Email Marketing

Emergency Response Guide

Is your organization working to ready itself to respond to the needs caused by the earthquake in Japan? Convio wants to help you. Download and put our "Be Prepared When Your Mission Calls" rapid response fundraising guide to work for you.  

Rapid response is a top-of-mind topic for nonprofits of all shapes and sizes right now. After the Haiti earthquake last year, Molly Brooksbank posted 7 quick tips to taking action quickly in times of need and numerous other resources and learnings have been put out since with the issue at top of mind for nonprofits and charities around the world (see: 5 Social Media Lessons From the Haiti Earthquake Relief Effort by Geoff Livingston, Helping Haiti: Places to Donate, Creative Fundraising Ideas and Being a Smart Donor by Britt Bravo, How to Communicate in the Shadow of Disaster -- Guidelines for Respectful but Effective Outreach by Nancy Schwartz, The Social Media Response to Disaster in Haiti by Amy Sample Ward and Text-to-Give Fundraising Campaigns Take Off by Joanne Fritz amongst others)

Being prepared for an unforeseen surge of donations is something every nonprofit should be positioned for, and the swell of attention doesn’t need to come only from a natural disaster. Unanticipated press coverage and subsequent attention on your cause can be the result of change of law or a court’s ruling. It may even be as simple yet unexpected as a pop culture figure bringing an issue to the forefront through controversy. The lesson far too many nonprofits learn the hard way is how to be prepared for unplanned events.

A few of the top takeaways from the guide include:

• Respond Quickly — When communicating during times of crisis, simplicity and effectiveness are far more important than design or prose.  A straight-forward communication will help your supporters understand your organization’s position to the crisis and how they can support your efforts.
• A quick response requires a quick setup — The more time you spend on approving messaging is less time you have to harness the energy and interest around your cause. Plan and prepare to the best of your ability so that you can respond rapidly.
• Adjust Your Message — Sometimes messaging around an event requires sensitivity. But don’t let that inhibit your creativity to turn this concentration of awareness into something positive for your organization.
• Know the Plan — Working quickly sometimes is accompanied by haphazard decision making. The unintended fallout of such mistakes can be missed opportunities, offended donors or worse, PR problems. The number one mistake any organization can make is not having the right message on the right donation form at the right time. Planning for these events and knowing your anticipated response helps you to minimize the opportunity for error and maximize your capacity to seize the benefits a media spotlight can provide.

The Guide outlines the above best practices in detail, provides additional best practices and tactics to follow and offers examples from nonprofit peers highlighting successful ways they've followed the guide's tips.

Have any other lessons learned or tips to add to the list? Know of an organization who exemplifies how to respond rapidly in times of need? Share them here so the nonprofit community can be better prepared the next time the need arises.

This information was originally posted by Convio's Molly Brooksbank in March of 2010. Read Molly's post.

A Term Heard All Too Often

Kent Gilliam is the Convio Community Manager. Be sure to follow him and keep in touch with other Community members, download free kits and sign up for free trainings and webinars here (for Convio clients only. You must login to the customer center to access.).

If you’ve had your finger on the pulse of constituent communication recently you know that the big term being thrown around is “integrated marketing/fundraising”. Basically this is the concept of interacting with your constituents both online and offline and everywhere in between wherever that may be.  Sounds pretty simple, right? All you need to do is communicate everything to everyone in every medium you have available. But there is another term that I hear all too often that is actually one of the biggest obstacles to employing a successful integrated program…….. “silo”.

Too many organizations today can’t seem to internally agree on who gets what communication, much less how to communicate to everyone through multiple channels.  You can hear it in the halls and on the calls, “Those are the marketing department’s contacts.” Or, “Those are only event participants and we don’t contact them about anything else.”  Are you certain and if so, how do you know? Have you asked your constituents what they want to know about your organization? Have you asked them more than once for additional information?

Your constituents more often end up in “silos” as the result of an organization’s structure and not what they have or have not told you. As protective of a contact as this approach may sound, the truth is that it is not the most productive. Dave Fleet of davefleet.com shared “Six Ways To Silo-Bust Your Communications.” I have taken the liberty to tweak some of his tips to better apply to the non-profit world.

1. Where possible, invite people from other communications functions to be in the room when planning your year’s activities. At a minimum, ensure the different functions’ plans are shared.
   
   
2. Plan to coordinate your activities with those of other functions. If there’s a big campaign or program push in Q1, for example, consider whether other functions should push hard then, too. If not, consider how you’ll try to compensate for the lower activity at other times in the year.
   
   
3. Ensure you integrate your messaging with other functions. If there’s a campaign focused on a program or event, it makes sense to use other channels too, rather than focusing on something else, right? Remember – repetition begets retention, and retention leads to results. It’s all about “Effective Frequency.”  
   
   
4. Schedule regular update meetings with your colleagues in other departments. If you’re on the marketing/PR side, try to meet or talk regularly with other departments communicating to your contacts. You’ll probably need buy-in (or even pressure) to make this happen, but it’s worth it.
   
