Appendix
About Jus.n Perkins Justin Perkins joined Care2 in 2006 with an eclectic background as a social entrepreneur, accidental techie, new media marketing expert and former State water resources administrator for a major watershed in Colorado. Justin develops partnerships with nonprofits and customizes strategic campaigns for them to reach Care2's audience of 10 million members. He also develops new tools to help nonprofits with marketing and fundraising. He launched frogloop.com, Care2 s popular nonprofit marketing blog, as a way to share cutting edge case studies and best practices for nonprofit online marketing. He has an MBA from the University of Colorado, enjoys trail running & skiing, sells roasted nuts at the farmers markets on the weekends, and frequently writes & speaks at conferences about online marketing. Contact Justin: justin@care2team.com
Making Connec.ons with Nonprofits Care2 invites its members to get involved with nonprofit organizations working on a variety of Causes Care2 members care about.
Engaged Influen.als Online and Offline Care2 is an active online community. What makes them really special is their propensity to do more Care2, Inc. p. 24
Ideal Audience for Nonprofits Average Age: 39 HH Income: $75,000 + Donors: 65% Voters: 62% Women: 75% Well-educated, affluent, civically-active females who love animals and are interested in healthy living, the environment and social causes. Care2, Inc. p. 25
Opportunity Cost of Do it Yourself List growth Chances are your staff time is better spent cultivating email lists, not growing your list This tool will help you assess the breakeven point for in-house listgrowth vs. paid advertising Email justin@care2team.com for a copy of this assessment tool
Does It Pay to Pay? Buying people s a[eneon online can be an effeceve way to generate traffic for your site and expand your list of online supporters and donors Needs to be naeonal in scale, or really targeted
Op.ons for Email List growth Paid Adver.sing 1. Cost Per AcquisiEon (CPA) /Cost Per Lead (CPL) 2. Shepherded or Chaperoned Emails (CPM) 3. Banner/ Display Ads (CPM, CPC, CPA) 4. Pay Per Click (PPC) & Search Engine MarkeEng (SEM) Google Grants 5. Co registraeon Do it Yourself 1. Guerilla markeeng (social media, earned media, etc)
1. CPA/CPL Adver.sing
CPA/CPL Adver.sing CPA (Cost Per AcquisiEon or Cost per AcEon) CPL (Cost Per Lead) Net Cost per name ~ $1.00 $10.00+ depends on quality, targe.ng, quan.ty Highest quality is through niche sites with relevant campaigns. PROs: Lowest risk option risk is on the media site when paying for performance only Easier to predict results of ad campaigns Positions nonprofit further along in fundraising sales cycle if lead is quality Can be less creative development cost and effort for nonprofit Can require less media buy management time and complexity Can cost less and yield higher ROI than other advertising CONs: Not many sites willing to offer CPL terms too risky for the site Quality of names depends on quality of site and opt-in process Quantity can be limited by size of site s audience or targeting Up front cost can seem higher for high quality leads (harder to sell internally when costs are seen actual cost not seen till after campaign with CPM or CPC) Not all networks are transparent so difficult to track quality
Care2 s Approach to CPL Adver.sing Organizational Branding Care2 develops the content with Client s logo and final approval This is the standard info set collected by Care 2. Comment box. This component is optional, and could be used to collect comments. Care2, Inc. p. 31
Promo.on of Campaigns via email Promo.on Care2 sends millions of emails to our members to drive traffic to peeeons sponsored by nonprofits. Care2, Inc. p. 32
Contextual, Permission based Recruitment Permission-based Marketing Azer signing a peeeon the user is given the opeon to sign up for your list. Care2, Inc. p. 33
Campaigns Without Advocacy: Pledge OrganizaEonal Branding Care2 develops the content with Client s logo and final approval
2. Shepherded or Chaperoned Emails Don t rent email lists. Period. Chaperoned emails are OK. They are usually sold on a CPM basis AlterNet is chaperoning this email to its own subscribers. It conveys -- and endorses -- a message from Peace Action West.
