Showing posts with label engagement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label engagement. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Amnesty - Gaming and donating
There's been a lot of talk, here at the Greenpeace Digital Mobilisation Skillshare in Arnhem about how games can add to Greenpeace's campaigning and fundraising objectives.
This example from Amnesty International is awesome.
UPDATE: 04 March 2012 ... Seems all may not be what is seems, still think it's a great idea though!
Monday, 10 October 2011
Mobile for individual giving
The lovely people behind Spring asked me to write a guest post for their new blog. It was published on their site on 08 October 2011. It's very quickly becoming a very useful resource, I'd recommend you check out their website.
Every time I leave the house for work I check for three things, my wallet, keys and my mobile and I’m sure I’m not the only one. When I’m on the train a high percentage of my fellow travellers aren’t reading newspapers or books, they are staring into their mobile phones or tablets.
They are reading e-books, playing games, catching up with the news, interacting with their mates on Facebook, reviewing their calendars or working. I think it’s safe to say that as a nation our mobile phones have become vital to our everyday lives.
As fundraisers we need to be thinking now how we are going to harness the power of mobile to help us raise funds and communicate our messages. Because if mobile is this important to our supporters, it needs to be really important to us.
There have been some amazing campaigns over the last few years, which have really shown the potential of mobile and it all started with the simple SMS or text message. Text messages are great. You don’t need a smartphone to receive or send a text message. Everyone uses text to communicate. Text messages are perfect for fundraisers as they are instant and you can send one in seconds. So it’s no wonder that it’s text that so far has really captured the imagination of fundraisers.
In the beginning we had text to protest
In 2009 Save the Children ran a series of press adverts appealing to the public to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Text response was central to the proposition and response was phenomenal. Over 180,000 people responded in one weekend from adverts placed in three or four newspapers. With every response came a telephone number, so very quickly this pool of highly engaged campaigners were converted into close to 9,000 new monthly giving donors.
It was the first large-scale example of how mobile, text, campaigning and fundraising could be integrated to achieve multiple objectives. It really was the moment when fundraisers realised that the technology could really help them drive mass participation.
Then we had text to donate
The next step change was the success of the campaign led by Joe Saxton for mobile networks to reduce the percentage of text donation they kept.
This really opened up text to donate as a viable fundraising method. But we all very quickly learnt that you can’t just stick a text number on a print or TV advert and expect instant success. Successful campaigns have mobile and text at their core, they have a clearly defined ‘itch’, the issue or situation that makes us feel uncomfortable and ‘scratch’ the action we can take to relieve the situation.
The advert below was the reason why I wanted to work where I work now. The itch in this case is clearly the fact that a child dies every 45 seconds from malaria. The scratch, just as simple, you can provide a net, right now for £3, which will save a child’s life.
And now it’s text to engage
Charities at the forefront of mobile and text giving are quickly realising that the opportunity is far greater that than simply building a pool of donors for a series of direct debit asks. Testing further text to donate appeals, the impact of campaign updates, thank you messages, asking donors to share the ask into their social networks and the provision of information for donors to keep and refer back to on their phone, are all things charities are currently testing.
And as smartphone penetration increases we are able to deliver very rich and engaging content via links to mobile optimised web sites included in text messages. It won’t be too long before the charities leading in this area will have detailed supporter journeys for their text donors just as they do for cash and direct debit supporters.
That will be the next big step change for mobile and individual giving in general.
Every time I leave the house for work I check for three things, my wallet, keys and my mobile and I’m sure I’m not the only one. When I’m on the train a high percentage of my fellow travellers aren’t reading newspapers or books, they are staring into their mobile phones or tablets.
They are reading e-books, playing games, catching up with the news, interacting with their mates on Facebook, reviewing their calendars or working. I think it’s safe to say that as a nation our mobile phones have become vital to our everyday lives.
As fundraisers we need to be thinking now how we are going to harness the power of mobile to help us raise funds and communicate our messages. Because if mobile is this important to our supporters, it needs to be really important to us.
