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1
New Strategies for Marketing the
Lupus Foundation of America,
Philadelphia Tri-State Chapter’s
26th Annual Lupus Loop
Exploring New Channels:
CASE STUDY
2
OverviewThe Lupus Foundation of America, Philadelphia Tri-State Chapter collaborated
with the DonorDrive Marketing Services team to create and implement a diverse,
multi-channel strategy to boost the recruitment and revenue numbers for their
26th annual Lupus Loop event in Philadelphia.
This new strategy focused on four main goals:
• To increase the number of returning participants from their 2016 event
• To expand their constituent base and recruit new participants and donors
• To improve the fundraising results of their already registered participants
• To increase awareness about lupus and raise support for Philadelphia
Tri-State Chapter’s programs and initiatives
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The Lupus Foundation of America is dedicated to “improving the quality of life for all
people affected by lupus through programs of research, education, and advocacy.” They
are the only national organization focused on “solving the mystery of lupus” and providing
care and support to those who suffer from its brutal impact. The Philadelphia Tri-State
Chapter of the organization became a DonorDrive client in early 2012, and has used the
DonorDrive platform to host its annual Lupus Loop 5K Run & 2.5 Mile Walk to End Lupus
Now for the past six years.
Their largest yearly event, the Lupus Loop accounts for 70% of the Philadelphia Tri-State
Chapter’s annual revenue, which goes to fund research, education, advocacy, and patient
& community services around the Philadelphia Tri-State area. 90% of the funds raised
for the event stay local to help the 48,000 people living with lupus in the area, while the
remaining 10% go to support the Lupus Foundation of America’s National Research
Program. The Philadelphia Tri-State Chapter also hosts their annual Walk to End Lupus
Now in the spring, as well as a handful of ticketed events throughout the year.
Background
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- Annette MyarickPhiladelphia Tri-State Chapter
CEO
“Our walks are a great source of
empowerment for our community living with
lupus or affected by lupus. In many ways it's
the first point of entry in how they connect
with our organization, take action, and do
something positive. It's a critically important
event for the work that we do.”
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Over the past few years, the Philadelphia Tri-State Chapter has experienced stagnation
with the Lupus Loop, both in overall event revenue and in the number of registrations.
They, like so many other nonprofit chapters, have a small staff that’s responsible for
executing a large and varied number of tasks. Resources, both labor and financial, for
exploring new marketing opportunities are slim. Historically, marketing for the Lupus
Loop was executed through email campaigns, direct mail, and with an assortment of
social media posts. By partnering with DonorDrive Marketing Services, the Philadelphia
Tri-State Chapter team was able to expand their marketing expertise while testing out
new strategies.
The 26th Annual Lupus Loop was scheduled for Sunday, October 29th in Philadelphia.
While registrations for the event opened in early May of 2017, the DonorDrive Marketing
Services team didn’t become involved until early August. Annette reached out to the
team after attending a DonorDrive client webinar focused on recruiting and retaining
participants for your events. According to Annette, the webinar made her question that
“there are tools within DonorDrive that we’re probably not using to capacity and what are
we leaving on the table as a result of that?
At that time, the Lupus Loop had only a 2% retention rate from their 2016 event.
Problem
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expand your marketing
expertise
test out new
strategies
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An initial discovery period brought the two teams together to discuss the Philadelphia
Tri-State Chapter’s goals, the history of the event, and potential target audiences. With
this information in mind, the DonorDrive team proposed a marketing strategy that was
segmented into two major phases.
Phase one, which would run through August and September, would focus on increasing
event registrations, both of returning and new participants.
The second phase, which would start at the beginning of October, would center on
growing the event’s overall revenue both by coaching participants to become better
fundraisers, and by connecting with potential new donors.
These phases would be implemented across three main communication channels: social
media, paid advertisements on Google, and through native DonorDrive platform tools.
Strategy
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Defining the Audience
Once the proposal was approved, the first step focused on defining the target audiences.
Defining a specific audience is crucial to a successful marketing strategy - otherwise you
risk spending your marketing budget on people who are very unlikely to become involved.
By targeting a specific group of people who are somehow connected to your cause or
event, you greatly increase the effectiveness of your ads.
DonorDrive outlined three audiences for the Lupus Loop - lapsed participants, existing
participants, and potential new participants and donors.
The lapsed participants, anyone who had registered for the Lupus Loop
in the past three years, were targeted in both phase one and phase two
- in phase one as potential registrants, and in phase two as potential
donors.
The existing participants were targeted solely in phase two, with
messaging focused on improving their personal and team fundraising
efforts.
The third group, potential new participants and donors were targeted
in both phases. To find these new potential fundraisers and donors,
DonorDrive’s Director of Marketing Services, Anne Baum, utilized multiple
tools including Facebook and Google’s lookalike audiences, targeted
search ads filtered by location and demographics, and targeted search
ads based on keywords, such as “lupus” or “information on lupus”.
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solving themystery of lupus
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Messaging
With the target audiences defined, the DonorDrive team moved on to crafting the
messages that would be shared in the ads, social media posts, and email communications.
