kevin baughen's blog

A marketing treat arrived in my inbox yesterday with Civil Society’s latest update.  Two charity advertising campaigns have made the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) top 10 complaints of all time list.  And rather than wring my hands and worry, I say ‘hurrah’ and ‘well done’ to both charities.

Here’s why.

Several charity folks have already talked to me about this week's Third Sector Women (TWS) networking and learning event and about how the conversation turned to the difficult issue of fundraising for expenses. I didn't attend but One speaker strongly suggested that the charities in the audience should all be braver collectively and just be honest about what it costs to run their organisations. Yes, but do we need to be shouting about it specifically?

Within commercial product marketing it's well-known that if a company or sector competes on price alone, then that's all the target audience ends up paying attention to.  Think Easy Jet and Ryan Air.

Sounds counter-intuitive doesn't it?  Surely our selfless motivations, if  we really believe that "we are all in it together" should prompt us to ask "where can I help?".

But we're not all altruistic to the point of self-sacrifice because increasingly we can't afford to be.  Perhaps the most realistic expectation is to ask "what's in it for us?" where "us" means our nearest and dearest as well as our broader community and associations.

Why am I talking about this philosophical stuff, you may ask...? Because if we as organisations want anything from other individuals or organisations, I believe we need to understand the distinction between the above positions very clearly.  There is a tried and tested marketing concept called the value equation which suggests that in order to elicit the action we want from target audiences, we have to offer something commensurateand meaningful to them in order for them to perceive value in doing it.

Do you want to know how to easily write the ideal case study?  So would I. 

Unfortunately, in my experience there are too many variables for it to be ‘quick and easy’.

I’m not going to name names here but in the last fortnight, in the process of helping charity clients to write case studies I’ve come across many articles, e-books and blogs that all suggest a magic formula to what should be included in a good case study.  To be fair, lots of what I found makes sense in that they should be succinct wherever possible, outcomes-focused and in today’s multi-media world should contain images and even video links to show your work or outcomes in action. 

I found some particularly sound advice over at ngo media - if you appreciate an experienced view overlaid with common sense, this is a good place to start.

But here’s why I disagree with those who purport to having THE formula for a great case study – and it’s really obvious if you think about it...

Not all audiences want to see, hear or know the same things about us or our work.

Honestly, I don't think so.  It's certainly one of the key considerations but there's more to driving action than timeliness.

After the UK Chancellor's budget speech last week, the cost of petrol and diesel fuel is to rise even further.  One of the organisations I follow is the Fair Fuel UK campaign and I wanted to share with you - in it's entirety below - the email message they sent out to supporters following the Chancellor's announcement.

If I forget for a moment that along with everybody else who drives, I hate paying extortionate fuel prices, I think this simple, plain text email campaign ticks a lot of the boxes that good charity campaigning messages should.

• It's linked to previous action taken on my part (ie; supporting the campaign) and therefore acknowledges me and my contribution as opposed to simply being on a mailing list
• It's a planned part of a larger campaign programme and uses consistent themes that recipients will recognise
• The copy is personable and written from an empathetic perspective - perhaps we really are all in it together - appealing to the target audience
• The email was very timely, arriving only hours after the Chancellor's speech, knowing this would be a good time to reach the audience with this message
• Even though it is a campaign battle lost, the key take-out is about the group and its supporters re-doubling efforts to make a positive difference.  It includes tangible actions that will be taken and that can be reported on, not concepts and high ideals
  

Being a bit harder-hitting in our marketing can be a powerful way to create an emotional trigger to encourage action.  That said, it’s also at the riskier end of communications techniques because there is a greater potential to shock or offend recipients rather than inspire them to action.

Anti-fur clothing campaigners like PeTA famously use shock tactics (and lots of stripped off celebrities) to get across their point about animal cruelty and appeal to the audience’s raw emotion.  But, as we know, this doesn’t always work in their favour as even sympathetic audiences can be turned off by communications they deem have simply gone too far.

Marketing is simple in principle: deliver your message to an audience that wants or needs to hear it via a channel they pay attention to and in timely manner. OK, there's also engagement to think about but these core principles pretty much underpin that too. So, this week’s blog focuses on the first of a couple of cracking examples of organisations getting it wrong.

Following last week's blog around how charities could benefit by building closer relationships with their online donors, I've received comments from various charity folks I thought I would share which add to the debate. The Deputy Chief Executive of a volunteering services charity emailed me to ask;

...do charities in receipt of such donations (lucky so-and-so’s) really care about who is sending the money? I suppose giving by text etc is likely to involve relatively small amounts – not insignificant when you add them all up I grant – but only the really big charities with large staff teams have the luxury of relationship-forging with all their smaller donors I would have thought.

And I wondered if charities do think about the donors or just see the events and participants as their 'points of contact'?  If your charity has runners in the London marathon, I'll wager you look after them with T-shirts, training help, cheering and support along the course and maybe even a drink and somewhere to sit down after the event.  But do you know who actually donated all that money?

I've written a guest blog for the Guardian's Voluntary Sector network this week on the question of why charities should build more of their branding into their online fundraising platforms.  It's not about logos and identities, it's about creating more of a relationship between the donor and the charity as well as the one that exists between the donor and the fundraiser.

I believe organisations like Just Giving, Everyday Hero, Bmycharity and Virgin Money Giving (to name just a few) have done incredible work in helping a huge number of people raise money for important causes and so I'm certainly not being critical.  It just seems obvious to me that if donors have more of a relationship with the casue as well as the fundraiser they're sponsoring, then future donations will be easier to attract / develop...

Why is this important?  Because this is how successful charities turn one-off donations into ongoing giving ie; grater financial sustainability.  Here's the article in full, please do share your online fundraising thoughts...

http://bit.ly/zzRxBg

Whilst social media is still perceived as a cool set of communications tools, the debate continues to rage regarding hard facts-based ROI for fundraisers. This new article and infographic from the Care2 network shows a picture from the USA which suggests these channels are valued but that direct mail is still the daddy when it comes to fundraising success.

I've seen better results from UK charities (the now infamous NSPCC Facebook campaign and Comic Relief to name just two) so what do UK fundraisers think of this experience from the USA? Does it mirror what we're seeing here or are we ahead of the curve in terms of using social media for fundraising as opposed to building awareness?