Q: Our website has two target audiences, donors and researchers. How can we appeal to two extremely diverse audiences with the same website?
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A: We recommend that you give people opportunities to self identify when they reach your nonprofit home page. This might mean you have prominent callouts that read "I am a donor" or "I am a researcher".
You don’t need to have two separate websites for different audiences, you can still have just one website but you should add specific landing pages where you welcome those audiences, and direct them to the content and resources that you think are most relevant for them.
For each distinct audience type, add a tailored landing page to introduce, welcome those people, and guide them to the things that they are likely to need. Then add those choices to your homepage to help them find those pages. If you can write your from the "I" perspective, such as "I am a researcher", people are more likely to latch onto it.
Once they click on their choice, they are directed to a more targeted landing page with a personalized introduction, links to the features they find most important and excerpts or links to the content that is most relevant to them.
How should you figure out what parts of your website are most useful to which audience? The best way to do this is to involve them in that conversation. Reach out to some of your donors, beneficiaries, researchers or volunteers and ask: "What is it that you want from our website? What do you use our website for now? What would you like to use our website for that you can’t currently? What do you know is there but you have a hard time finding?" Engaging real members of your audience in a conversation not only helps you get a better end product, but it helps them feel more ownership of it as well.
Adapted from the webinar presentation “Tips for Taking Your Website from Blah "Before" to Amazing "After" with Margaux O’Malley.
