Appealing to Mom

For the past two weeks, my inbox has been flooded with appeals built on Mother's Day. I confess, for my clients and for my own personal life, Mother's Day came way too early this year and left me a bit unprepared. This is why I should look at my Google Calendar every day!

So, I sat down on Sunday night and began wading through the plethora of appeals and newsletters with a Mother's Day theme. I finished up last night. I had a lot of clicking around to do.

Here are some highly unofficial statistics and notes from my inbox:

• 29 straight appeals, 21 of them with links to honor or memorial giving

• 6 of them featured gift memberships

• 18 of the appeals offered an eCard option

• 13 newsletters with mentions about Mother's Day

• Two appeals with links to video

• Moms are "choosy", "picky", "stubborn", and "hard to please"

• Donors need to "honor", "celebrate" and "surprise" Mom

• Most donors have no idea what to get their mothers for Mother’s Day

• Mom loves organic flowers, chocolates, and shirts

• But, don’t just get Mom those things--she likes eCards, too.

• Mom understands the importance of feeding the homeless and feeding children, giving water to children, helping the blind, helping the deaf, and helping fight diseases ranging from cancer, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, etc.

• She also understands the importance of emergency relief efforts in places like Myanmar, Darfur, and Haiti, education reform, preventing animal cruelty, adopting an animal, sponsoring a child, testing for disabilities, fighting climate change, conservation of trees and nature, supporting our troops, helping people with physical disabilities, meeting people just like herself, and the current crop of political candidates running for president

• Mom is waiting for your eCard today (hopefully, she’s not just sitting by her computer literally waiting).

These messages all show the diversity of Mother’s Day as an occasion for nonprofits to build their brands and give a nice spike to their online fundraising for May. I like the idea of virtual gifts over real gifts. Gift memberships and eCards can say a lot to honor Mom. They also show moms how well she raised her children. Plus, they are easier and simpler to deliver as last-minute gift ideas.

If your organization doesn’t feel like your message or mission is directly related to Mother’s Day, you might think again. Mom apparently has a lot of interests and knows a lot of things. But, we always knew that, right?

So, with five days to go before Mother’s Day, I’ll see how many last-minute appeals arrive in my inbox. However, as a dad, I wonder how many of these same organizations will feature appeals for Dad?

NTC 08: A Few Updates

A few thoughts and announcements as NTC 08 wraps up here in New Orleans today:

* DoGooderTV has posted the winners in the 2008 Video Contest. Congratulations to the Humane Society of the United States for their Best Overall Video win.

* Best Overheard Quote and Overall Sentiment: "Don't judge ROI by donor dollars, judge it by the results of the lives you change and how you make your donors feel about this change." Well put.

* Best Treats: Coffee and beignets from Cafe du Monde and Jelly Bellies from GoLightly. Both were addictive.

* Check out the blog posts on Technorati for more feedback from NTC 08.

* Finally, one of the best sessions came from See3's Mike Hoffman on video for nonprofits. A great session and I'm glad they posted it:

2008 NTC Day Two Wrap-Up

Day two: Sessions, sessions, sessions!

NTC 08 Day Two started off with a hilarious plenary speaker, New York Times Tech guru David Pogue. Pogue spoke about the three trends for the future: cell phone technologies, television and movies whenever you want them, and Web 2.0 user content. The most interesting example he gave was Google's Grand Central, a service where one phone number will ring or text any phone in your life, which means you are always accessible, whether you like it or not! Pogue ended his talk with a grand piano performance of his famous (at least for NYTimes site junkies like me) iPhone song (And yes, I held up my iPhone for the ballad). Here's the video of Pogue in action:

There were plenty of breakout sessions today ranging from communications, IT, fundraising, and community building. The morning sessions focused heavily on e-mail campaigns, mobile phone fundraising, analytics and social networking. The afternoon sessions continued the Web 2.0 discussions and discussions built on analyzing campaigns. The key question that seems to be on a lot of minds is understand the value of social networking. Does it work? Does it build awareness? Does it raise money? How do you measure the ROI of social networks? Should your organization be doing social networks? How will it affect your organization?