There have been some amazing campaigns over the last few years, which have really shown the potential of mobile and it all started with the simple SMS or text message. Text messages are great. You don’t need a smartphone to receive or send a text message. Everyone uses text to communicate. Text messages are perfect for fundraisers as they are instant and you can send one in seconds. So it’s no wonder that it’s text that so far has really captured the imagination of fundraisers.
In the beginning we had text to protest
In 2009 Save the Children ran a series of press adverts appealing to the public to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Text response was central to the proposition and response was phenomenal. Over 180,000 people responded in one weekend from adverts placed in three or four newspapers. With every response came a telephone number, so very quickly this pool of highly engaged campaigners were converted into close to 9,000 new monthly giving donors.
It was the first large-scale example of how mobile, text, campaigning and fundraising could be integrated to achieve multiple objectives. It really was the moment when fundraisers realised that the technology could really help them drive mass participation.
Then we had text to donate
The next step change was the success of the campaign led by Joe Saxton for mobile networks to reduce the percentage of text donation they kept.
This really opened up text to donate as a viable fundraising method. But we all very quickly learnt that you can’t just stick a text number on a print or TV advert and expect instant success. Successful campaigns have mobile and text at their core, they have a clearly defined ‘itch’, the issue or situation that makes us feel uncomfortable and ‘scratch’ the action we can take to relieve the situation.
The advert below was the reason why I wanted to work where I work now. The itch in this case is clearly the fact that a child dies every 45 seconds from malaria. The scratch, just as simple, you can provide a net, right now for £3, which will save a child’s life.
And now it’s text to engage
Charities at the forefront of mobile and text giving are quickly realising that the opportunity is far greater that than simply building a pool of donors for a series of direct debit asks. Testing further text to donate appeals, the impact of campaign updates, thank you messages, asking donors to share the ask into their social networks and the provision of information for donors to keep and refer back to on their phone, are all things charities are currently testing.
And as smartphone penetration increases we are able to deliver very rich and engaging content via links to mobile optimised web sites included in text messages. It won’t be too long before the charities leading in this area will have detailed supporter journeys for their text donors just as they do for cash and direct debit supporters.
That will be the next big step change for mobile and individual giving in general.
Sunday, 5 December 2010
I can see the future in my pocket
I went to a fundraising conference recently and a very clever man proclaimed that 2011 would be the year of the mobile telephone.
I think he might have been a couple of years late. Supporters and the public already engage with us via their mobile devices. If you’re sending your supporters emails, have a Twitter or Facebook presence or just a web site, it’s likely that a large and growing proportion of people are accessing your content through their mobile device.
While the fundraising potential of mobile internet and smart phone applications is very exciting. You could argue that we haven’t yet fully harnessed the opportunities presented by the simplest form of mobile communication, SMS or texting.
Sure, we have generated massive volumes of text responses from print and other channels, and yes, there are great text to donate case studies to aspire to. But the potential of SMS is far more than a response tool for hand raisers or donors.
Recruiting a 1,000 hand raisers and just selecting them for a direct debit conversion telemarketing call is a wasted opportunity.
You will speak to 60% of them. 600.
About 10% will take out a direct debit. 60.
The ROI will be great and the attrition quite low. But while you get a donation from 6%, 94% will do nothing else after showing interest in you unless you have a plan.
It would be great to talk to them via SMS before and after any conversion request and attempt to engage them in conversation. It’s got to be better than making a conversion ask and then doing nothing!
We could….
- say thank you.
- ask them what areas of our work they are interested in and react to their responses.
- encourage them to take other actions; maybe they could get their friends and family involved.
- tell them about our Twitter stream or Facebook page.
- even ask them what their name is!
Those that respond will be more likely to take out a direct debit, so engagement in this way will improve fundraising performance.
Keeping the conversation going long after the initial response is really important. If you gain a space on their mobile phone now, the chances are you will be still there at the end of 2011 ‘the year of the mobile’!
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