Where are you hiding yours…?

One thing I’ve done as part of this “experiment” is go to the websites of the UK’s leading charities and sign up for email newsletters. Sounds simple? It’s not – it’s incredibly difficult. It seems like many charities are trying to hide their email newsletters. Are they ashamed?

Here are some highlights:

• CRUK – couldn’t find where to sign up
• Macmillian – took about 3 minutes to find the form, was squirrled away behind a small link on fundraising page
• RSPCA – no idea where it is
• NSPCC – no idea either

And then there were sites that made the sign up process difficult

• BHF – link hidden under multimedia under events, tried to sign up, asked to register for the website, went through the site registration process and then asked to sign up for an event, had to navigate myself back to the email sign up form
• National Trust – 2 data protection opt-ins. One for National Trust, one for NT Enterprises. This is only explained when you fail to select the check box, but it still seems very salesy (find out about our credit card). This is really confusing and I’m sure some will give up.

There was one good one, Marie Curie – simply sign posted from the home page and a quick and easy form. Shame this is such a rarity!

I’m sorry CAF, but you’ve been rubbish

Many smaller charities rely on third parties like CAF to provide an important donor servicing function in setting up and processing Direct Debits. But are charities checking that they’re getting value for money from these services? My recent experience suggests maybe not.

A week ago I set up a DD with a small charity on their website. I was taken to the CAF site and filled out my details and ticked the gift aid box. I then got 2 automatically generated emails – one confirming receipt of the DD and the other confirming my gift aid. The gift aid email thanked me for setting up gift aid but it also informed me that my gift aid money would be going to help Bournemouth University. Whilst I have nothing against Bournemouth University, I certianly would have prefered my gift aid to go to the charity I support. I complained to CAF and the charity. Only the charity responded and after speaking to CAF told me it was an administrative error.

Then, a few days ago, I got written confirmation of my DD. But it came in an MSF envelope. Thinking it was junk mail, I almost put it straight in the recycling. I’ve complained again, and no doubt this will be down to an admin error too.

Working in the sector, I’m aware of the relationship the charity has with CAF, so I’m not blaming them for these problems. But how many of the public would understand these set ups? Plus how many would be so understanding?

But my real point is about getting value from third party suppliers. If you’re paying for a service, you have a right to demand a certian level of service. Just because you’re a smaller organisation doesn’t mean you shouldn’t demand less than first rate. Regularly check your third parties, ask your donors what you think of their experiences, ask the organisation you’re buying services off to provide reports on their performance.

“Admin” issues are really important in donor experience and shouldn’t be ignored.

Saying thank you (2 of 2)

Wispa Thank you press ad

Someone else who’s saying thank you in an interesting way at the moment is Wispa. They are running a series of press ads which thank their audience for getting involved and buying Wispa over the past year.

I think this is really interesting. Wispa was brought back to the life after a ground swell of activity on the social web. They’re now recognising this love in a national press campaign.

Saying thank you is really important and it’s something brands don’t do enough of. Especially those “prom king” brands that can engage and motivate people to go the extra mile – like Wispa. If more brands took the time to build relationships in this way then many would find themselves in a stronger position.

Should charities be worried? If Wispa are taking more time over the stewardship of their relationships and brand capital charities are going to be increasingly compared to these big players. With an increasingly fickle audience more focused around experience coming along people are going to want to spend more time with those brands that recognise their investment of time, money and interest and make them feel valued. If this is a chocolate bar then charities are going to find it more difficult to engage.

Charities need to get their stewardship programmes in order now to prevent this from happening.

Picture from Nick Butcher.

Saying thank you (1 of 2)

The first of two posts about great thank yous I’ve seen recently.

I really like this thank you by the Canadian blood donation service. Called “thank your donor” it is a way for people who have received blood transfusions, bone marrow, or steam cells to thank the anonamous donors who gave their blood and therefore gave the recipient the opportunity for life.