A lot of organizations were quick to share their stories and curious to hear feedback from what other have done. It's a bit unruly and uneven to navigate, but the social network gurus gave strong advice for sticking to your guns and pursuing new audiences with these tools, even though the ROI was difficult to measure. Of course, onLine always says go for it! If you can build an online with social networks, social bookmarks, or any micro-group, you should pursue it. You never know when a channel could open a very big door. It's all trial-and-error and even the best experts can't predict which organization will have a groundswell.

The evening wrap-up featured afternoon ice cream and a Network For Good-sponsored reception, followed by a night out on the town in New Orleans. I have a feeling I may be one of the few people at the morning sessions.

2008 NTC Day One Wrap-Up

Ah, New Orleans: the palm trees, St Charles Avenue streetcars, the Mississippi River and rolling, morning clouds, and the more than 1,000 techies who descended upon the Sheraton New Orleans for NTEN's NTC '08. The tech conference started with a Day of Service, as more than 80 tech professionals helped almost 30 local groups and organizations. Check out Beth's Blog for more information on this great service from NTEN.

Today's sessions focused on Affinity Group Meetings, ranging from an informal gathering of the Information Systems Forum group to discussions on Salesforce.com and Google Apps groups. If you don't belong to any affinity groups, you should. Join a listserv or online group and expand your techie or service knowledge with your peers. These groups can help you find a solution to your particular tech issue without having to do all the research or re-invent the wheel. Very informative peer groups today and a nice serve-up for tomorrow's big sessions. Plus, as almost moderator mentioned, it's all about networking.

The day ended with this year's Science Fair, as vendors and service providers set up their booths to show their wares and expertise. Food and drinks were served as bags and bowls were filled with business cards and pamphlets. The best tchotchke of the event was the red, flashing antennae from digital media platform gurus Red Antenna--very cute.

The big push this year was all about open source tools and how you can tie them into social networking tools and databases, whether it's MPower, Convio, or Salesforce. There were also groups like NPower, TechSoup, and Network For Good promoting their networks and services. Whether you were a social networker, fundraiser, database manager, or a communication manager, there was something for you to see and learn.

Tomorrow, the big sessions, with more chances to hear what challenges nonprofit techies and vendors face and more solutions.

Join onLine from 2008 NTC Central in New Orleans

Join us this week as onLine's Garth Moore blogs every day from NTEN's 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference in New Orleans. More than 1,000 attendees will come from organizations and vendors far and wide to connect with colleagues and share information on technology, communication, fundraising, and more. This year's plenary speaker is New York Times personal technology guru David Pogue.

If you can't make it to this year's event, then stay in touch with onLine this week for news, analysis, and photos from the conference. And, if you are at the conference, say hello to Garth Moore as he bounces between sessions and the coffee stands.

Dear "First Name Not Given"

I recently signed up for an organization's online newsletter: simple enough input form and the acknowledgment screen was fine. I even puttered over to their programs area to look around after registering. Then, two days later (!), I received my welcome e-mail message that began with this salutation:

"Dear First name not given,"

Uh-oh.

Now, I've received quite a few "Dear Friend," messages from organizations, but this one was the best... or worst. Someone at this organization obviously needs to examine their response devices. This made me wonder how many organizations check these autoresponders or devices. Setting up automatic acknowledgments should be standard knowledge, but a look into my last two weeks worth of e-mails turned up nine messages from organizations that started with "Dear Friend," and one "Dear first name not given".

Why is this important? Simply put, you bought, leased, or developed the tool to maximize a constituent relationship and if you can't be on a first name basis with your constituents, how do you expect to grow an online relationship? The big and medium-sized CRM services provide standard templates for registration and donation processes. This should be one of the first things you customize in your CRM tool! Your capture forms most likely have a first and last name field, that information should be right in the autoresponder. I wouldn't drop it in a subject line (too spam-y), but you should definitely have it at the start of any welcome or appeal message. In fact, you might add the date they joined, the amount of their last donation, and target an interest or two with specific content or graphics.

Get personal and dig in, your constituents will notice and you'll maximize the potential of your online tools.

So, if  "Dear First name not given" is my first name, what is my whole name?

