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The last few weeks have seen unprecedented discussion in the sector around the
global recession and its potential effects on fundraising. Minor scares in past years
have gone pretty much unnoticed and people have tended to keep their heads down
in the belief that things will change or go away. The current climate is very different,
as is the reaction. Any switched on marketer or fundraiser knows that the current
climate WILL impact on their fundraising and their portfolio of techniques.
So how do we find our way through the morass of opinion and advice? It’s a
confusing time and so I hope the following will suggest some practical actions you
can take…
And it is time to act, but the actions we take must take account of the pressures on
our own unique portfolio of funders, the maturity and fundraising activity of our
organisations and our appetite to face up to the impact of the global crisis in our
market whether it lasts one year or three. Most of all we will need to change our
behaviours and those of our organisations to stand the best chance of surviving and
perhaps even thriving during this recession.

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RECESSION Watching Is Not An Option - A Thought Piece By Tony Elischer

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“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different than you and me.”
“Yes. They have more money.”

The Wired Wealthy. Using the Internet to Connect with Your Middle and Major Donors.
March 24, 2008
An in-depth survey and study by Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHARITIES AND CAUSES
Following are recommended strategies and tactics for organizations committed to building stronger relationships with their wired wealthy donors. Some of these recommendations are equally applicable to all online donors, and indeed to all online constituents. And while it certainly makes sense to adopt most of these recommendations universally, from a financial point of view, it is the wired wealthy whose happiness will contribute most to your bottom line.
Unfortunately, there is no obvious shortcut for separating the reclusive All Business donors from the eager Relationship Seekers and so forth. What you can do, what we urge you to do, is create and provide options that lets the wired wealthy customize their online relationship with you. As one donor we interviewed asked, “Why are my only choices either email me or don’t email me?” If we offer one overarching recommendation, it is to find a way to get beyond this all or nothing choice.

• Don’t panic … but don’t assume doing nothing is an option. Most wired wealthy donors are not fundamentally unhappy with online communications. But they aren’t delighted either. Using the online channel better should be a development priority. And, recognize that your middle and major donors are coming to your web site, and what they see may influence their giving decisions. Ask yourself: Is our web site up to the task? Are our emails inspiring?
• Segment your list. Your best donors want different things from you.
  • Your All Business group – and probably the others – want the smoothest possible online donation process, and the best possible case for giving on your site. Emails for All Business should be scarce, but should include an annual tax summary and periodic donor reports on where the money is going and what you have accomplished
  • Your Casual Connectors and Relationship Seekers are open to cultivation. Look at your emails and your home page as opportunities to inspire.
  • Tell great stories, both on your web site and in your emails. Use powerful, evocative images.

• Report back to donors via email at least once per quarter detailing some of theways you have used their donations.
• Provide and promote some engagement options, including video, podcasts, your blog, and action opportunities. Permit donors to opt out of communications promoting these special engagement options if they are not interested.

Finally, that all-important group of Relationship Seekers is looking for engagement. In addition to the engagement options above:

• Invite highly motivated donors to blog about you, join your LinkedIn group, or review you favorably on CharityNavigator’s new donor comment area.
• Recognize donors who have been giving for some time, or who have helped to recruit others.
• Solicit ideas and suggestions from donors on a regular basis.

• Power to the people – make donor control your new mantra. If at all possible, provide donors with some control over the content and frequency of emails. Create email options for your wired wealthy donors. Let them choose between a minimal package of emails that includes an annual renewal reminder, a tax summary and more comprehensive email options. Ask donors for their information and frequency preferences and create customized emails that reflect content interests.
• Let the message drive the technology and not the reverse. For this group of donors in particular, don’t get stampeded into whatever the latest thing is online. Don’t replace quality with quantity. Don’t communicate when you have nothing to say, just because there is a scheduled email. Try to segment emails by interests, but don’t assume you know what those segments are; ask your donors. Make inspiration a metric that guides much of what you communicate.
• Pay special attention to video. Maybe this is the single exception to recommendation four. Relationship Seekers are heavy users of online video and express significant interest in seeing more. Hire a professional producer, and ask a test group of donors what they think before launching to a wider audience. No single video is going to change everything; a series of modestly produced short videos will get more mileage than one blockbuster. Most “viral videos” never go “viral.” Don’t measure success merely by looking at how many times a video has been viewed. The real measure is whether the right people – your wired wealthy Relationship Seekers – have seen it, and whether it has inspired them.
• Make listening an every day tactic. We found the participants in this study to be not at all shy about expressing their likes and dislikes. With online communications and philanthropy in general in a state of flux, keeping close tabs on the evolving preferences of your constituency will be critically important. Even the act of asking has cultivation value; donors will be pleased you are listening. Here are three ways to make listening a key element of your communications plan:
  • Track “over the transom” comments. Chances are your organization already gets a fair amount of unsolicited email from list members and donors. Are you seeing it? Is someone at least distributing summaries of the issues that are coming up repeatedly? A handful of emails may represent a much larger group of folks with similar concerns.
  • Establish a donor advisory panel. This is rapidly becoming a fixture in the commercial sector. Recruit a few hundred donors (and possibly list members) to serve as a sounding board for future issues, tactics and campaign ideas. Survey them at least once a month so they feel like they are being utilized.
  • Ask for feedback in your newsletter. Ask readers to rate each issue, and then ask for additional open-ended feedback.

