Almost all of the organizations we work with are looking for ways to save money.  How do we cut corners?  What pieces of our program can we eliminate?  How can we use our reduced budget to bring in enough donors to support our increased goal?  Questions like these are common with almost all of our customers and I’m sure they are things you’ve questioned as well.

Fundraising expert Mal Warwick has spoken at countless conferences and authored several books that try and teach fundraisers how to utilize their resources in a way that will yield a higher return.  Capturing the RIGHT data and utilizing it for future success can be a long process – and if you aren’t capturing all of the pieces that are necessary it can take an organization up to two years to draw conclusive results.

Here are three ways that you can set up your organization for long term cost savings:

1. Include more information in your donor database and use it! Databases in today’s fundraising world need to track more than just whether or not a donor made a gift.  In a world that is widely multichannel, organizations need to track all interaction with the institution and how that donor or prospective donor engaged.
2. Consistently integrate technology into your overall strategy. Online giving continues to grow year after year and many middle and higher end donors are making their yearly contributions online.  Web based tactics provide you the opportunity to share your success stories with donors and prospects and has been proven to draw more donations. By utilizing web tactics you have clear insights as to what motivates your donors and how they prefer to make a contribution to your organization.
3. 3. Analyze the data you’ve tracked and apply that learning to your fundraising program. Once you’ve tracked all engagement methods (donation, open and click through rates of e-mails, followings on your social media sites) you are able to determine who is engaged and donating and how they prefer to be communicated with.  You can take that information and stagger the number of direct mail pieces and the frequency based on segment.  Gone are the days of sending a direct mail piece to your entire prospect pool every time. 

Seth Godin brought this issue up in his recent blog post, The Non-optimized Life.  Here is Godin’s way of looking at it, “But I also worry that a never-ending cycle of optimization can become a crutch, a place to hide when you really should be confronting the endless unknown, not the banal stair step of incremental optimization.” I could not have said it better myself.

Optimization is great as long as you do not use it as an excuse to avoid real change because you could also be avoiding real results.

• Broad alumni participation establishes a culture of philanthropy
• A community is only as strong as the people who support it
• Alumni participation is often used to decipher alumni satisfaction
• Corporations and foundations consider alumni participation when making funding decisions
• Parents and students consider alumni participation rates when deciding where to enroll
• Alumni participation is a key factor in determining college and university rankings

Do you think your alumni have a solid understanding of these points? They play a very important role in motivating alumni to both participate and donate.

The only thing working against this phenomenon right now is the fact that not everyone has a smartphone which is needed to scan the code and be linked to the website associated with it. But it will only be a matter of time until everyone and their brother has smartphones. Non-smartphones will most likely suffer the same fate as VHS players that stopped being manufactured once DVD players hit the market. Now that smartphones are here, they are here to stay and will dominate until all other phones are eventually phased out. This growing market for smartphones means QR codes will become more and more relevant in consumers’ daily lives.

Just as we’ve (well most of us) have accepted social media as a permanent presence in our lives, professionally and personally, we will all most likely embrace QR codes as a common practice too. There is no going backwards in technology. I am sure more and more uses are going to become available for QR codes and they will become harder and harder to resist in marketing as was the case with social media.

Click here to see an example of a QR code in the Iron Man 2 movie poster.

There are many advantages to using print-on-demand that led to these focus group results. Digital printing (which is the consumer preferred version of printing) created significant improvement in the printed presentation. This process also allows for immediate updates to materials versus a 1-2 week delay using offset because of the automated process (versus manual labor involved with setting up offset). This automation and easy set-up is conducive to variable data printing and personalizing print pieces. One of the best benefits of POD is greater control of costs. You can print materials only when you need them and print only the amount you need which also helps to eliminate waste and lower inventory costs.

A cost analysis for CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield was done to estimate cost savings when using print-on-demand versus offset. Print-on-demand costs per CareFirst book ranged from $1.77-$3.00 and offset yielded a cost of $2.98 per book. When taking all things into consideration (printing, assembly, packing, and shipping) print-on-demand resulted in an $80,000 a year savings.

This type of partnership is possible because printers are learning about different kinds of media so they can provide customers with cross channel marketing/media solutions and not just keep them limited to print. These other types of media include email, personalized url’s (PURL’s), and social media, all of which work together in harmony in multichannel integrated campaigns. Campaigns are tailored to clients depending on their vertical market and specific need(s). Printers do recognize that print is not necessarily the only means of communication anymore and are now integrating a variety of media and cutting-edge technology with print.

Of course with more channels involved, it’s necessary to make sure the message is clear and consistent and achieves the objective across the board. This cross channel marketing may last for a few months and may even involve multiple phases. This is where printers have stepped in to take on the role of marketing service provider. They are the ones who develop and execute these campaigns from start to finish and keep track of results and ROI. Most have even created in-house marketing teams to help with this new aspect of the business. Printers have made it possible to have a one-stop shop for print and marketing services.

