Things you’ll need for success…By Amy McGeever

© 2010 mesh strategies

www.meshstrategies.net

Things you’ll need for success…

Amy [email protected]

@amyatmesh



#1 …A great idea

compelling simple, timely aligned w brand



Don’t get distracted by technology

1. 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?

2. Think about how digital can be used to enhance your overall campaign strategy for fundraising, marketing, engagement

3. 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



0100020003000400050006000700080009000

Total 2007

Total 2008

Total 2009

Growth in online orders, 2007-2009

Proportionof 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 campaignsolid creative, placementproper trackingadjust 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

LFS Orders (by appeal code string)

22%

18%

9%

28%

23%

0%

PCC

Email

Banners

Affilates

Various links/other

Facebook

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.



LFS2008 Orders by Marketing Source

6%

8%

Afilliates22%

Google PPC21%

Facebook banners15%

Google UD10%

3%

6%

MyChild email8%

MumsNet banners1%

Google PPC

Google USER-DEF'D

Afilliates - PAID

Facebook - PAID

Facebook - NSPCC

Facebook - USER-DEF'D

MyChild email - PAID

MumsNet - PAID

Other websites

Misc

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 spendpool 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 peoplespecialist 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



Thank you

Amy [email protected]

@amyatmesh

Technology

Things you’ll need for success…By Amy McGeever