Fundraising and the 4 P’s of Marketing

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It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about chewing gum or feeding the hungry; the principles of good marketing remain the same. But how you apply those principles to the fundraising arena will affect results.

One of the fundamentals of traditional marketing is the four P’s – Product, Place, Price and Promotion. In very simple terms - develop the right product for the right target; develop the location that will be most conducive to sales; price it effectively; promote it strategically and presto, you have marketing success. More importantly, the combination of how each of these is applied represents an opportunity to truly stand out from your competitors.

Applying the four P’s to the world of fundraising requires some consideration. Here’s my take.

Product – First you have to understand that the product you are marketing is not the cause, the institution or the organization for which funds are being raised.  The product is the impact fundraised dollars will have. The product is what the donor will feel when she or he makes a contribution. The product is the relationship that will ensue. If you are marketing a fundraising opportunity, you are selling a dream, a vision, a sense of satisfaction, and the ability for an individual to make a difference. There’s no question that the credibility and capacity of the organization are key ingredients in your ability to deliver that product. But your focus is the exchange with the donor and the unique opportunity that it can provide.

Place – You want to think about where the donor will be when making a giving decision. For new donors, that may be in their home or their office. Is it reading a letter or looking at something online? Put yourself in the shoes of a donor - in that place - and think about what would make you give. If you’re using an email or mobile campaign, you have to consider the possibility that prospective donors are on a subway, in their car or walking down the street. That’s going to take a quick and powerful pitch to promote action.  Another approach is to use images and video to transport the donor from wherever they are to where you need them to be.

Price – The way in which a product is priced makes a huge statement about that product. A $1000 a plate gala invitation makes a very different statement than a $5 point of sale opportunity. You want to make sure you have the right giving options for the right target. Think about who your donors are  – whether that’s for the whole organization or a particular campaign – and make sure the giving levels are aligned. This also means the array of options should be different online than it is for direct mail and even different for different segments. The most important consideration is what will your donor feel when he or she sees the giving level being requested.

Promotion – Your website, print collateral, letters and advertising have to take all that is unique in the points above and tell donors the stories that set you apart. Your material cannot not look or sound like the stuff from every other organization. Find the essence of what makes you different and transform it into something that is not only easily communicated but that is talkable – so that people can easily talk, tweet and email about it. This could be a great thank you video or a unique website design or an effective tagline. You can search the web and will find lots of examples. But remember your aim is not to copy what others have done but rather be inspired to find the means of effectively distinguishing your giving opportunity.

Whether you’re a marketing specialist, a fundraiser or a volunteer solicitor, using the four P’s effectively will improve results.

That’s my interpretation of how to apply the four P’s to fundraising but I’m sure others have different opinions. Please share yours by commenting below.

Should we focus on donors – or users?

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In a fascinating post yesterday on Duct Tape Marketing, John Jantsch presents a podcast with Aaron Shapiro who has written a book called Users Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business.

As you probably figured out already his premise is that the experience that users have on a website and interacting online with that business are as worthy of attention as those who actually buy. Those who find the interaction satisfying and valuable will share those feelings online and the collateral benefit will generate future business. Using the example of Nike’s tag application, he says that forward thinking companies provide users with the tools to share that experience.

Using his premise, Shapiro says that companies shouldn’t be measuring conversion rates but rather compiling user satisfaction analytics.

So, as it relates to the fundraising sector, the question becomes are users more important than donors? Can improving the quality of the experience that someone has on your site or interacting online with your organization (whether or not that person ultimately becomes a donor) lead to increased donations? And if that’s true, should your website and online strategy be focused less on leading people to the donate now button and more on providing unique and useful experiences that people might want to share?

Not an easy question as is illustrated by two recent posts by prominent fundraising bloggers.

In detailing the online strategy of the Humane Society of United States, Beth Kanter asks When Is One Million Fans on Facebook Worth More Than A Million Bucks? In the end, she doesn’t answer the essential question. Can HSUS correlate a million Facebook fans with an additional million dollars in donations? But, her take is clearly that the visitor and online interaction surrounding HSUS’s 1 million fans campaign will lead to increased donations.

Tom Belford writing this morning in The Agitator isn’t so sure. As he sees it the HSUS campaign increases activism but not necessarily fundraising.

The empirical always has to come first. Is there any data that directly links increased online interaction and positive online presence to increased donations? Without those numbers, it could be hard to justify shifting resources to concentrate on the user as opposed to the donor.

Intuitively however, my sense is that Shapiro and Kanter are right. Clearly the way you choose to approach this issue has a lot to do with the size of your annual marketing budget (a point also made in The Agitator post). However, there is no reason not to take another look at your site and see if you can improve the visitor (who is not necessarily a donor) experience. And minimally, you may want to at least find out what is being said about your organization online.

I have some detailed ideas on what can be done – even on limited budgets – that I’ll share in my next post.

In the meantime, what do you think? Should we focus more on the user or the donor?

Content Trumps Design

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When it comes to any e-communication, content trumps design every time. As a lover of design and someone who has earned his living providing design services, it pains me to have come to that conclusion but I believe it is undeniable.

