In peer to peer fundraising there are a number of ways that event staff can respond to variable mid-season results and introduce methods to maximize revenues.

1. Integrated Marketing Plans
for Special Events
DONNA WILKINS
KATHRYN HALL
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2. 2/27/2012 Integrated Marketing Plans for Special Events 2

3. WHO WE ARE
Donna Wilkins Kathryn Hall
President Internet Solutions Consultant
Charity Dynamics Blackbaud
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4. #
1
Measure Your Results
… Relentlessly
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5. BENCHMARKS TO TRACK
• Set up key metrics for your event, including:
- Total number of participants
- Total number of participants who were also fundraisers (3:1)
- Average amount raised per person ($60)
- Percentage of people who received at least one gift
- Fundraising emails sent per person (25-27)
- Percentage of people who reached their goal
- Percentage of people who exceed their goal
• Create reports to let you see Goal vs. Actual
• Check these numbers relentlessly – weekly at least.
• If you aren‟t reaching your numbers, it‟s time for a mid-
season adjustment to your strategy.
• We‟ll talk more about metrics later in the discussion
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6. STARTING TO REMEDIATE
• Focus on tasks that will result in actions instead of
focusing on dollar amounts.
• Ways to influence behavior:
- If someone personalizes their web page, they‟ll share it by
email, Facebook, Twitter or in-person, and this will result in
donations.
- If someone sends out emails / posts to Facebook / Tweets,
this will result in donations. FAF average is 4:1 ratio for email.
• Throughout the presentation we‟ll look at more ways
of influencing behavior through different techniques
and practices.
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7. WHAT ARE YOUR KEY PERFORMANCE
METRICS? HOW OFTEN DO YOU CHECK
THEM?
• Behaviors?
• Stats?
• Time-limited actions?
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8. #
2 Limited attendance?
Get more $$$ from a
capped group
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10. FIND THE KEY SEGMENTS IN YOUR AUDIENCE
• Who were the real „influencers‟ in your audience
last year?
• Did team captains raise more money?
• What about participants who signed up early?
• Did participants using social media raise more
money?
• What about those who made a self-pledge?
– Focus your current year‟s strategy on
growing these key segments this year
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11. UNDERSTAND YOUR METRICS
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12. STRATEGIES
• Coach on specific behaviors
- Send emails
- Upload a picture
- Use social media
• Add incentives and recognition
- Free
• Phone calls
• Listed as top fundraiser
• Name specific achievements
- Incentive prizes
• Congratulate success
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13. TAILOR YOUR COMMUNICATIONS
• One message doesn‟t fit all:
• Walkers, runners, families, team captains should
all receive messaging that speaks to their type of
participation in the event – as well as their
reason for participating.
• Use personalization, conditionals, and email
filters to segment your messaging
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14. NEW TEAM CAPTAINS PREVIOUS TEAM CAPTAIN
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15. RECRUITING NEW PREVIOUS PARTICIPANT
PROSPECT
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16. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO GET
MORE $$ OUT OF A SIZE-LIMITED EVENT?
•
•
•
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17. #
3
Drive behaviors
with competition
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19. COACHING WITH INCENTIVES
Drive towards the behaviors you know lead to
fundraising success
- Registering early
- Sending emails to as many people as possible,
multiple times
- Updating personal page
- Teams
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21. WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE IT WORK
• How much more does a participant
who registers early raise than one
who signs up at the last minute?
• How many extra early registrations
do you need to get 5-10X your
money back on the iPad
investment?
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22. HOW DO YOU ENCOURAGE AND REWARD
POSITIVE FUNDRAISING BEHAVIORS?
• Incentives?
• Competitions?
• Public recognition?
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23. #
4 Compete for your
participants‟ hearts,
minds and time
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24. MOST EVENTS RETAIN 41% OF PARTICIPANTS
• A typical run/walk/ride event retains only 41% of their participants – yet
retained participants bring in about 53% of the revenue.
• 75% of your participants will participate in more than one event (yours
and somebody else‟s) over the next 2 years.
• Plan to win the competition for your participants‟ hearts and minds
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25. PEOPLE GET INVOLVED BECAUSE OF A PERSONAL
CONNECTION TO THE CAUSE
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27. TEAM LIVESTRONG
Who We Are
We inspire and empower
people affected by cancer.
We believe that unity is
strength, knowledge is
power and attitude is
everything.
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28. RETENTION TIPS
• Lavish attention on the top 20% of fundraisers, they may raise
80% of your money
- Send personalized emails, make a phone call, offer help with
collateral materials or strategies.
- Post-event take them on a tour of your organization to show how
the money they raised will be used, organize a top fundraiser lunch ,
have your CEO or a celebrity sponsor call to say thanks, ask for
their feedback on the event. Invite them to be fundraising coaches.
