A campaign from ‘beginning to end’Ghazal VaghediFebruary 21, 2012Toronto, Canada

Overview of running a campaign A to Z

• Before the software comes strategy• Decide the flow and structure• Segment your database• Build and design your donation and/or advocacy pages• Create your email• Launch your email campaign • Launch campaign using widgets across the social web• Evaluate and measure your results

Campaign strategyBefore implementation comes strategy•Determine your goals

How much money do you want to raise?How many people do you want to

participate in your advocacy appeal?What kind of policy outcome are you

hoping for?•Determine your marketing plan •Brand your campaign •Determine your audience

Flow and Structure

Visualize from supporter perspective

Email

landing page(how many steps to completion?)

where does the supporter go after completing your ask (lots of

options: re-direct to EAF redirect to donation page or static page?)

Remember:

•The less steps the greater the chances for completion

•For donation pages, create two column formats for better visual appeal

•Decide strategically for certain segments if they should be redirected to a specific location (donation ask?)

Segment your databaseWho is your audience?•Consider steering away from generic messaging for everyone in your database•Use profiles and conditional content on outbound email and landing pages for better conversion•Test your database

•Donor levels should match specific asks--a historically high level donor should never get an ask that is below their previous giving level

•Bottom line: it all starts with segmenting your database which leads to targeted messaging and more personalized communication, which yields to higher levels of engagement

Remember:Profiling is key to targeting and hence the *channel*: creating supporter profiles will help you target different audiences in different channels more effectively. For example, your fundraising email list versus your Facebook page versus your direct mail—three different channels translates to three different communication tactics.

Create your campaign pages

• For donations and advocacy – always 2 step process of build and design

• Personalize content – helps build a stronger supporter community and loyalty

• Customize – relates to structure. Helps to create a more positive supporter journey

Remember:•Add social tags to your pages to encourage sharing•Create unique tracking values (e.g. FB, twitter)•Thank your supporter to make the journey full circle•Use DUPLICATE feature to save time •Use display widgets

Create your email• Create an HTML email with

visually appealing branding

• Creating a good email is a lot about understanding what will work with your audience

• Personalize with dynamic content

• Track all links and images

• Load plain text and clean up

• Split test to see what is working

Remember:•Use salutation feature when you don’t have everyone’s data for personalization•Check out Buzz Maven for best email marketing tips:http://www.buzzmaven.com/services/supplementary-services/email-campaigns-outsourcing/email-marketing-checklist-best-practices

Launch your email campaign

• SEND your email • Select sender• Use list builder to determine segments or use

profiles• Always preview your email before sending• Schedule your email or send right away

Launch your campaign with widgetsCreate a widget for any number of your campaign pages and embed in social networks and create data formats compatible for mobile devices

For an issue focused appeal, specially when the issue is making front page news, it's important to be as portable with your appeals as possible---aids in lowering the barrier to support

Widgets allow you to take your appeal to donors where they are instead of asking them to come to you

With the rise of social networks and increasing reliance on mobile devices, studies are showing a consistent decline in orgs website traffic

Evaluate and measure your resultsSocial media experts say:

"you must measure, listen, and adapt"

•Create tracking links for all your pages

•Review your reports for email appeals to measure:

•Performance (click throughs, what worked in your email?)

•Conversions for donation landing pages

•Measuring what works, will tell you what you will need to adapt

•Always listen to what works for you and what works against you

•Always clean up your list based on bounces

Questions?