I am talking about the full gamut of e-communication from websites to e-newsletters to social networking applications. In every case, if the content isn't valuable - if it doesn't inform, entertain, inspire, or somehow engage the reader/visitor/follower, design - even good design - cannot save it.

Proof of this abounds. Many of us still receive text based e-newsletters that we read every time because the content is valuable. The most watched You Tube items are often shaky, amateur video. Blogs, almost by definition, succeed or fail on the basis of their content. And, there is little room for design in a 140 word Tweet. Even as it relates to websites, where good design is probably most important, content is king. People look at sites quickly, scanning for the essential information. What's this organization (cause) all about? What do they do? Am I interested? You've probably noticed that Flash introductions are being used much less often and that the trend is to cleaner, less complicated layouts. In the extreme I would contend that a badly designed website with great content will get more traffic and achieve more than the converse.

To be clear, content is not just narrative copy. It includes video, images, testimonials, links and perhaps even embedded applications.

All of this is not to say that design is unimportant. Perhaps, it just better defines the role of design in these applications which is to make it easier and more likely for the reader to absorb the content. Good web and other e-design puts the content on a pedestal.

What are the practical implications? When developing an e-application whether its the website, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel or a blog, before you call in the design team, think about content first. In particular:

• Does it make the organizational MVP (Mission, Values, Philosophy) clear? Even better, does it provide a sense of direction or movement? Does it make the aspirational inspirational?

• Is it organized intuitively so that it's easy for the reader to see what's available and navigate easily.

• Finally, does it guide the visitor where you want him or her to go? That could mean making a donation, providing information, adding their name to a petition or printing a document. Make sure the content is driving the goals you have established for your e-application.

If you recognize the true superiority of content over design and apportion resources accordingly, there is no doubt you will make your fundraising marketing work better.

The Whys of your Web Presence

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A recent study about why people use the internet says a ton about how you should be developing your organization’s web presence. Ruder Finn’s Intent Index asked 500 internet users why they go on line, providing them with a list of 295 possible reasons.

And the results? 100% - everyone - uses the internet to pass time. Some of the others in the top ten - educate, connect, share, research, be entertained, be informed. And those reasons that you might think are most related to fundraising? Join a cause - 26%, sign up for e-mail list for causes/organizations - 23% and get this - donate money to a cause - 12%.

So what does that tell you? People clearly aren’t going on line to make a donation. If you want to attract people to your cause, you’re going to have to satisfy their needs and provide opportunities to educate, connect, share and maybe even entertain.

For many of us this study simply corroborates what we have been saying for a long time. To have a successful web presence you need to:

• Create community - provide forums for people to share information and experiences, to tell their stories, to meet other people, to help other people. This can be done directly on your site or through the use of Facebook or other social media applications.

• Create value - give people a reason to come to your site. Provide useful information, an opportunity to ask questions, photos, videos and maybe even a little humour.

In the end it’s all about taking a customer (prospective donor)-centred perspective and thinking about the whys before the whats.

Does Less Choice Create More Success?

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Consumers want choices – lots of co choices, right? Maybe not. According to a recent blog by marketing/motivation guru Scott Ginsberg, that may not be true. Other than reassuring me that I’m not the only one who suffers a kind of paralysis when standing in front 50 different cold medicines at the pharmacy, it made me think about how this notion of less choice can be applied to fundraising marketing.

Scott’s blog references a study on choice saturation conducted at the University of Minnesota and offers this quote from one of the researchers. “While mulling over a few options may weigh heavily on your mind, finally choosing one may just plain wear you out.” The study’s conclusion was that the simple act of choosing caused mental fatigue.

There is something that intuitively rings true about these findings. Too many of us have had a moment in the cereal aisle or staring at the fast food menu or ordering coffee or roaming the aisles of our local video store. And what happens when it’s something we’re not committed to buying. Does “choice anxiety” actually get in the way of making a sale? Maybe less is more powerful when it comes to choices.

We offer prospective donors the option of annual funds, endowment funds, capital campaigns, planned giving (with all its options) and various individual projects to support. And while the notion of allowing donors to find the giving opportunity that is most meaningful remains sound, perhaps it's all a little overwhelming. We need to find a way to capitalize on the donor's interest while not driving them away with too many choices. Here’s a couple of ways that you may be able to bridge the gap:

• Create a simple, uncluttered landing page for the ‘Support” section of your website that presents a very compelling (which means very visual) and succinct case for giving and offers the donor only two choices. One is “I would like to support ABC organization. Please contact me.” The second is “click here to discover the many ways you can support ABC Organization.” The second option would take donors to the full “Support” section.

• Create a campaign that has only one available donation amount. Make it an amount that is accessible to a broad range of supporters and make the ask very simple. Yes, you may leave some money on the table but if through its simplicity, the campaign allows you to connect with new donors, it’s a success.

There are lots of other ways of using this approach but in keeping with the subject matter I certainly didn’t want to offer too many choices.

Maybe the “simple” mode is a way of zigging while everyone else zags and cutting through all the clutter that confronts donors.