These messages were divided into four main themes:
Knowledge about what lupus is and its impact, conveyed
mainly through statistics
These messages were deployed via Google Display Ads, Facebook Ads,
and Instagram posts, targeting all three defined audiences.
Information about the programs and initiatives funded by
revenue from the Lupus Loop
Again, these were shown via Google Display Ads, Facebook Ads, and
Instagram posts, targeting all three defined audiences.
Event Updates
Featuring information such as the total amount raised for the event, the
number of participants, and new event features such as achievement
badges and incentives, these ads were largely siloed to Facebook and
Instagram posts as well as through DonorDrive’s Scheduled Messages.
Fundraising tips and past fundraiser success stories
Shown to existing event participants to improve and motivate their own
fundraising efforts, shared on Lupus Facebook and through DonorDrive’s
Scheduled Messages.
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To create the individual messages for these four different tracks, the Philadelphia Tri-State
Chapter provided DonorDrive with detailed information about their various programs
and treatments and completed a Creative Brief so that DonorDrive could become familiar
with the language and tone affiliated with their brand. Creating continuity between your
marketing messages and your overall brand voice is crucial to not confuse your users.
“Working with the Philadelphia Tri-State Chapter was the
perfect example of a successful relationship. They are
an amazing team and we felt lucky that we were able to
complement their team by adding resources and expertise
to strengthen their event marketing.”
- Anne BaumDonorDrive Marketing Services Director
In addition, the DonorDrive team conducted supplementary research, searching
accredited medical websites for the most up-to-date statistics about lupus and its effects,
as well as digging through social media to identify the most popular hashtags and
accounts associated with lupus and the Lupus Loop.
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- Annette MyarickPhiladelphia Tri-State Chapter
CEO
“Really being able to talk to
someone with marketing expertise
and fill in the gaps that we have, I
thought it was just a tremendous
experience.”
14
Design
With a plan now in place, DonorDrive began taking steps to put their strategy into motion.
Roping in their Design Services team, DonorDrive created an assortment of design assets
to display on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google, all using the newly created
messaging alongside striking black and white imagery.
To ensure the visual elements properly represented lupus and the groups most affected,
DonorDrive used imagery that predominantly featured women and people of color. The
Philadelphia Tri-State Chapter also shared past event photos with the DonorDrive team,
which were then recycled into weekly “#throwbackthursday” postings.
Fundraisers loved seeing themselves featured on Lupus’s Instagram, and these #tbt posts
often drew the most likes and comments. Annette shared that many other members in
their community reached out asking if they too could share their story after seeing the
new story-based posts.
15
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ResultsCreated a Positive Return
The marketing tactics implemented by DonorDrive drove registrations and donations.
• Every $1 spent on marketing returned $2.50 in revenue for the Lupus Loop.
Increase in Average Raised Per Participant
By communicating with event participants after they registered with fundraising and
team focused messaging, we saw an increase in the average amount raised per
participant and team:
• The average participant raised $70.20, up from the average $68.79 raised in 2016
• The average team raised $646.32, up from the average $618.38 raised in 2016
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- Annette MyarickPhiladelphia Tri-State Chapter
CEO
“I was really pleased with not
only the quality of what you put
together on our behalf, but you
totally clicked right in with our
brand, our tone, our voice.”
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Retained and Recruited Participants
To increase retention rates and attract new participants we delivered unique
messaging to lapsed and potential participants using custom audiences in Facebook:
• At the beginning of the project, the percentage of returning participants
from the 2016 event to 2017 was at 2%. By event day, that percentage had
increased to 28%.
• 56% of the participants obtained from the new marketing efforts were new
to the Lupus Loop.
Drove Donations
DonorDrive applied custom audiences to deliver donation specific messaging to past
donors, encouraging them to support the Lupus Loop:
• The paid Facebook and Google advertisements generated donations that
averaged $46 each.
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Increased Event and Chapter Awareness
Planning out a communication strategy with unique messaging by audience and
purpose ensured the posts and ads were right for the Lupus Loop audience.
• Overall the Facebook advertisements were shown to 60,564 users, gener-
ated 2,268 post reactions, were shared 505 times, and resulted in 143 page
likes.
• Philadelphia Tri-State Chapter’s Instagram followers increased from 500 to
569, a growth of 14%, and their Facebook followers increased from 4,669 to
4,932.
While the overall event revenue and registrations for the 26th Lupus Loop did not
increase from 2016, both metrics rose steadily after the implementation of the new
marketing initiative. The new strategic approach to their event and organization marketing
helped the event grow and improve in multiple measurable ways and set them up for
even more growth moving forward.
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- Annette MyarickPhiladelphia Tri-State Chapter
CEO
“I think that’s the real success, the
stepping stones that were put into place
to help us next year and really across all
our walk series. It pulled us to a higher
level in terms of the assets that were
created, the messaging - really getting
the buzz and attention. Our national
office even called me and said ‘oh this
is really great!’ ”
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Are you looking for more ways to utilize your
digital channels for your Peer-to-Peer
fundraising events? let us helpNonprofit organizations come to us when they have limited marketing resources
in-house. We help them prioritize and manage online marketing efforts to drive
retention and participation. The result? Teams are able to focus on running
successful events while we run the marketing.
23
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