Shepherded or Chaperoned Emails CPM = Cost Per 1000 Impressions or emails sent. Net Cost per Name ~ $1.50 $100+ PROs: Can target a relevant list and see a good response rate Can sometimes work for direct response to fundraising or event promotion if timely and relevant Can end up with effective CPL comparable to fixed CPL pricing Can be free if you can negotiate a an in-kind list-swap with a likeminded organization CONs: Risk is enerely on nonprofit Usually limited quanety and only effeceve every 6 months per list Sites have different creaeve req s Need to have 3 rd party tracking system Need to provide excellent creaeve Very few companies do stand alone aceon alerts more likely you re part of a newsle[er
3. Banner/Display Ads
CPM, CPC, CPA Banner/Display Ads CPM = Cost Per 1000 Impressions. CPC = Cost per Click CPA = Cost per AcEon (click or compleeon of a form) Net Cost per Name ~ $1.50 $100+ PROs: Can work with a broader array of sites and leverage creative Good for branding if done well Rich Media can catch attention Can sometimes work for direct response to fundraising or event promotion CONs: Few instances where we ve seen results end up cheaper than CPL Very risky risk is entirely on nonprofit Sites have different creative req s Difficult to implement and track very complex to do well Requires lots of staff time and expertise or experienced consultants Net result is expensive and usually low ROI When was the last time you clicked a banner ad?
4. PPC & SEM
PPC & SEM PPC = Pay Per Click usually refers to Google Adwords and the equivalent on Yahoo and MSN SEM = Search Engine MarkeEng (paying for search engine ads) Net Cost per Name ~ $.75 $100+ (click doesn t = name!!) PROs: Can be great, high quality response due to targeting Less risky than CPM - you only pay for clicks, not impressions Can sometimes work for direct response to fundraising or event promotion if context is ripe Can see good ROI over time if done well Google Grants are free for nonprofits CONs: Learning curve for SEM is steep Risk is still high nonprofit must have excellent landing page and keywords to convert well Difficult to implement and track very complex to do well Requires lots of staff time and expertise or experienced consultants Net result is expensive Volume can be limited for nonprofits unless during crisis or major news event
What s Possible? Defenders of Wildlife & Google Grants Defenders spent ~ $277K over a 1-year period (10/07-9/08) Three staffers worked a combined 5 hrs / week (average) RESULTS: 5K new donors and $205K in donations (though only half gave email address). So ROI was still negative after first year. BUT: What made this worthwhile was that the $277K cash investment was made using a Google grant (free money!).
5. Guerilla Marke.ng
Guerilla Marke.ng This is a catchall phrase for all efforts to drive traffic to your website including link swaps, PR, social networking, blogger outreach, SEO and viral campaign efforts. Net Cost per Name ~ $.50 $200+ PROs: Good to develop long-term capacity and raises overall awareness builds foundation for quicker donor conversion and constant list-growth Can require less cash outlay with the right skills on staff Quality of names recruited can be higher than paid efforts Good campaigns can go viral with a perfect storm Once list is large, impact of guerilla campaigns can be increased greatly CONs: ROI is very low especially for smaller groups with no brand recognition Quantity of list-growth is low hard to drive consistent traffic sufficient for list-growth Extra effort put in social networks can be opportunity cost for cultivation of email list Very complex to manage effectively Requires tons of staff time and/ or outside consultant costs Requires excellent, interesting website and campaigns = time and money to accomplish
Social Network List growth Widgets
Fundraising in Social Networks?