Planning This Year's Appeals

By now, you are planning your organization's online appeals and campaigns for the year (still hungover from the holiday campaigns and a hopefully a nice vacation). You might be in a panic: Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Valentine's Day are quickly upon us, membership renewals are floating out the door, and you've been asked to think about next year's holiday campaign already. It can be overwhelming, but keep a few things in mind:

Not Every Holiday Needs a Mailer: You should assess your online audience interests and your own branding and bandwidth to see what holidays deserve an e-mail. Does Easter or Memorial Day really work for your mission? What about Flag Day (no kidding, it might)? Make a smart assessment of what will work for your organization. Use your offline marketing calendar and past successes as a starting point. Maybe Flag Day is the perfect day for your organization's appeal.   

Be Flexible: Create an annual calendar and prepare to have it go haywire by April. No big deal. Being flexible means doing a last minute appeal for the CEO, entering an online giving contest, or issuing a new corporate partner appeal. Of course, you may have disaster relief waiting in the wings at any moment. Planning is great, but nothing's set in stone. Creating an annual appeal schedule will help you stay focused, but bend, don't break.

Be Creative, Be Smart: Take the time now to think about your messaging, even if you don't build any creative yet. Think of the messages for each campaign and who you are trying to reach. Now, are there ways you can distribute mailings without inundating your housefile? Can we trim a few mailings here and there or segment your housefile down for more specific mailing topics? Be creative with not only your content, but how you reach out to others.

So, what should your schedule look like? Well, it can be as simple as a spreadsheet by month with the name of the mailing, the segment, and due dates for content, and the delivery date. You might want to assign duties or make notes for each campaign. However you format your calendar, remember to keep your appeal schedule focused and easy to change. And welcome to 2008, this could be a great year for your online program.

Could Big Brother Affect Your Housefile?

The Federal Trade Commission wants to crack down on how online advertisers and marketers track people's online activities. (see today's NY Times article). We probably all agree that privacy policies are difficult to read, children should be protected, and most companies are given a pretty free reign on how they track customers. But, this could lead down an iffy road for organizations trying to market their messages or campaigns. Questions abound!

• If consumer groups want to crack down on the amount of information asked in an online form or how they monitor clickpaths, where does that stop?
• How much information can a group ask for? Salary ranges for major donors?  How about employer information for workplace giving? Can source code tracking be an issue?
• While protecting public interest and constituent privacy should be paramount for all organizations, could the FTC crack down and make it possible to grow deep, well-rounded housefiles?
• Can this set a dangerous precedent for online marketing and advertising, even for nonprofits?
• And, shouldn't trust be left up to the company or organization and the person filling out the form?

Just Released: The Online Advertising Playbook

My copy of The Online Advertising Playbook just arrived today and I’m looking forward to discovering new strategies or those important reminders of what works and what doesn't. With a quick browse, I’m already enjoying the easy-to-find tip lists on things like “Seven Tips for Optimizing Pay-per-Click Copy” and “Nine Best Practices for Email Deliverability.” These aren’t always cutting-edge, but definitely smart reminders for creating or reviewing a campaign that’s about to hit the web. The book also includes a wide-variety of real advertising campaign evaluations, stories from the likes of John Deere, Holiday Inn Express, Lane Bryant, Vonage, and many many more.

While the focus is clearly on for-profit sales and loyalty promotions, there is a bit of information that can be applied to nonprofit online advertising programs – dayparting, geo-targeting, email habits, media usage, and more… Just a few slices of useful info I’ve gleaned so far:
- “Emailed coupons are effective purchase incentives and drive sales. Three-quarters of online purchasers redeemed an online coupon, and almost 60% redeemed an online coupon at an offline location.” I'm looking forward to the challenge of leveraging the coupon concept for donations or advocacy efforts!
- “9 out of 10 email users check their computers, BlackBerrys, or other portable devices several times a day.”
- The least popular online ad types are the most intrusive. Out-of-frame ads, pop-under ads, and pop-up ads. “Between 85 and 90% gave these ads the lowest marks, with the lowest of all given to pop-ups.”