Download the full research >>>

Starcom, Tacoda and comScore’s “Natural Born Clickers” findings suggest “the click is dead” as go-to measurement of effectiveness for brand-building display advertising campaigns

CHICAGO – Media agency Starcom USA, behavioral targeting network Tacoda, and digital consumer insight company comScore collaborated on a research study whose results call into question click-through rates as a primary source of accountability for Internet display advertising aimed at brand-building. Called “Natural Born Clickers,” the study reveals that a very small group of consumers who are not representative of the total U.S. online population is accountable for the vast majority of display ad click-through behavior.

Full findings of the study, its methodology and results are being presented this afternoon at the iMedia Brand Summit in Coconut Point, Florida.

The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.

Further preliminary Starcom data suggests no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked. The research presentation suggests that when digital campaigns have a branding objective, optimizing for high click rates does not necessarily improve campaign performance.

“There is more and more emphasis by advertisers for greater return-on-objectives in campaigns, particularly in the digital space where the accountability data is so readily available,“ says Starcom USA Director of Connections Research and Analytics Grant Prentice. “Natural Born Clickers shows us that we can’t count on click-through rate as our primary success metric for display ads; Starcom is more reliant on shifts in brand attitude metrics and analytics tying on-line exposure to sales as the true measures of online advertising efficacy.”

“While the click can continue to be a relevant metric for direct response advertising campaigns, this study demonstrates that click performance is the wrong measure for the effectiveness of brand-building campaigns,” said Erin Hunter, executive vice president at comScore. “For many campaigns, the branding effect of the ads is what’s really important and generating clicks is more of an ancillary benefit. Ultimately, judging a campaign’s effectiveness by clicks can be detrimental because it overlooks the importance of branding while simultaneously drawing conclusions from a sub-set of people who may not be representative of the target audience.”

“One of the underlying values of looking at people and not just pages in our business is that we are able to help uncover behavior that is counterintuitive to what much of the media world assumes about online audiences,” says Daniel Jaye, CEO of TACODA.

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. comScore analysts apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. comScore services are used by more than 800 clients, including global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, BBC, Carat, Cyworld, Deutsche Bank, France Telecom, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Financial Times, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestlé, Starcom, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Verizon, ViaMichelin, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.

Starcom USA is a full-service media division of Starcom MediaVest Group (www.smvgroup.com), which is ranked one of the largest media communications agencies in the world and encompasses an integrated network of highly specialized consumer contact companies. Starcom’s organization includes strategic marketing communication architects who are highly specialized in media management, response media, internet and digital communications, as well as multicultural, entertainment, sports sponsorship and event marketing and media. With over 900 employees in the U.S., Starcom delivers brand-building results for many of the world’s leading companies.

TACODA®, Inc. (www.tacoda.com), a wholly owned division of AOL and a Platform A company, runs one of the worlds largest and most advanced behavioral targeting advertising networks. Since 2001, TACODA has provided a comprehensive range of behavioral targeting solutions to thousands of web publihers and brand marketers. Its patent pending technologies power TACODA Audience Networks™, which enables brand advertisers to target relevant messages to specific audience segments. TACODA Audience Networks™ has more than 4,500 sites reaching over 120 million monthly unique users. Major US media partners include Dow Jones, The New York Times Company, NBC Universal, Hoovers, HGTV.com, FoodNetwork.com, KBB.com and USAToday.com.

Article from  Starcom MediaVest Group

In the for-profit dot.com world, the bottom line is easy to measure — it comes down to dollars and cents. For nonprofit organizations, success is more difficult to define. How many people were educated? Informed? Served? Engaged? Activated? How much money was raised? Did legislative policy change? Corporate policy? Public opinion?

Download the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study by M+R