What s possible? Save Darfur: 10 Days to $415,000 (hint: it wasn t through Facebook) Power of Email vs. Social Networks In June of 2007, M&R Strategic Services helped Save Darfur raise $415,000 via a 3 email series to about 1 Million supporters in 10 Days Over 1 year on Facebook Causes, Save Darfur raised $28,000 from nearly 1 million friends ~ that s about 3 cents per friend Very few cases of replicable, profitable campaigns on Social Networks when investing staff time (or arguably volunteer time) Nonprofits raised $3 Million on Facebook Causes in 2008, but at an estimated cost of $300 Million to sector
Now You Can Predict ROI from Social Networks! Social Networks Aren t Free For staff to spend 10 hrs/ week @ $10.00/ hour managing social networks (or interns) you can expect: a negative 75-95% ROI for fundraising $5.00 per email acquired $7.00 per action taken on emails acquired from social networks Run the numbers first! www.frogloop.com/social-networking-tips Email me for the calculator: justin@care2team.com
6. Co registra.on (Co reg)
Co registra.on (Co reg) Co reg is priced the same as CPL you pay per name. Usually not a high quality opeon unless site is targeted. Agree to receive emails from our partners usually means low quality because user does not see your brand. Net Cost per Name ~ $.01 $100.00+ (note that you might pay $.01 up front, but the effec.ve cost per ac.ve subscriber and donor ends up being much higher than other op.ons) PROs: High volume - lots of names of people who agreed to receive email Cheap CONs: Low quality (you get what you pay for) High risk that folks will not respond or report you for SPAM Quality and source of name not always known if buying from a network Context for recruitment may be irrelevant Net result may be negative due to poor response and danger of SPAM ratings
Email Appends (not really external list growth, but it feels good!) A good op'on for those nonprofits that already have a lot of supporters, but lack email addresses for those supporters Challenges, Costs: Ensuring that email addresses are valid Minimizing risk of being seen as spamming, poteneally alienaeng supporters and being blacklisted by ISP s Using double opt in approach is good Using a vendor with a strong reputaeon that will use only opt in email lists for matching, and bend over backwards to prevent unwanted subscripeons Staff Eme to select vendor; manage project; upload new consetuent records; and ongoing tracking
What s Possible? $50,000 $45,000 $40,000 $35,000 Total Online Dona.ons From Email Append (By Online Giu Type) Defenders of Wildlife and Email Appends $30,000 $25,000 $20,000 $15,000 $10,000 $5,000 $0 1 2 3 4 5 C4 PoliEcal DonaEons 6 Weeks Auer Append 7 8 C4 DonaEons 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Defenders spent ~ $10K in July 2008 to buy matching email addresses for 73K housefile records They recovered the $10K in one month, from online donations Some cannibalization from offline donations definitely occurred. Also, a hot, timely advocacy campaign, relating to the 2008 election, boosted fundraising results and accelerated payback Still, this was a very positive ROI (350% after 4 months)
Budget, List Growth Rate, List Quality High Quality Organic People Searching for your website ($) Targeted List Swaps ($) SEM ($-$$$) Viral Campaigns (priceless) Guerilla Marketing ($$ - $$$) Small Niche Community ($-$$) Large Targeted Community ($-$$) Canvassing/ Events ($$) General Portal ($-$$$) CPM Advertising ($$$) Low Quality Co-reg ($-$$$) Slow Growth (<1k/month) Page 52 Rapid Growth (>8k/month)
Tracking, Tracking, Tracking What does it take to make a paid promotion campaign work? There is no guarantee any one ad or landing page will perform to your satisfaction. Test and track results of ad images Test and track results ad content Test and track results landing pages Campaign Summary: Budget: $50,500 Actions: 2,483 Cost Per Action: $20.34 Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 53
Control Your Risk & Costs You can end up paying $105.63 or more for a single supporter. It s less risky to maximize sites that guarantee CPL pricing, first. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 54
