Learn how charities can use automation tools to save time and be more impactful. We walk through some examples of automation and explain the popular tools available.

1. Marketing Automation
Making it work for your charity

2. Who am I?
I’m Matt, founder of Charity Box, a company that
designs and builds websites for charities.
● Inspired by tech for good
● Helps small charities (<£500k/yr income)
● Measure impact of work
www.charitybox.io
matt.saunders@charitybox.io
www.twitter.com/WeAreCharityBox

3. Who are you?
● Your name
● Your organisation
● What you do

4. What will this session cover?
Marketing automation and how you can make it work for your charity.
● What is automation?
● Working examples and what you can take from them
● When to use automation
● Group discussion

5. What is automation?
Any ideas?

6. What is automation?
“The automatic operation
or control of equipment, a
process, or a system”

7. What automation means for marketing comms
● Automation of repetitive tasks to save time
● Develop systems to generate opportunities
● Put processes in place to nurture supporters and clients

8. What does this mean for charities?
● Reduce monotonous tasks for charity staff
● Seek out potential new supporters
● Improve engagement with supporters and impact to service users
In short, be more impactful, more efficiently!

9. What can you do with automation?
● Automatically send emails to
subscribers through Mailchimp + RSS
● Automatically share content on social
media from your WordPress website
● Automatically respond to visitors
using a chatbot

10. Example #1 - youthSpark
● youthSpark helps youths at risk of human trafficking
● They leveraged automation to deter perpetrators using Zapier to link together
Twilio and Airtable, called Demand Tracker
● Twilio provided telephone number and sends SMS messages and Airtable
logged the calls made
youthSpark achieved this with no tech knowledge and little funding!
https://zapier.com/blog/build-database-without-engineers/

11. Example #2 - NSPCC
● The NSPCC runs over 40 events a
year - runs, treks and even
skydiving
● They needed to automate the
fundraiser journey
● The number, timing and content of
emails is tailored depending on
when the participant signed up
Result? Boosted engagement and
saved time!
https://www.adestra.com/resources/automation-boosts-email-engagement-15-saves-hours-nspcc/

12. ● Developed programmatic
email campaign for people
looking to rehome
● Automated alerts when your
perfect pet is available
● Over 3000 people signed up
More sophisticated use of data
leads to more animals rehomed.
Example #3 - RSPCA + IBM

13. Example #4 - Shelter chatbot
● Chatbot called “Ailsa” to help
answer queries around
changing legislation for people
renting in Scotland
● Over 6500 interactions during
first three months
● Helped free up staff to deal
with more complex queries
https://blog.scotland.shelter.org.uk/can-a-chatbot-help-your-charity/

14. How to build a chabot
https://www.ibm.com/watson/h
ow-to-build-a-chatbot-2
Let’s take a look at the basic
premise of building a chatbot

15. Chatbot recap
● Step 1 - specify intent, i.e. customer has questions around bill payment
● Step 2 - consider questions, i.e. “how do I pay my bill?”, “where to pay my bill”
● Step 3 - create response!

16. When not to use automation
● If you have poor, incomplete or small amounts of data
● If automation will frustrate
● If the personal touch is preferable

17. Automation - the tools
Service integrators:
● Zapier
● If This Then That
● Tray.io
Email software:
● Mailchimp
Chatbot software:
● IBM Watson

18. Over to you!
● Do you use marketing automation?
● What areas of your organisation could be automated?
● Questions and comments