Here are 3 steps you can take right now:

1) Engage customers - The average person is exposed to 5,000 messages a day but only remembers four. If you are not taking proactive steps to engage your customers then chances are your message is one that is easily forgotten. One of the ways you can engage customers is by reaching them through several channels including direct mail, email, and social media. Seeing a message in more than two channels increases the response rate by 10-15%. Another way to engage customers is through conversation. Find out more about them simply by asking (you can use PURL’s to do this) and apply that to future communication so you can reach customers on a more personal level.

2) Build relationships – As mentioned above, use information you can find out from customers and apply it to future communication so the messaging is relevant. Relevance is the largest lever on response in individualized direct marketing and is therefore key in building genuine relationships. Also, keep in mind that relevant messaging can receive a response rate 3 times higher than messages that are just personalized with a name. This is not just a once and done thing though. It’s important to maintain communication with appropriate timing and frequency to keep building that relationship.

3) Track results and utilize data – Tracking results is almost always done with marketing but actually applying the data from the results to future marketing initiatives is something that often falls through the cracks. Utilize data and make necessary adjustments to your plan to make sure you are achieving optimal ROI. 67% of marketing expenditures could achieve significant improvement in results without significant changes and without an increase in investment. These changes could apply to the messaging, marketing mix, and/or integration of different channels and are important to your company’s adaption to any changes in the marketplace.

All in all, you want to ensure that the right person gets the right message at the right time and in the right way while applying the aforementioned strategies. If you keep doing this you can ensure success for your company both in the short-run and long-run.

Here are 3 steps you can take right now:

1) Engage donors - The average person is exposed to 5,000 messages a day but only remembers four. If you are not taking proactive steps to engage your donors then chances are your message is one that is easily forgotten. One of the ways you can engage donors is by reaching them through several channels including direct mail, email, and social media. Seeing a message in more than two channels increases the response rate by 10-15%. Another way to engage donors is through conversation. Find out more about them simply by asking (you can use PURL’s to do this) and apply that to future communication so you are reaching them on a more personal level.

2) Build relationships – As mentioned above, use whatever information you can find out about your donors and apply it to future communication so the messaging is relevant. Relevance is the largest lever on response in marketing and fundraising and is therefore key in building genuine relationships. Also, keep in mind that relevant messaging can receive a response rate 3 times higher than messages that are just personalized with a name. This is not just a once and done thing though. It’s important to maintain communication with appropriate timing and frequency to keep building that relationship.

3) Track results and utilize data – Tracking results is almost always done with fundraising but actually applying the data from the results to future fundraising initiatives is something that often falls through the cracks. Utilize data and make necessary adjustments to make sure you are achieving optimal ROI. 67% of marketing expenditures could achieve significant improvement in results without significant changes and without an increase in investment. These changes could apply to the messaging (perhaps you’ve noticed a change in donor motivations), marketing mix, and/or integration of different channels.

All in all, you want to ensure that the right person gets the right message at the right time and in the right way while applying the aforementioned strategies. If you keep doing this you can ensure fundraising success for your nonprofit both in the short-run and long-run.

Coca Cola and Ocean Conservancy have launched a social media campaign on April 14th in honor of Earth Month. They are hoping to raise $200,000 to support Ocean Conservancy’s efforts in keeping oceans and rivers clean and help raise general awareness of their marine debris programs.  This campaign involves a Facebook application where you can upload a photo to “oceanize” yourself and then use that photo as your profile picture in which case Coca Cola will then donate $1 to the Ocean Conservancy in your honor. Sounds all good right? Well there is some good, bad, and ugly here.

Good:

• There is incentive to share the photo and raise awareness for this cause…but mainly because you have to share it by making it your profile picture in order for Coca Cola to make the donation in your honor.
• There is the potential for this to go viral. Eyebrows will certainly be raised when your “friends’” profile pictures are of them snorkeling, swimming with sharks, or getting cozy with a dolphin.
• The campaign is on the “Live Positively” tab on the main Coca Cola fan page where there are already over 5,000,000 fans (a.k.a. “likes”). This means Coca Cola did not have to worry about creating a new platform or audience. People are already there (on the page) and are ready and willing to listen.
• They make uploading photos easy because you can choose one that is already in one of your Facebook albums.
• Coca Cola is using cross channel promotion to get word out about this. They are using print and online advertisements all with the tagline, “71% of the Earth’s surface is ocean. Shouldn’t 100% of it be clean?” to create consistency.

Bad:

• Profile pictures are not to be taken lightly in the Facebook world. While it seems to be the perfect opportunity for creating a viral campaign and a perfect tool for generating awareness, how many people are actually willing to de-glamorize their profile picture and dedicate it to a tightly cropped photo of their head in a wetsuit on a body that isn’t even theirs? So while there is great potential for success if people embrace this concept, there is also great potential for this campaign to be much less accepted than Coca Cola may have originally anticipated.

Ugly:

• Coca Cola missed an important segment. I am sure there are plenty of people who would have otherwise participated if they could have “oceanized” themselves but not been obligated to make it their profile picture. Not everyone may consider a $1 donation on Coca Cola’s behalf incentive enough to change their picture but perhaps some kind of stronger incentive would be enough? This segment should have been given more consideration so that Coca Cola could have better involved everyone in the campaign (not just one type of participation/engagement level).