Example of Media Buy Tracking (Fundraising Goal) Vendor Subscribers Donors Total Donations Avg Gift Donor Rate Cost Cost Per Suscriber Cost Per Donor Net Revenue Care2.com 85,267 3,051 $133,286 $44 3.58% $121,000 $1.60 $40 $12,286 Political Site 932 48 $6,735 $140 5.15% $1,800 $1.93 $38 $4,935 Socially- Minded Site 1,259 61 $2,450 $40 4.85% $1,575 $1.25 $26 $875 Search 371 9 $315 $35 2.43% $707 $1.91 $79 -$392 Blogs 173 20 $875 $44 11.56% $2,134 $12.34 $107 -$1,259 Political Site 3,545 39 $2,797 $72 1.10% $6,381 $1.80 $164 -$3,584 Socially- Minded Site 724 12 $600 $50 1.66% $4,379 $6.05 $365 -$3,779 Niche Site 2,540 12 $760 $63 0.47% $4,595 $1.81 $383 -$3,835 Ad Network 4,033 12 $590 $49 0.30% $7,275 $1.80 $606 -$6,685 Search 908 45 $766 $17 4.96% $9,000 $9.91 $200 -$8,234 Niche Site 702 34 $714 $21 4.84% $10,000 $14.25 $294 -$9,286 Ad Network 38,405 115 $5,653 $49 0.30% $30,000 $0.78 $261 -$24,347 Total/Avg 138,859 3,458 $155,541 $52 3.43% $198,846 $4.62 $213 -$43,305 Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 55
Media Buy Tracking (Advocacy Goal) Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 56
What s an Email Address Worth, Anyway? Annual Donations Health Enviro Public Affairs Animals ALL Year 1 $15.75 $2.59 $2.69 $6.99 $7.86 Year 2 $7.88 $1.30 $1.35 $3.50 $3.93 Year 3 $3.94 $0.65 $0.67 $1.75 $1.97 Year 4 $1.97 $0.32 $0.34 $0.87 $0.98 Average Lifetime Value Per Email $29.53 $4.86 $5.04 $13.11 $14.74 Source: Convio 2008 Benchmark Study of 400 nonprofits. Note that these figures assume that 50% of emails on each list become inactive each year.
Measure the Value of Your Email Addresses Email me for the assessment tool: justin@care2team.com
Email Cul.va.on and Fundraising Have a plan with goals. Ask. Don t Be Shy. Email once, twice, thrice Series of appeals will outperform a stand-alone appeal. Create landing pages that reflect the appeal. Test. Subject lines. Landing pages. Segment. Send messages based upon user profiles donor, activist, volunteer, etc. Follow-up. Send thank you email with results of fundraiser. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 59
Matching Giu Create a sense of urgency with deadline. Matching gift incentivizes giving. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 60
Personal Story Make it Real! Use a staff or member to tell their story about why the organization or campaign means so much to them. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 61
Where Does the Money Go? Be specific. Tell them what how their contribution with help. Support a family Buy a computer for our new staff Send a person to DC to lobby on issue Start a new program to protect at-risk youth Hire an organizer to target college kids Put an ad on TV Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 62
Reinforce Transparency Reinforce! Reinforce ask on fundraising landing page on your website. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 63
Hit While It s Hot Make the Case Take Action. If your supporters new or old have recently taken action on an important campaign it is a great time to ask for a donation on that issue. Headline News. If your issue is making headline news it is a great time to ask your online supporters to take make a donation and support the campaign. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 64
It s an Emergency Be prepared. You want to be ready to respond when tragedy strikes. You should be only a few steps away from hitting send to ask for help from your online supporters. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 65
Issue of the Day You Can t Pay for this Kind of Attention When your issue rolls off the tongues of everyone who talks about an issue (like the Olympics) there is no question if the timing is right ASK! Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 66
The Holidays Synchronize with the Calendar. It is often effective to tie alerts and fundraising appeals to holidays and current events. It makes your communications more relevant, and makes you more human and can be more fun. Look at your calendar and plan ahead. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 67
Got a Month? Making a Commitment Online fundraising has simplified the monthly giving process for donors. Turn $10 into $120. Monthly giving program is a great way to move your supporters to the next level of giving. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 68
Set a Goal Everyone loves a Challenge Providing your supporters with a goal helps create a sense of community and to understand their role motivating them to action. Setting a goal provides a great opportunity to create a series of appeals keeping users up to date on goal and urge them to help meet the challenge. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 69
