengthen people’s relationship with the sea.
The collaboration between the John Nurminen Foundation and Hopkins began in 2020 as a pro bono project and expanded in 2023 to include web analytics, search engine optimization, and marketing automation development. Effective collaborative work is now reflected in more effective digital marketing.
A multi-channel approach to fundraising
One of the key challenges was to improve the efficiency of digital fundraising. In particular the development of keyword advertising proved to be important for the John Nurminen Foundation, to ensure the Foundation is actively present in the competition for donations.
For keyword advertising, the Foundation, like many other not for profit organizations, has a free Google Ad Grants account, where Google donates advertising dollars. Hopkins was tasked to help better leverage this “free” media money.
In fundraising marketing, it is important to think about the customer journey as a whole. In particular, long-term donors require multiple touchpoints and more information about the impact of the foundation’s activities before making a donation decision.
To support this, the John Nurminen Foundation implemented the ActiveCampaign marketing automation system and, in the process, the Foundation’s sales and marketing processes were streamlined as a whole.
More effective ad campaigns lowered the acquisition cost
In keyword advertising, donation-related search terms have been developed, and improved landing pages support advertising by better responding to search demand.
This kind of cooperation is very fruitful: the John Nurminen Foundation gets information about what kind of causes and donations are in demand online, and Hopkins gets high-quality landing pages for advertising that help campaigns work better.
When advertising, the client’s understanding of the basic principles of keyword advertising has also increased – joint discussions and knowledge sharing help them to understand what terms the foundation should and should not use to advertise.
The most important metric is the cost of acquisition of a donation, which has been reduced at best by 30% in keyword advertising through jointly refined campaigns.
“Working with the client is really nice and rewarding – they can challenge us and ask good questions, and we’re able to tell them what to do and what not to do in digital campaigning. It’s also great to be able to help save the Baltic Sea through your own work!”
Jenni Uimonen
Consultant
Hopkins
Website redesign increased organic search traffic by more than 90%
The SEO collaboration began during the planning of the site redesign. Hopkins acted as the SEO partner for the John Nurminen Foundation website redesign, acting as a third party between the client and the website developer, sparring with both over the course of the project.
The SEO partnership was particularly important when the Foundation combined the johnnurmisensaatio.fi and puhdasmeri.fi domains. The “Save a piece of the Baltic Sea” donation path on Puhdasmeri.fi was integrated into the new John Nurminen Foundation website, and Hopkins’ team ensured the technical SEO and smoothness of the donation path together with the Foundation’s website partner Evermade.
Investing in search engine optimization brought tangible benefits to the Foundation: 14 months after the redesign, organic search traffic has increased by more than 90%.
“With Hopkins, we have a partner who sees us and our goals as a whole, and can optimize our digital marketing efforts on many levels towards the common goal.”
Taru Suoranta
Marketing and Fundraising Manager
John Nurminen Foundation
Making marketing efforts visible through website tracking and reporting
The Foundation’s website analytics were also renewed with the website redesign. With Google Analytics 4 and the implementation of cross-domain tracking, the Foundation is now able to more accurately track searches, contacts and donations made on the website, as well as follow users moving between sites.
Reporting is supported by a real-time dashboard that brings together the information the marketing team needs from different systems. The dashboard is regularly developed on the basis of shared ideas, including a content matrix to help categorize content on the website.
As a result of the development projects, the experts at Hopkins and the John Nurminen Foundation have formed a joint team that shares knowledge and truly collaborates.
“I am very happy that we have been a trusted partner of the John Nurminen Foundation for several years now, and that they can turn to us for all their digital marketing needs.”
Heini Thoden
Account Manager
Hopkins
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