Walmart and the ASPCA have launched the “Lend a Paw” campaign in honor of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month. Unlike Coca Cola’s campaign, this campaign has a Facebook page all on its own with over 2,000 fans (again, or “likes”) but perhaps taking the Coca Cola approach (making it a tab on the company’s main Facebook page) would have been better. There are almost 1,000,000 fans on the Walmart page and these fans are more likely to find this campaign on the pages which they are already spending time on. Anyway, Walmart will donate $1 (up to $100,000) for each wall post spreading the message about this campaign. (There is a pre-generated message and all you have to do is click the “Create a Lend a Paw Post” on their fan page). So what’s good, bad, and ugly here?

Good:

• Instant gratification – as soon as you click “share” you see your post and know that it equates to a donation from Walmart. There is a tally on the landing page too that lets you know how much money was raised so far (which was $872 at the time this post was written).
• Participants (or anyone for that matter) can view overall progress at any point by checking out the tally.
• It’s setting the scene for peer to peer fundraising because the wall posts are meant to encourage others in your social network to keep spreading the word in order to keep those donations rolling in from Walmart.
• There is integration with Twitter as well so you can share the same message via Tweets.
• The simplicity of the campaign is nice…

Bad:

• But is it too simple? Is there enough going on to generate buzz? Probably not.
• I have not seen any cross channel promotion for this campaign.
• There is no mention of this campaign on the Walmart Facebook page or the ASPCA Facebook page.

Ugly:

• So many missed opportunities here. There is very poor promotion surrounding this campaign. As already mentioned, there are no links to the Lend a Paw page on either organization’s main Facebook Page but there is also no mention of the campaign on either of their websites either! How do they plan on getting 100,000 posts?? The lack of effort is not good on their part. Do they really care or is this just a half-hearted PR thing?

So while Facebook is becoming more widely used in fundraising, it is looking there’s going to be an adjustment period until people figure out what works and what doesn’t and that will be different for every organization. As for Coca Cola and Walmart, I think these organizations will figure it out by trial and error but having a full understanding before diving into social media fundraising is obviously ideal. You have to understand the network, the users, the demographic, and behavior before it can be a success. Using Facebook as a fundraising tool has already proven to be a success with one of our clients. Click here to check out the case study. Results from this campaign included increasing the number of fans for their Facebook page from 39 to 268 and raising over $1,000 in donations in a short amount of time. With the right understanding and preparation and forward thinking Facebook fundraising can indeed bring in results.

Crocs has not turned a profit since 2005 and has even been the victim of some serious brand bashing with websites like  IHateCrocs.com and anti-Croc groups forming in the social media realm. They have already tried to poke some fun at themselves with taglines such as “Ugly can be beautiful” but clearly it’s not working if there is still no profit in sight. So now Crocs is trying to build themselves up as a stylish shoe choice but not by focusing on the aesthetics (they are taking neither a positive nor a negative stance on that subject). Instead, they are focusing on the comfort of Croslite, the shoe material that has made the brand famous. They are making comfort stylish. This is especially apparent in the advertisements targeting women. In these ads, the shoes are personified into a loyal friend that will take care of you by providing comfort and love instead of just being a shoe. These ads (TV, print, outdoor, and online) show different styles of Crocs fitting into the lives of women in such a way. In fact, the tagline is even “Feel the love” which obviously focuses more on the intangible benefit of Crocs rather than just saying “buy this shoe because it’s pretty” (and I use that term loosely). You can watch one of the television ads here or check out one of the print ads here. Ken Chaplin, vice president for marketing at Crocs has even said, “What we want to do is establish Crocs as a brand and not that one shoe.”

Toyota is working hard to make the Sienna minivan look cool with their series of “Meet the Parents” commercials. These ads are meant to appeal to an audience that would appreciate the humor in these parodies of everyday life in middle to upper class America. Toyota is using this humor to establish themselves as a fun brand probably hoping this new perception will override any negative thoughts either regarding their overall brand image or minivans themselves. If Toyota can succeed in appealing to their target audience by making them laugh and getting them to relate to these Sienna commercials then they can increase the chances of making the Sienna more attractive to people that may have previously turned their noses up at minivans. There has been a lot of both positive and negative feedback on these ads. Some people have found no humor in them or have described them as “random”, “annoying” and “weird”. But as Marshall Ross, chief creative officer at Cramer-Krasselt (ad agency responsible for the new Crocs campaign), says, “Every interesting idea has a polarizing effect. Things that walk right down the middle don’t tend to get as much response.” If Toyota can reposition the minivan so it’s not just viewed as a vehicle that gets kids to soccer practice and back but as a place for a father to feel like a boss or a sanctuary where the mother can find peace then more power to them.

I am not the biggest Toyota fan right now (as I am sure most others are not as well) but all other things aside, I must applaud both of these brands in their efforts to reposition themselves. Brand repositioning is never an easy feat but I feel both of them have a healthy grasp on where they’d like to go and how they plan on getting there. I guess time will tell the true success of these campaigns.