• Don‟t appear to spend all your donations on swag. Personal
communication and support can have a bigger impact on your
supporters‟ perception of your organization.
• For the other 80%, send personalized emails, a thank you
video message, and follow up later in the year with a status
update on how their money was used. Make sure all
participants feel valued, appreciated, and part of the cause.
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29. WHAT TYPES OF ACTIVITIES HELP YOU
BRING THE MISSION HOME FOR
PARTICIPANTS AND VOLUNTEERS?
•
•
•
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30. #
5
Strengthen your
teams
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31. UNDERSTAND YOUR METRICS
• How much do participants on teams raise
versus those not on teams?
• How many teams did you have over the last
several years?
• What if any are additional costs for a team?
• Are there any limits to the number of teams
you can have?
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32. STRATEGIES TO DRIVE AND INCENT TEAMS
• Retain past team captains
- Phone call
- Personalized email
• Set expectations with team captains
- Kickoff event
- How to tip sheets
• Team toolkits
• Thank your team captains first! Invite them back first!
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35. HOW DO YOU STRENGTHEN AND
ENCOURAGE YOUR TEAMS AND CAPTAINS?
•
•
•
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36. #
6
Incorporate social
media into your event
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Integrated 36 36

37. INTEGRATING SOCIAL MEDIA INTO YOUR STRATEGY
• Make sure your emails include links to your
social media presences
• Make sure your postal mailings include your website
and social media URLs
• Make sure your phone calls mention online fundraising and social
media
• Make sure your social media presences link people back to your
website – and vice versa
• Use tools like “Add This” to make sharing easy
for participants
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38. COACHING PARTICIPANTS
• Provide sample fundraising status updates and tweets
- Skip Starbucks and support my fundraising efforts! Donate today:
link
- Pack a lunch, donate to your lunch $$‟s and make a difference: link
• Provide mission facts that can be easily shared on facebook
and twitter with a personal URL
• Encourage participants to attach pictures, video, events or a
link to their status update
• Publicly thank donors in tweets and updates
• Social Media participant contests (e.g., best YouTube video)
• Be creative and have fun!
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39. BLACKBAUD SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLKIT: TWITTER & FACEBOOK
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40. BOUNDLESS FUNDRAISING FACEBOOK
Donate your
Get the
Profile
Word Out
Picture
(pushes a (Pushes a
stream story)
stream
story)
Progress
Indicator
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41. SCHEDULED NEWSFEEDS
Scheduled Newsfeeds Tab
Checkbox
to “opt in” Example of the
newsfeed that will
be sent
Ability
to
update
choices
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42. WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES HAVE
HELPED YOU BOOST YOUR EVENT
PERFORMANCE?
•
•
•
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43. #
7
Incorporate mobile
into your event
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44. MOBILE READY GIVING
Take your events on the road with mobile ready event, personal, team,
and individual donation pages.
Email Donation Form Confirmation
43% of mobile users access the internet
“several times a day”
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45. TRACKING YOUR PROGRESS IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND
ON IPHONE, ANDROID, AND BLACKBERRY
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46. QR CODES AND TAGS
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47. HOW HAVE YOU SUCCESSFULLY
INCORPORATED MOBILE APPS AND
TOOLS INTO YOUR EVENTS?
•
•
•
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48. #
8
Encourage wrap-
around events
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49. WHAT ARE WRAP-AROUND EVENTS?
• Teams and individual produce independent fundraising events (IFE) to
raise money for The Big Event.
• Important to launch event 6 to 9 months in advance to give time for IFEs
• Examples of wrap-around events:
- Dinner party - Zumbathon
- Bake sale - Concert
- Garage sale - Sale of logo gear
- Professional services for donation - Car wash
(photography, DJ)
- Penny wars - Restaurant night
• Funds get credited to the individual or team in The Big Event.
• Provide guidance to IFE organizers on organization, tax deductibility of
expenses, and use or your brand.
• Support IFE organizers by featuring their events on your website
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51. GUIDELINES FOR IFES
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52. WHO DOESN’T LOVE A BAKE SALE?
• Martha volunteers for Share Our
Strength.
• She learned about SOS from an ad for
Great American Bake Sale. She
raised a couple hundred dollars w/ her
1st bake sale. Five years later, she‟s
raising more than $5,000 with her
bake sale and now serves on the
Taste of the Nation committee – Taste
is another SOS fundraising event.
• Martha is a great example of how you
can bring new people into your
organization with independent
fundraising. While Martha serves on
the Taste committee, she still holds her
annual bake sale. Her bake sale has
become an event everyone in her town
looks forward to.
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53. ZUMBA DANCE PARTY
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54. DO YOU HAVE WRAP-AROUND /
INDEPENDENT FUNDRAISING EVENT
SUCCESS STORIES?
