10 Ways to Supercharge your Online Fundraising
description
Transcript of 10 Ways to Supercharge your Online Fundraising
SUPERCHARGE10Ways to
Your Online Fundraising Campaigns
Presented by:Ghazal Vaghedi – Engaging Networks
Elise Ledsinger – Humane Society InternationalEric Rardin – Care2
@care2team | #c2webinar
about
Citizens use Care2 for:
Starting or signing petitions
Volunteering
Donating $
Spreading news
Commenting on blogs
Starting group (organizing)
Joining nonprofits
Nonprofits use Care2 for:
Recruiting Donors & Supporters
Traffic/Branding/Awareness
Advocacy
Building Facebook fan base
about our speakers
Elise Ledsinger, Manager of Online FundraisingHumane Society International
Ghazal Vaghedi, Head of Market Development (N. America)Engaging Networks
Eric Rardin, Senior Director of Nonprofit ServicesCare2
-overseas business development and overall account mgmt-past work with Hayes & Associates (event fundraising) and Refugees International (fundraising, advocacy, events)
-manages online, new media fundraising, and communications-previously an Online Producer for HSI, creating online content (emails, donation forms, action alerts)
-advises on email acquisition and multichannel conversion-past work on integrated advocacy campaigns for oceans groups and other environmental nonprofits
Lead with a thoughtful strategy, and set goals to measure success
Before the tools, comes strategyDetermine your fundraising goals
Put your content (e.g. story) at the heart of your strategy
Brand your campaign
Determine your marketing plan
Determine your audience segments
Make sure your strategy includes other channels
1 Begin with the end in mind:
HSI goal for seal campaign on Care2: acquire new names and convert them into donors. On Care2, we did a petition, Next Action Page and a blog post. Our approach was based off what performed well for us in 2011.
Target countries: Canada (70%), EU (15%), UK (15%)
Rate per name: $1.50 USD
Total Care2 acquisition budget: $6,000 USD for 3,750 names
Also spent $375 for 3,750 impressions on Next Action Page (NAP)
4,666 names delivered
Average cost per conversion = $1.29
We had a campaign goal of raising $400k for HSUS + HSI (based off of previous years’ earnings)
1 Begin with the end in mind:
Lead with a thoughtful strategy, and set goals to measure success
Don’t take new supporters for granted, engage and cultivate with a welcome series
Use e-mail triggers to automate an engagement process over a certain span of time – beyond just an automated thank you
Makes sense for new donors / new sign ups
Educate supporters on your mission
Provide options for engagement
Segment your welcome series based on channel
Allows you to build your donor community by adopting “customer service” manners
2 Perfect your welcome series
Plan your online marketing strategy early! We started planning 4 months ahead of the campaign start
Send out welcome series in a timely fashion once they’ve taken action on Care2
We did a 3-part series: welcome/survey, appeal, and thank you
Sometimes we’ll do a welcome email, survey, appeal, and thank you (it all depends on the timing of how long the campaign is running and when we receive the names from Care2
Engage your audienceWe combined welcome email with a survey
Follow up with a donation ask and a thank you emailAlways make sure to thank your donors and action takers!
2 Perfect your welcome series
Who is your audience?
Consider steering away from generic messaging for everyone in your database
Use profiles to automate segmentation based on transactional, historical, or even form data
Donor levels should match specific asks--a historically high level donor should never get an ask that is below their previous giving level
Remember:
Profiling is key to targeting and hence the *channel*: creating supporter profiles will help you target different audiences in different channels more effectively. For example, your fundraising email list versus your Facebook page versus your direct mail—three different channels translates to three different communication tactics.
3 Segment your list(s)
We generally segment our list whether or not someone has taken action, donated, or opened an email
For seals, we segmented by monthly donors, 2012 donors, 2011 donors, non donors, and action takers – by using Profiles in EN
We also segment our lists by country so the constituent will see donation forms/content specific to their currency and country director
HSI Canada emails to Canadians, HSI UK emails to UK residents, HSI Global emails to all other international folks
Be mindful of the emails your new group receives – we keep them separate from the rest of our list so they don’t get overwhelmed with other emails from our organization
Suppress this group from all other email communications until the entire welcome series is complete
3 Segment your list(s)
Conditional content is tied to profiles / segments
Allows you to send one email to all your profiles, but will swap in conditional content based on supporter profile
Allows for more personalization based on the supporter’s historical interactions with you
Leads to higher conversion and engagement
Saves you time!