The Stand Alone Single stand-alone appeals are an important component in any organizations online fundraising plan. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 70
The Series A series of appeals built around a campaign are a great strategy to boost donation. Series Opportunities Matching Gift Time Sensitive legislation End-of-year holidays Campaign activity such as placing ad Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 71
Subject Lines Write it First! Don t let your subject line be something you crafted on the fly after spending hours on your message. Pack a Punch. It s the first thing your supporters see. You ve only got a few moments to catch their attention so you want to make it good. Simultaneous Messaging. Most people read their emails in a preview pane so your subject line is and message are shown together. Test. Try a few subject lines to a segment of your list to see what performs best. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 72
Subject Lines A good subject line causes a psychological reaction. Personal/Touching Stories Create a Sense of Urgency Provocative Crisis Tease Funny/Clever Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 73
Who is it from? Together subject lines and from lines work together. Your subject line eneces someone to open the email. Your from line discourages your supporter from deleeng the email. You ve wri[en the email and subject line, but who sends the email? Consistency in from line and subject is important in building a relaeonship and for spam filters. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 74
Subject Line Tes.ng Test, Test, Test. The best way to find out if something works it to take it for a test drive. Split your list in half, in third or quarters and test different types of subject lines. Hit Send. Once you have the results send out the best performing to the remainder of your list. You ll want to carry the learning into future distributions. Results. A two percent difference in an open rate and translate into thousands of dollars. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 75
Benchmarks: Email Appeals Email Open Rates: 14.8% Email click through rates: 1.1% Email fundraising appeal response rate: 0.13% Avg. Giz: $87 Source: 2008 enonprofit Benchmarks Study Other benchmark studies can be found at: frogloop.com/benchmarks Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 76
Subject Line Test Defenders of Wildlife tested subject lines for their online fundraising appeal. Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 77
Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 78 Subject Line: Urgency
Subject Line: Provoca.ve Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 79
Subject Line: Clever Copyright 2008 Care2, Inc. All rights reserved 2/23/09 80
Measuring Value ROI Defined Investment ( I ) $ spent to buy ads from media outlets $ spent to design ad banners / creaeve $ spent to pay consultants $ spent to pay staff while they work on all of above Return ( R ) New email subscribers / members New donors / donaeons Traffic to your site, and branding impressions elsewhere Advocacy results (peeeon signatures / acevists) Viral ness: Are they tell a friend ers? InfluenEals? Volunteers? Formula = (Income Expenses)/Expenses
In Search of the I in ROI If I spent $1,000 to acquire 500 new names, I spent $2.00 per name, right? But what if 50 names have bad addresses; and 200 names unsubscribe within first 3 mo. Now I ve only got 250 names, so the real cost per name rises to 1,000/250 = $4.00 Now what if only half of these names are even opening my messages? Now I ve got only 125 aceve names, and the real cost per name rises to 1,000/125 = $8.00 Now what if only 10 percent (12) of these people click through, and only two of them actually donate? Then I paid $1,000 to buy two (2) donors, and my true cost ( Investment ) was $500 per donor.
Online Campaign Tips The Basics Try your own email lists and site before spending money on paid acquisi.on campaigns For outside sources, work with the ones you like and that have a relevant (i.e. targeted) community For most appeals, negoeate a CPA deal For urgent/high visibility appeals, negoeate a CPM deal Try to get a uniqueness guarantee, to avoid paying twice for the same name Get new ac.vists to take an ac.on before joining your list Spend.me customizing your message and landing page This increases likelihood of viralness Get as much data as they ll provide and at least these items: Name, E mail, Zipcode