AmyMcGeever-Thingsyoullneedforsuccess

Things you’ll need for success… Amy McGeever [email_address] @amyatmesh Watch the YouTube video of this presentation

#1 …A great idea
compelling
simple, timely
aligned w brand

Don’t get distracted by technology
Above all else, consider your fundraising proposition – whether it be an event, a product or a request for a cash/regular gift
- Is it compelling?
- Easy to ‘get’ and easy to do?
- Is it relevant to your charity’s brand?
Think about how digital can be used to enhance your overall campaign strategy for fundraising, marketing, engagement
Now look to the mechanics of the digital tools and marketing techniques that can support your idea and promotional strategy

An example of a great idea: NSPCC’s Letter from Santa campaign*
The product
Personalised letters from Santa
Suggested donation £5/letter
Order online or by post, tel
Target audience
Parents & grandparents (72% of senders in 2008)
Majority of senders are female
Campaign period
11 weeks (1 Oct – 16 Dec)
Watch the television advert on YouTube *NOTE: Campaign details shared here are with the express permission of the NSPCC

Additional background
Letter from Santa has run for several years and was originally a ChildLine fundraiser (ChildLine is now part of the NSPCC)
In the past few years there has been tremendous growth in online orders [see graph on next slide]
The proportion of orders placed online has grown massively, from one-third to over half
This is excellent as online marketing is highly trackable and transaction costs are very low
The programme overall is also experiencing great growth
In the past year alone it’s grown by nearly 30% in terms of income
but online income has seen the by far the biggest growth with a 55% increase
My involvement: I worked at the NSPCC over a 2-year period and was involved with the 2007 campaign and ran the 2008 online campaign

Growth in online orders, 2007-2009
Proportion
of all letter orders
(33%)
(44%)
(53%)

#2 …All the help you
can get!
Don’t go it alone
Invest in campaigns that will be marketed across your org & via all media

All the help you can get…
In the case of the Letter from Santa campaign, it was run by the Events team and supported by
Efundraising (email, online advertising)
Direct Marketing (post and, in 2009, TV)
Corporate (promotion by large & small corp supporters)
Local Fundraising groups across the UK (incl brochures)
But what if I’m a smaller charity with fewer resources?
Time your campaign to coincide w your major communication/awareness campaigns in order to maximise exposure
Consider running fewer campaigns per year in order to invest more in each

#3 …A targeted online
marketing campaign
solid creative, placement
proper tracking
adjust plan as needed
Photo credit: Hitchster

Targeted promotions
Know your audience
Make sure you are able to review online marketing performance whilst your campaign is in progress
Be prepared to make changes to your campaign on the fly

Letter from Santa digital marketing results 2009
Warm emails
highest conversion rate
Affiliates
highest generator of orders & 2nd biggest traffic driver
campaign began early (Sept)
set up a tiered commission structure as extra incentive
Pay per click (PPC)
added extra budget as paid account worked much better than Google Grant
had campaigns live on Google, Yahoo and Bing
combined efforts in PPC and SEO
Banners
lowest conversion rate

Letter from Santa banner creative 2009 GM.TV Lifestyle Advertorial – value placement AOL Homepage rotator – value ad NOTE: Compared w other NSPCC banner adverts, the LFS campaign has a much lower average gift. However the volume is very high & it is a good lead generator for regular donors.

Letter from Santa digital marketing results 2008
Provided learnings for 2009
2007 campaign had not been tracked properly
Warm emails
not included here
Banners & paid email test
represented a larger piece of the pie (but much smaller pie!)
Affiliates
sales not as strong
NOTE: The 2008 campaign was tracked differently than the 2009 campaign so it’s a bit ‘apples and oranges’ in terms of benchmarking

# 4 …Ad spend
pool your marketing budgets to boost the digital spend
Letter from Santa: 2009 spend more than 2x that of 2008
Photo credit: Alan Cleaver

Investing in your digital campaign
In the case of the Letter from Santa campaign
Learning from 2008 digital campaign enabled teams to allocate more of their marketing budget to digital
The Events and Efundraising teams pooled resources
Also the DM team invested in TV advertising, which will no doubt have given an additional boost to the online numbers
That’s nice, Amy, but my charity has little or no money to spend. What do I do?
Exploit free advertising opportunities such as a Google Grant or donated media from your corporate supporters
Invest time in grassroots, word of mouth promotions using social media platforms (facebook, twitter)

# 5 …A great team
it’s all about the people
specialist staff & agencies are key to managing online marketing techniques: banner, affiliate, ppc, email

Staffing/resourcing your digital campaign
Specialist staff are essential for
Developing good marketing briefs
Working with agencies, negotiating deals
Monitoring campaigns as they go
Agencies
Some agencies offer a number of services but often they can only do a couple things well. It pays to have a group of specialist agencies that you can work with so you don’t short-change yourself with any of the different online marketing techniques
But what if my digital team is a guy named Steve?
Consider putting together a volunteer board made up of digital experts who can offer pro bono services
Ask to be ‘adopted’ by a digital agency looking to add a charity to its client roster

Questions? Get in touch Amy McGeever [email_address] @amyatmesh Watch the YouTube video of this presentation

AmyMcGeever-Thingsyoullneedforsuccess

by Amy McGeever on Mar 31, 2010

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

1 Embed 73

Statistics

AmyMcGeever-Thingsyoullneedforsuccess — Presentation Transcript