We all know how important saying thank you is, but so often this is from the charity. A middle man saying thank you on someone else’s behalf. Connecting the beneficiary and the donor so that the thanks can be heartfelt, genuine and direct makes the thank you that much more powerful. This is surely going to get repeat donations from current donors.

And doing it in a public way, like the Canadian Blood Service has done is a great way to motivate a cold audience to action. After reading the stories, who cannot understand, in a real and human way, how important blood donation is?

Even though we’re talking about blood here, the principles still hold true for charities (and brands) as a whole. The web allows us to connect donor and beneficiary and is ideal for people seperated by space and time. I’m sure most charities could find a way to apply this principle to their activities.

Computer Tan

Computer Tan is a campaign by Skcin to raise awareness of the dangers of skin cancer.

The viral has had a lot of hits and has driven a lot of traffic to the microsite so it seem like people were suckered by it.

It is well executed and seems like a great execution for the target audience – people who think that there is a quick fix for a tan are very likely to be sucked in by this and are probably the kind of people who end up bright red on a beach in Spain.

But a couple of things niggle.

Why isn’t the mobile app ready for the campaign? Brand Republic say that this is a limited campaign before a big reveal – though their cover has been blown by an article in the Sun. So why isn’t an app ready for the 2 week campaign window? This would have been a great hook and a good way to get the message out there, especially if you could send it on to a friend. This just seems sloppy.

Secondly, the video on the microsite took ages to load and I’m on a fast connection. Annoying.

Thirdly, how did this tiny, unknown charity get to work with a big agency and get loads of (presumibly free) media space? Having worked for a small organisation I know how difficult it is to make an noise and get impact. This is just envy though!

Photosynth

I’ve been playing around with Photosynth. I took some shots of my bedroom. I thought that it had enough distinctive features in it so that Photosynth can get to grips with everything and piece the pictures together.

Here’s what I came up with:

As you can see, it doesn’t all quite work. Don’t get me wrong, i think this is incredible. And I love the TED talk. But I was a little disappointed.

Oh well, I’m sure this will be amazing soon!

Can we get some Barack over here?

Labour have launched their attempts to engage people online with a blog called Labour List. There’s a good piece on it on Channel 4 news which featured former spin-doctor Derek Draper.

The question was put – can we have Obama-style fundraising in politics in the UK? It was the opinion of Tim Montgomery, editor of Conservative Home – the Tory blog – that it was the funding system that prevented this. Big donors (fat cats for Tories, Unions for Labour and who knows for the Lib Dems) mean that parties don’t have to fundraise on mass. For him it was a question of not enough push factors.

But I disagree. I think the UK context is different for a few reasons. Firstly, we’re a party-based system where as the US presidential race is a system based on personalities. The product is the individual – and during the election they need your help. If you believe in them then you need to help them. In the UK, to get the PM you also need to support the party and elect your local MP, which is a very different kettle of fish.

Secondly, you need the right product at the right time. Change was needed and Obama was the charismatic individual at the right time to take advantage of this. He was a person that people were willing to get behind. Can we say the same of UK politicians?

Thirdly, donations were only one of the ways that people could get involved. Most importantly engagement was key. Campaigning, rallies, blogging, member get member, all other activities were ranked and scored on mybarackobama.com. Also, money that your friends gave added to your rating. People were made into multipliers. It was this wholistic approach to engagement that made the fundraising campaign a success.

It’s too easy for journalists and commentators to ask why UK political parties aren’t emulating the success of Obama’s campaign and imply that UK parities are falling short. UK parities need to get to grips with the digital audience here on their own terms. There’s potential – they just need to tap it.

Hello

Welcome to my blog about digital media and marketing. It’s more a place for me to share stuff and formulate half-thought things before I forget them, but I hope that I’ll occassionally say something that’ll interest people.

I’ve been blogging and commenting in lots of different places so I’m going to kick off by slowly moving some of my past posts across to here – as well as trying to jazz up the template a bit.

Wish me luck!