Virtual events have grown in popularity in recent years, especially in the nonprofit sector. Hosting online fundraisers or appreciation events allows supporters to engage with your organization from anywhere in the world, expanding your reach and making attendance convenient. Plus, virtual events tend to be more cost effective than their in-person counterparts.

However, one downside to virtual events is that, by not gathering supporters in one physical location, you lose the ability to infuse your venue with your nonprofit’s brand. Especially for participants engaging with your organization for the first time, visible branding encourages them to learn more about your mission and stay involved after the event.

Fortunately, there are other ways to increase brand awareness among virtual event participants. In this guide, we’ll cover three top tips for doing just that:

1. Standardize Your Brand Guidelines
2. Create Branded Marketing Materials for Multiple Channels
3. Brand Your Virtual Event Software

As you implement these tips, keep in mind why brand awareness is important in the first place. Loop’s nonprofit branding guide explains that your brand is “the way your organization communicates who you are and the heart of your work.” Incorporating your branding into virtual events will help participants recognize, remember, and trust your nonprofit so they’re even more inspired to support your mission.

1. Standardize Your Brand Guidelines

Brand awareness begins with brand consistency. Your supporters will only recognize your brand if it looks the same across all of your communications and platforms.

Before creating a branding strategy for your virtual event, ensure your nonprofit has standardized usage guidelines in place for the following brand elements:

• Logo. Your organization’s logo is the visual representation of its mission and values, so it should always be front and center. Consider creating a few different versions of your logo so it aligns with any platform, but make sure the designs still look similar enough to be recognizable. For instance, if your logo includes your nonprofit’s name and a unique symbol, you could use that symbol without your name in small spaces like your social media profile picture.
• Color scheme. Specify not only which colors are part of your nonprofit’s brand palette, but also the unique hex codes associated with each shade. For example, “dark green” could be #024F14 or #22591E. That way, you can input the codes into any graphic design tool and get the exact same colors every time.
• Fonts. Similarly to your color scheme, standardize both your organization’s primary brand font and the sizes and weights of typefaces used in different contexts. If your brand font is Poppins, you might specify that body text should be Poppins Normal 12 point and headers should be Poppins Bold 18 point.
• Messaging. While branding is mostly associated with visuals, it also includes the way your organization tells its story. Set guidelines for the tone of voice, word choice, and mechanics to make your written content appear uniform and effectively communicate your nonprofit’s identity.

It’s best practice to compile all of these standards into a single document known as a brand guide. That way, anyone inside or outside your organization who works on your event planning and marketing has a reference for how to properly apply your branding.

2. Create Branded Marketing Materials for Multiple Channels

Many of your efforts to leverage your virtual event to spread brand awareness will happen before the event actually starts. It’s no secret that creating content for multiple marketing channels opens more touchpoints for supporters to find out about your event and sign up. But if every touchpoint features consistent visuals and messaging, your audience will also be sure to recognize your brand!

Refer to your brand guide as you market your virtual event via the following channels:

• Your nonprofit’s website. Create a dedicated landing page where supporters can find all of the important details about your event. Prominently feature your brand fonts and color scheme on this page and your online registration form.
• Email marketing. Design a branded letterhead that you can incorporate into all of the email blasts you send about your virtual event, and review the copy before sending each email to ensure it aligns with your messaging guidelines.
• Social media. Each social media platform has different conventions that require you to focus on different aspects of your brand as you post. For example, color will be most relevant when designing graphics for Instagram, while messaging is more important on text-based platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Videos. Add an animated graphic of your logo to promotional videos for your event. For long-form videos on YouTube or Vimeo, place your logo at the beginning to make sure audiences see it even if they don’t watch the whole video. With short-form videos like TikToks or Instagram Reels that supporters are more likely to watch all the way through, it’s better to put the logo at the end so it serves as a call to action.

If you run a user-generated marketing campaign for your virtual event on any of the social media platforms your nonprofit uses, make sure everyone who creates a post or video tags your organization. They probably won’t have access to all of your brand assets, but if their posts encourage their followers to view your profile, new potential supporters will be more likely to see your branding.

3. Brand Your Virtual Event Software

Most virtual events require your nonprofit to leverage specialized software. Not only do these solutions improve participants’ overall experience, but they also provide a way to feature your organization’s branding during the event.

Here are some ways to brand your virtual event platforms for different types of events:

• Silent auctions: Add your logo to your digital bid sheets or item catalog, depending on how your mobile bidding software is set up.
• Galas: Incorporate your color scheme into your livestream background, and create custom banner overlays featuring your logo and brand fonts to orient supporters throughout the event.
• Events with a peer-to-peer component: According to Getting Attention, branding your online donation tools reinforces donors’ trust in your organization, which inspires them to give. This is especially true for individual peer-to-peer fundraising pages since many donors may not have engaged with your nonprofit before and want to be confident that they’re giving to your mission before they pledge their support.

Before investing in any type of virtual event software, make sure you can customize it with your nonprofit’s branding. Book a demo of each platform you’re considering to see exactly what brand elements it allows you to customize and how user-friendly the process is so you can make an informed decision.

Although leveraging your nonprofit’s virtual events to spread brand awareness is less straightforward than it is with in-person events, it’s still very feasible. Use the tips above to get started, and don’t hesitate to reach out to nonprofit branding and design experts if you need help or have any questions along the way!