4 Use conditional content
Personalize emails as much as possibleFirst name (custom salutation), use dynamic campaign links so the donation form/action alert auto-populates with constituent’s information
For HSI -- Canadians get email with HSI Canada logo, signature by HSI Canada director, donation links to Canadian currency
Same for UK and global
4 Use conditional content
Convert site traffic
Distribute content on social networks (widgets!)
Make it easy for others to distribute your content (user friendly share tools)
Permission based name buy
Distribute through partner organizations and blogs
5 Grow your list
Ask people to share your content on social media
5 Grow your list
Hijack your homepage with a windowshade or overlay to get new people to sign up or donate
Use fun, interactive landing pages with imagery
Use widget to create Facebook tabs
Use share links on all donation forms, action alerts and emails
Use multi-channel marketing approach (we grew list by 1,000 using Google/FB ads)
Define a theme
Branding helps create broader awareness
Brand your campaign across channels consistently Email
Landing page
Social networks (brand your widget)
Create mobile templates consistent with the rest of campaign
Use display widgets as part of your branding to provide social proof of your campaign
6 Unify your branding across channels
We used the same masthead and image across all channels for this year’s seal campaign
Emails, donation forms, and action alerts all had the same masthead image with the [Protect Seals] campaign logo
We updated our cover photo on Facebook with the same seal image as well
6 Unify your branding across channels
Matching gift
Limit campaign time
Different donation levels tied to different benefits
Certain donation amounts get special access to senior staff
With $1000 donation you will become part of the President’s circle
7 Consider an incentive
We engaged people by telling them we would provide them with breaking news, ‘live from the ice’ tweets, an insider’s look into meetings and the opportunity to make a change, and more if they took action or donated
Monthly donors receive a special monthly newsletter thanking them for their ongoing support
7 Consider an incentive
We also explained what their gift could be used for on donation forms
Easiest to do when donation pages are hosted on the same platform as your e-mail service
Pre-populated landing pages lead to increased rates of conversion
If using dynamic content in the email why not carry it through to the landing page for maximum personalization
Allows you to track from the time email was opened to form completion
Create mobile versions of your email and landing pages
8 Integrate your email and fundraisinglanding pages
We used EN to host all assets – donation, email and advocacy – a fully-integrated campaign
We created a ‘splaction’ landing page, where people could take action, donate, get news and more
8 Integrate your email and fundraisinglanding pages
We created a windowshade/overlay on the website to make donating easy
We also created an infographic, encouraging people to learn more, share on social media, and donate!
The ‘splaction’, infograph, donation forms and action alerts all linked to each other once someone took action.
Test your supporters profiles
Test landing pages
Test subject lines
Test e-mail content
Test your ASK
A/B test
9 TEST EVERYTHING!
We test everything and use findings to improve campaign year to year
We use Care2 often to acquire new names, and have found this series works the best for HSI
An automated welcome email, survey email, appeal (1x if they haven’t donated, monthly ask if they have given a 1x gift), and follow up with a thank you. Then we integrate them into our list so they receive our other communications
9 TEST EVERYTHING!
Over the years, we’ve found incorporating a video on a donation form has the highest conversion rate
Big, red submit button also has highest action rate
Use catchy subject lines
Social media experts say:
"you must measure, listen, and adapt"
Create tracking links for all your pages
Review your reports for email appeals to measure:
Performance (click throughs, what worked in your email?)
Conversions for donation landing pages
Measuring what works will tell you what you will need to adapt
Always listen to what works for you and what works against you
Always clean up your list based on bounces
10 Evaluate and optimize
Use unique tracking/source codes on all links, unique to each email, so that you can get more detailed reports
Pull email, advocacy and donation reports to see which emails performed the best and keep track of how you can optimize for your next campaign
EN is great because when you use dynamic campaign links, you can easily see which links were clicked the most
Our welcome/survey email had a 23% open rate, 22% click thru rate
Monthly ask had a 20% open rate, 2% click thru rate
10 Evaluate and optimize
2012 full campaign report and take-aways for 2013:
2012 HSI Care2 Welcome Series Averages:
22% open rate
6.5% click thru rate
2.5% action rate
35 monthly donors
$810 monthly, $9,720 annually
thank you! questions? contact us!
Ghazal [email protected]@engagingnetwork
Elise [email protected]@humanesociety
Eric [email protected]@care2team