Thanks to the Advertising Research Foundation for a fresh look at online advertising.

Avoiding Doglish

A great post on Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog about speaking "doglish" to your donors. Doglish is defined as organization slang, buzzwords, or speak that gives constituents that confused dog look. I suppose that can also lead to the annoyed or indifferent cat look. I've opened many e-mails that turned me off with vague words, mysterious acronyms, and confusing phrases. Nothing says confusion like a huge wash of words containing bad copy. The interest goes down as the "speak" goes up.

Just remember: short, sweet, action verbs, and avoid jargon or misleading analogies. 

So, what's catlish? or catese?

e-Mail is STILL the Killer App

Many nonprofits scour the Web to find the next "killer application." They want to be on the ground floor of the next big online idea. Social networking tools always seem like they have built-in fundraising potential and can grow your online networks and niche audiences. While it's good to be proactive and keep an eye on the future, make sure you pay attention to the one killer application you've worked so hard to grow: your e-mail housefile. Those names and e-mail addresses are still your best bet for raising money online.

Your housefile is your bread and butter and you need to tend to it with care. Don't think you can inundate your housefile with social networking opportunities. Also, don't put your list on a pedestal and only touch it once a year with a feather duster--it's a little more durable than that. These people have signed up because they are interested in your organization and your mission and programs. Make sure you keep an active, healthy file and maximize your communication opportunities.

Create a content schedule: Create a master calendar with all your contact opportunities (newsletters, event announcements, appeals, etc). Make sure every content stakeholder in your organization is aware of the schedule and the production required to create these mailings. This sounds simple, but it's incredibly complex to get everyone aligned. Many large organizations still struggle to pull this off. 

Clean your file: Clean your housefile four times a year to organize hard bounces, soft bounces, and non-working addresses. Don't get rid of unsubscribe records, they may be back. Put them in a separate file and store them within your database or offline (even in a spreadsheet). Scour your file for odd characters that within e-mail addresses (2 instead of @ or yahoo,com instead of yahoo.com). You could get 2-3% of your file back in an active status.

Keep Their Interests: What do your readers want to learn about you? Have you surveyed them lately? What interesting programs or content can you offer them? Can you personalize each e-mail that they open? Do they read them on handheld devices?

Take the time to learn what they want to read. Track which articles they open or which e-mails have better open/click rates (yes, open rates still matter, despite what some might tell you). Don’t' let them dictate your content, but make sure you don't lose them, either.   

Create "Appeal"-ing Mailings: Every message is a fundraising appeal. Make sure your messages are consistent with appeal branding: logos, donation messages, imagery, and click patterns should all be standardized. Why? Familiarity. The user may see that message or button eleven times in a monthly newsletter and do nothing, then suddenly decide they want to donate with the next mailer. If they can remember where it is, it will help funnel them into the donation process.

Remember, a healthy e-mail file reflects your organization's online efforts. If your file is clean, well-managed, and continues to grow, you can be comfortable knowing until the next killer app comes along, you're got this one down just fine.

Welcome to onLine!

Welcome to onPhilanthropy's newest blog, onLine. Our goal is to examine all aspects related to online marketing and fundraising for non-profits and philanthropy. Blogs covering these topics already number in the dozens (see our blogroll).  How can there possibly be room for more input on topics like fundraising in Second Life, Web 2.0 strategies, and how to entice prospective donors with targeted e-mail campaigns?

Consider that only 1-5% of overall giving for a nonprofit comes from online methods. Why not 10%? Why not 50%? Why not save trees, publishing costs, and direct mail marketing headaches and run a whole campaign online?  How come MySpace and Facebook can't account for more giving-- like your organization needs dippy comments from so-called "friends"? How come e-mail is still the killer app? What's the next killer app? Frankly, what's next?

That's why we are here and will continue to cover these types of topics and any other issues that come up. We also want to hear from you. Have a question? Want a topic explored? Want to provide a guest commentary? Want to be added to our blogroll? Check out our masthead to contact us and let us know what you're thinking about ephilanthropy, site design, e-mail strategies, or Web 2.0 marketing.

We're onLine, part of the new onPhilanthropy.com, and we're here!