•
•
•
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55. #
9
Cultivate new groups
of fundraisers
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56. ENCOURAGE VOLUNTEERS TO FUNDRAISE
People love your event enough to volunteer. Ask them to fundraise
• Susan G Komen Chicago loves its loyal volunteers, and in 2011 for the
first time, they asked volunteers to create a fundraising page as they
registered.
- Up side: WOW. 3 weeks before the event, donations brought in by
volunteers accounted for 15% of total donations (wow!). It has helped them
recognize some of their strongest supporters, like a Mrs. Illinois who has
raised $3,000 … and wouldn't have done this if she wasn't asked!
- Down side: “Some volunteers called up and complained, so we added their
names to the volunteer list, no questions asked, no online registration.
They‟re important to us as volunteers.“
• Endurance Events – encourage spouse, family members and friends
of participant to volunteer … and why not fundraise at the same time?
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57. SPOTLIGHT CORPORATE PARTICIPATION
• Companies today want to demonstrate corporate social
responsibility.
• So recruit companies. Encourage corporations to more
fully participate in your event(s) as a company-wide
community service (and wellness, if applicable) initiative.
- The American Heart Association Heart Walk began in 2010
to make a national push to recruit corporations
• The corporation sets a fundraising goal ($540,000
nationally for Union Bank in the example we‟ll look at)
• An executive sponsor commits to work internally to recruit
and motivate employees
- The “corporate pyramid” tool within Friends Asking Friends
allows companies to track their participation as a company
with multiple teams within one or multiple events.
- The system automatically tracks a company‟s local and
national performance.
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61. HOW HAVE YOU SUCCESSFULLY
CULTIVATED NEW GROUPS OF
FUNDRAISERS WITHIN YOUR EVENT
PROGRAM?
•
•
•
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62. #
10
Sleep-in / virtual
participant option
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63. WHAT IS A VIRTUAL PARTICIPANT?
• Add a “sleep-in” or virtual participant option for supporters
who either don‟t want to walk/race or live too far away … and
still want to be a part of the event.
• Generate some incremental revenue. Most events studied
raised an additional 2 to 3% from “virtual” participants
• Get better foresight into how many participants will actually
show up for the event by giving people a way to indicate “I‟m
not coming in person”.
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64. MORE SLEEP-IN / VIRTUAL OPTIONS
• Sleep In for the Cure: Susan G Komen/Race for the Cure: Can‟t
make it on Race Day? No problem! Register as a Sleep In for the Cure
participant!
- Maryland - $35 to register; get race t-shirt and bib (+3%*)
- Orange County - $40 to register; get race t-shirt and bib (2%*)
- Massachusetts - $10 registration fee / $300 in donations gets a t-shirt -
virtual map of the state fills in as you fundraise
*Percentages shown do not reflect final event results
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65. SLEEP-IN / VIRTUAL EXAMPLES
• Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk Virtual walkers are:
- Participants who fundraise even though they will not walk in this year's event
- Encouraged to raise as much money as they can but are not obligated to the
fundraising minimum
- Sent an official Walk T-shirt after Dec. 31, 2011, if they raise at least $250
- Pay no fee to register
- Roughly 2.5%* of online revenue from virtual participants
• Beyond the Bike Virtual Rider – http://beyondthebike.kintera.org
- Fundraise as a "virtual rider" - only $10 to sign up.
- ~ 3.5%* from virtual riders
- Virtual participants encouraged to organizing a Fun Ride, hold a bake sale or
car wash, host a party and charge admission, or sponsor a screening
of Beyond Belief, a documentary of the ride.
*Percentages shown do not reflect final event results
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66. HAVE A SUCCESS STORY TO SHARE
ABOUT VIRTUAL PARTICIPANT
CULTIVATION?
•
•
•
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67. TRACK EVENT METRICS. DEPLOY
NEW STRATEGIESplease.
120 characters or less, AS NECESSARY
TO ADAPT MID-SEASON TO
ENSURE YOU FINISH ON TARGET
OR ABOVE! #BBCON
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68. • Define your metrics – check them regularly. Then make
mid-season adjustments to stay “on target”.
• Set up mobile donation forms in FAF – they‟re built into
the system.
• Define the profile of your most valuable participants,
and encourage these qualities
• Who are your most valuable participants? What are
you doing to retain them? Make a plan to ensure they
come back year after year.
• If you‟re not already using social media, it‟s time to
start. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are
valuable channels.
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69. What new ideas are you trying out
that you hope are next year’s tips?
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70. Events Boot Camp
November 7, 8, 9, 10 and 15th at 2 p.m. for full details visit:
http://www.blackbaud.com/bb/faf/boot-camp.aspx
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