Marketing Guidebook MARKETING GUIDEBOOK Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. PART 1: Planning your campaign 4 2.1 Campaign Objectives 4 2.2 People 6 2.3 Proposition 7 2.4 Promotional Channels 9 2.5 Planning 13 3. PART 2: Audiences and Networks 16 4. PART 3: Developing Your Proposition and Stories 19 5. PART 4: Promoting Your Campaign 22 6. PART 5: Final Top 10 Tips 34 2 Introduction This guide, produced in collaboration with the FSI, has been created to support charities to plan and deliver an effective campaign. It has lots of practical steps, tools and tips to help you plan and market your campaign to supporters, so you can maximise this fundraising opportunity. You can work through this guidebook at your own pace, selecting those elements that are most useful and relevant to you. Part 1 is an overview and is recommended reading for all participants in the campaign. Parts 2-4 go into more depth on specific elements of planning your fundraising campaign. Note that throughout this guide, green text is used for clickable hyperlinks. PART 1: Planning your campaign This section will provide an overview of the essentials you need to plan your campaign, and is recommended reading for all participants in the campaign. You will define your campaign objectives, identify the three Ps crucial to your campaign (People, Proposition, Promotional Channels) and start to develop your campaign plans from inception, through to launch and close. PART 2: People: Identifying Audiences and Networks This section will give further detail, tools and tips on how to identify target audiences and networks in order to maximise the reach of your campaign. PART 3: Proposition: Honing Your Fundraising Messages This section will cover developing effective fundraising propositions and using storytelling to engage and inspire your supporters to donate. PART 4: Effective Promotion of Your Campaign This section will cover how you communicate with your target audiences in order to ask them to give. It will provide an overview of different communication channels with a range of tips and tools to maximise these. 3 PART 1: Planning The first part of the guide will provide the essentials you need to plan your campaign, including defining your campaign objectives, identify the three Ps crucial to your campaign (People, Proposition, Promotional Channels) and starting to develop your campaign plans from inception, through to launch and close. You can also contact the Big Give team for support at any time via [email protected]. Campaign Objectives The starting point is to define your SMART campaign objectives. Specific: Define what you want to Maximise the campaign by achieve and how, in as specific terms as raising £5,000 from our possible. Ensure each objective focuses supporters and networks on what success looks like, not how you Reach new supporters and will achieve it. develop greater Measurable: Quantify what you want awareness of our charity to achieve: how much you want to raise, how many new supporters you Raise a total of £5,000 in want to engage. the campaign Actionable: You should be able to Achieve 5 donations of at identify clear actions you can take in least £500 from donors who can give a bigger gift order to deliver your objective. Recruit 30 new donors @ £25 Realistic: It is important to balance 20 existing donors @ £25 ambition with reality – don’t set a goal 10 past donors @ £25 that you can’t realistically achieve. Recruit 50 new donors to Timebound: The campaign takes place donate at least £10 over a limited time period – creating a 30 existing donors to donate sense of urgency for your donors. £10 4 CASE STUDY Send a Cow raised over £30,000 the first time they participated in a match funding campaign on theBigGive.org.uk. They invested time and effort in planning their campaign and to ensure success they: developed a central fundraising concept, designed to appeal to their target audiences focussed on specific projects and told the story through the lives of one of the families they supported developed a marketing plan for each audience group, based on the channels most relevant to that group ensured all promotional activities drove a response directly to the donation page on the Big Give site used the timeframe of the appeal to create urgency in their messaging developed a range of content to share their message including video, images and text thanked everyone who participated and sent personalised thank you messages to pledgers, volunteers and significant donors. Your Turn: Smart objectives: 5 People It’s important to consider the different audiences for your campaign as there are likely to be multiple audience groups – you want to take a targeted approach. Think about how you can inspire the people close to your charity to donate to your campaign, and reach out to their networks to share your message on your behalf. Who are the likely audiences for your There are 3 Ps to consider when campaign? planning your campaign: Think of all the different groups – e.g. People existing donors, past donors, trustees, Proposition volunteers, beneficiaries. Promotion You might segment your groups further. For example, we have already asked you to think about how you will engage your major donors. Do you want to differentiate further – e.g. past donors Your Turn: over/under £10? Start to make a list of your different TIP: Remember: that your Pledgers can audience groups. How many contacts not donate to you during the can you identify under each? campaign. TIP: This step will help you to sense-check how realistic your objectives are by identifying all the people you will be reaching out to with your campaign message. Have you identified enough people to achieve your objectives? 6 Proposition Once you’ve considered your audiences, it’s time to develop your campaign message: your proposition. You might adapt your message slightly for different audience groups but there should be an underlying core proposition. You want to craft a powerful message for your campaign that will inspire people to read on, donate and share. Research shows that personal stories about an individual are a greater motivator than statistics or stories about groups. Think about the impact of your project on someone else’s life. That’s not to say statistics are not important – but ensure you weave the stories of individuals into your campaign messaging. The Story You can use the Fairytale structure to identify the key elements of your proposition and bring your story to life: The dragon: the need, issue or challenge that you are addressing. The knight: who addresses this issue or challenge. The quest: what is done to address the issue or challenge. The recipient: who experiences the benefit of the the issue or challenge being addressed. Double your Donation Remember that a key part of your campaign message is the fact that DONATIONS CAN BE DOUBLED so make sure that donors know about this. Research shows that 84% of donors are more likely to give in a match funding campaign and 36% of donors are likely to give more (Walker, 2016). Include a clear call to action – what you want someone to do as a result of your message 7 Examples of Powerful Propositions You helped us raise an amazing £25,006 during the Big Give Christmas Challenge match funding campaign for our work in Ethiopia. Our partners have used these funds to provide safe house protection to women survivors of violence, given training and emotional support to women rebuilding their lives and supported women to report cases of abuse. For women like Sufe (pictured below), this support has been transformational. She now has a voice in her local community and for the first time in her life, her own bank account. We’re raising money for a new in-house dance and drama company for over 55s called New Motion, in a bid to overcome the lack of creative opportunities for older people in our area. Forming ‘New Motion’ gives our work with older people a positive identity which will increase their opportunities to develop and experience public performances. It will offer the chance to participate in dance and drama workshops with experienced professional practitioners. These classes and workshops enable the participants to learn new skills, explore their imaginations and create quality collaborative drama and dance pieces in a social, fun and creative environment. If you share our vision and are inspired by the fantastic opportunities we are creating for older people in our area then please support our Christmas Challenge match funding campaign. 8 Your turn: Checklist: Does your message include: A first person story or quote, ideally from the perspective of your beneficiary/ies? The challenge or issue that your project is addressing? (the dragon) What you are doing to address it? (the quest) The person or people who will do it (the knight) The fact that donations can be doubled? A clear ask? A high quality image Check out Part 3 (page 19) for more on your fundraising proposition Promotional Channels There are lots of different ways to get your message out to your audience and you need to be prepared to communicate across multiple channels. To maximise your efforts during the campaign, it’s crucial to think about where your target audience accesses information and the best way to communicate with them. Don’t forget how you already communicate with your supporters – website, direct mail, emails, telephone, meetings, events, social media etc. You will need to communicate your message in multiple ways throughout your campaign – but avoid bombarding your supporters and losing donors.