Its all new media isn't it?

Online marketing allows for a greater reach, not only for fundraising but also for brand awareness.

Coming from the marketing world I have seen massive changes over the last 10 years. e-mail marketing is massive, but like all mediums is now achieving reducing results - everyone is at it and its easy to delete a mail.

But there are other means of harnessing the Internet to help raise funds. Fundamentally commercial companies want to sell more through this new media; it is cheaper and allows significant data collection opportunities - it is also highly measurable - maybe the first time marketing has been.

So where are the opportunities - two major ones, selling advertising on the web site and making use of the 'cash back' rewards being offered by most on-line retailers. But none are free, the former rely on good web sites with high traffic (or at least high in terms of the specialist traffic). The latter is dependent upon 'good causes' rallying their supporters to buy online via the integrators such as my organisation.

Bottom line as I see it is with a sensible approach and a little intelligence the Internet can make a real difference gain extra funds.

[...] I ran across a nice looking start to a fundraising blog for the UK. He has a good post about the need to use more email marketing in your fundraising effort. I think the key is that most fundraisers don't know email well enough to do it right. Not to mention when sending out fundraising emails you have to make sure you have targeted emails so that you actually raise funds and not just get your fundraising email sent to the spam filter or the trash can. [...]

Perhaps it's a new medium until it has become second nature, and then it's all old hat. But I agree the mix of media certainly seems to be making everything seem pretty new these days. It's about forging new relationships, adding new dimensions to existing ones, staying fresh and engaging and not sitting back on your laurels. Yes, many organisations are struggling with this, but boy is the charity sector behind. Many new start-ups in business today recognise how they can or must base much of their activities on electronic routes to market. How many virtual charities are there compared to virtual businesses I wonder? Not that it is appropriate for one and all, but where it is, the comparison would likely be a poor one. The Internet and email alone are fantastic tools in the hands of community and society (look at the growing success of peer communities) - and this was the original intention of Tim Berners Lee "Father of the Internet", but at the moment commerce seems to have stolen the information superhighway. But I suspect power may be coming back to the masses with blogs, peer review sites, peer trading (a la eBay) and as I've just noticed, person to person banking.

Sarah

I agree that email marketing isn't used nearly enough in the fundraising arena. Most people just don't know how it should be done. More importantly, you need to make sure you have a good list of targeted individuals that will want to read the email you send out. Otherwise, it will be grouped in the spam pile and quickly deleted.

Having targeted information in your email database will help to solve some of this problem because you can include some specific information in the subject to indicate that it isn't just SPAM.

John
http://www.crashutah.com/fundraise

Besides dotcoms, I think all but the most savvy organisations have yet to exploit email marketing. If this mirrors the states, we should see dramatic rise in several years time. I don't imagine it yet applies to alot of smaller NFPs that won't have a decent list.

I agree that most definitely don't have a vast knowledge of this discipline, hence the limited usage. The below article is a relevant blurb from an article I wrote awhile back...
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Multiple engagment/stewardship is where a lot of NFPs fall down and donor-charity relationships all too often resemble the longevity of a celebrity marriages. Correspondence should go way beyond upgrading a Standing Order to DD and email allows us to economically faciliate this.

IFAW in the States - a shining star in ePhilanthropy that recently received a Webby Award for its online advocacy efforts - ensures timely correspondence via a series of established email frequences. An online donation will trigger in a instant, personalised thankyou email. An update on the impact of the appeal will be fired in 60 days times and then an offer of differing re-engagement, maybe to come along to an event, at 90 days.

As per modern DM, personalisation is key. eNewsletters from IFAW are tailored by previous giving history or interest. If I click-through on a Fox Hunting article, my next eNewsletter will prioritise news items / imagery accordingly (there will be a stock of relevant imagery per segment). If I then decide to donate on an appeal listed in the eNewsletter, the ask string on the donation page will be customised to my giving history and weighted for uplift. So if I gave $25 to the last appeal, the ask string will suggest $25, $50, $75 or 'other'.

Good tools make the difference between success and failure. Make sure your eMarketing provider is white-listed with all the major ISPs and provides a spam tool to highlight any wordage that may be flagged by filters. This will make sure your correspondence email actually gets there.