   
5. Next time you launch a campaign, program feature or event, consider well ahead of time whether it could be featured in email blasts, direct mail pieces, advertising creative, news release, speeches etc. Lobby the appropriate people to update your company’s website with links to all of your web properties, and ensure your websites and social media properties link back.
   
   
6. Do what you can to integrate measurement with other functions. If you’re driving traffic to your website, don’t measure click-throughs; measure conversions. If you’re trying to drive foot traffic to events or facilities, see if you can measure that. Don’t limit your measurement to the first level of proxies on the way to your goal.

The symptoms of the silo effect are easy to recognize: lack of cooperation, internal competition and breakdown in communication. The result is that one department gets pitted against another - head office against operations, marketing against development. Without being integrated internally you cannot successfully be integrated externally to your constituents.

So how do you see your organization? Do all of your organization departments work together in an integrated fashion? Tell us in the blog comments how you're working to integrate or have already integrated your organization so you can perform a successful integrated communications program.

And the survey says...insert theme song

I love surveys. Writing them, participating (if they’re not too long), reading the final reports, discussing the findings, analyzing the trends, etc. It’s kind of like comparing notes with a club of anonymous members. I guess I like the validation that other people feel the same way I do as well as find out the areas where I stand apart from the crowd.

So, I was obviously excited to see the 2011 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report from Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com land in my inbox. Even though I didn’t take the survey (it’s based on responses from 780 nonprofits in December 2010) I am guessing plenty of Convio clients did and these findings got me jazzed about the technology we provide them.

• Email marketing and websites will be the most important communications tools for nonprofits in 2011, followed by direct mail, in-person events, Facebook, and media relations/PR.
• Monthly emailing is the most popular frequency for nonprofits at 43%, followed by every other week at 17% and quarterly at 16%. Three-quarters of nonprofits (75%) plan to email their typical supporters at least monthly.
• Nonprofit communicators are excited about new ways to connect with their supporters, their increasing use of social media, and better communications planning and integration.

There’s tons more data in the report, but I wanted to give online/email communications a little shout out. If improved email communications is a priority for you this year, consider this:

• If your supporter is engaged through both traditional channels and online channels they are 95% more valuable to your organization in just a 12 month period. *
• Of the estimated $53 billion that was donated to charities by US adults during the 2010 holiday season, $6 billion (or nearly 12 percent) was estimated to have been donated online.**
• Organizations can expect $11 in online revenue for every email subscriber recruited. ***
• Regular e-Newsletters have a 19% open rate. ***
• A multi-part email campaign raises 4 times the amount of a single email appeal. ***

Let's just say for the 96% of you that responded that your website is a very or somewhat important communications tool in 2011, and 94% identified email marketing the same way – I’m comparing notes and have joined the club!

* http://www.strategic-one.com/Integrated_Marketing_White_Paper.pdf
** http://www.convio.com/signup/guides/2010-holiday-giving/
*** Based off of Convio Go! client results

Mom, What Day is Dinner?

Lindsi Gish, Communications Manager for Second Harvest Heartland, recently told us her story about a successful integrated marketing and fundraising campaign known as "What Day is Dinner".

Lindsi and her team used compelling imagery in a multi-channel approach to raise more than a quarter million dollars to fight hunger in their community. Watch the video to learn exactly what they did to be so successful and start thinking about how your organization can use similar tactics to support your mission.  

What to Look for in 2011

New year, new trends. Here’s what to keep your eye on for the coming year.

• Third-party fundraising sites: The next generation of social media for social good has arrived. Where should they be prioritized in your nonprofit’s integrated marketing strategy? Consider the benefits and challenges of third-party and social giving sites before integrating them into your fundraising plan. Ask yourself how much money can be raised, how do they fit into your donor cultivation plan and what can you do to get the most from the social web. Join the conversation by attending Convio’s panel discussion at Social Media Week in NYC or checking out our recap here on Connection Café the week of February 7. 
• Mobile technology: TMCNet.com reports that nearly a third of Americans used smartphones 2010 and last year Nielson predicted that by Christmas 2011, a full half of Americans will have smart phones. Add into that an increase in Android phone sales and the gotta-have-it buzz around the iPad and you’ll see mobile computing is here to stay. Consider how your organization can optimize your website and emails for the best mobile experience. Also, stay tuned to the debate about Apple’s position on permitting apps that accept donations. Changes in that position could expand the conversation around mobile technology for nonprofits.
• Integrated campaigns: Integrated may be a word that’s bounced around your organization for years but never will it be as important as in 2011. Constituents want, and in many cases, expect, to have every avenue available to them. But don’t feel like you have to reinvent the wheel to meet your constituents where they are. Take the same core message and reformat it to work in a presentation, in a tweet, on your homepage and beyond. Consistency through a variety of channels will be your key to success.

How do you and your organization plan to address these up-and-coming trends? What other trends are you considering in your annual plan?