Personalizing your fundraising outreach

One of the best bloggers I know, Jeff Brooks of Donor Power, had some interesting data to share about his efforts to personalize newsletters.  I’d proposed that nonprofits write their newsletters specifically for the donor—for example, naming the newsletter “How Katya Has Helped X Organization.”  He hasn’t done the title like that before, but he has personalized by name in a number of ways, including in headlines (two steps ahead of moi, naturally).  Here’s what he says:

*The personalized newsletter didn’t do much for the large nonprofit he tried it with.  Results were slightly elevated over normal results, but not enough to cover the extra cost. 
*The approach seems to work better for smaller and localized organizations. 
*The approach works wonders for urban rescue missions.

Jeff has also experimented with a newsletter for high-dollar donors that not only used the donor name, but also gave different content (stories and photos) based on the donor preferences and giving history.  The impact on revenue was very good, but the costs were high.  The program was very time-consuming to manage, though.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that personalization is important even if you can’t pull off naming the newsletter after the donor.  Think of your donors as people, not ATMs, and write about what THEY care about.  It’s not about your programs, it’s about the difference your donors made.  Remember, they want to feel important.  That’s the kind of personalization we can’t do without.  And if you’re an urban rescue mission, try putting the donor’s name in the e-Newsletter title!

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What are you doing for your uber-activists?

One of my many faults is I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about what I haven’t done perfectly.  I think I’m in good company with this problem.  Do you:

1.) Spend a lot of time worrying about the donors who haven’t given to you lately

2.) Spend a lot of time worrying about how to get all your donors to give more or

2.) Spend a lot of time worrying about how to cultivate the donors and activists who are hard-core supporters

I think a lot of us do too much of #1 and #2 and not enough of #3.  Or we just send #3 people the same stuff we send to everyone else.  I know I get really obsessed with #1. 

That’s missing an opportunity. The third group of people deserve a separate outreach strategy that is well-considered, that is very appreciative and that gives them new and exciting ways to spread the word for you.

Blogger Mark Rovner just posted about a seminar by Seth Godin earlier this week, which we both attended.  It was devoted to “flipping the funnel,” or getting your supporters to spread the word for you.  Mark has a good summary of the concept in the post I highlight here, and he reminded me of #3 in a conversation we had recently.

I think the concept is a great match for the people in group #3.  Here’s what we’re finding with our Six Degrees person-to-person fundraising efforts: about 5% of folks fall into this category.  They are uber-activists.  Lots of people support you, but only a small portion wants to - AND is really good at - spreading the word and fundraising.  Those folks deserve very special treatment, not just lots of fundraising appeals from you.

Do something special for your uber-activists.  Put uber-activists in the spotlight.  Reward them.  Ask them what you can do to help them. 

In addition to saying this, by the way, I’m going to try to get better at it myself.  Just yesterday, we sent an email to people who created Six Degrees badges and gave them tips and resources for using their badges better.  The result?  Very high open rate and a big spike in donations.  Lesson learned.

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More on tagging

Here’s a great overview of tagging from Beth Kanter, including a screencast.  Beth focuses on how tagging and social bookmarking can be useful techniques for smaller nonprofits to easily share their information resources.

She notes,

The social aspect is a very important benefit. If you are skeptical, think about having 24/7 access to your co-workers, bosses or a subject matter expert’s bookmarks. Wouldn’t that be useful?

 

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Web usability tip: write for the audience

If there is one thing I say all the time, it’s that everything we do as marketers must be about our audience.  This extends to our choice of words.

Blogger Craig LeFebvre just alerted me to Alertbox, and after being generally fascinated by many posts there, I happened upon this post on web usability.  It’s a very, very good reference and worth signing up for.  The post says:

Familiar words spring to mind when users create their search queries. If your writing favors made-up terms over legacy words, users won’t find your site.

For example, a headline like the one that appeared in Variety on black Monday—Wall St. lays an egg —is bad in today’s world because people will be searching for things like “Wall Street” and “stocks.” 

That’s why straightforward names, headers and tagging are so important.  I named this blog nonprofitmarketingblog.com not because it was an exciting name but because it gets people here.

If you’re not up on tagging, which I find quite confusing myself, go here.  They helped me figure it out.

So did Ike of the Red Cross who says:

There are a number of ways you can post your del.icio.us links to your blog, providing an extra value for the sidebar.  But you don’t have to go with every single link you save.  You can use your tags to determine which will be displayed.  For instance, on my personal blog Occam’s RazR there is a list in the sidebar called “del.icio.us coolness”, which is simply the roll of links I think fit the theme of my site.  When I bookmark my links, I just add the tag “occam” if I want it to show in the blog, and my list is configured to filter my links for that keyword.  If you were to add a “Non-profit news headline” list to your page, you could do the same thing.  Tag the clippings with an appropriate category, and let the programming do the work for you.  You could even run several categories at a time, and tag them separately as “Fundraising”, “Scandals”, “Cool Ideas”, or whatever strikes your fancy.

I’m going to try it.

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More great info on nonprofit newsletters

The best thing about having a blog is all the brilliant people who read it.  The newsletter posts on this blog of recent days have generated a stream of really smart emails to both me and guest blogger Carey.  I’ve learned a lot from you, namely:

Ike Pigott, Communications & Gov’t Relations Director of the Southeast Service Area of the American Red Cross writes to point out:

Microsoft has made some severe changes in the Office 2007 package, which means that formatted e-mails like newsletters will be rendered in Microsoft Word instead of Internet Explorer.  This threatens to set back e-mail marketing by several years, as companies and NPOs will have to go back to clunky coding and ditch the pretty HTML layouts—which, by the way, made it far easier to personalize those newsletters as you had suggested in your recent post.

He points us to this, this and this for reference.  Thanks Ike!

Carey writes and says he got lots of visits and emails from you folks since he posted here and adds:

1) The lifetime value of an email address is 3-4 years. Think about it. Did you have the same email today that you did 4 years ago? Probably not.

2) Most people have between 3-4 email addresses. We have a work email. We have a home email. Others have a school email, a subscription email and others.

3) On average we obtain 1 new email address per year. It could be from starting a class, starting a new job, starting a new website or changing email providers.

4) CNN reports that 9 / 10 emails are now spam. So if you are toggling between 3 email accounts and deleting 90% of your email - you, and others, aren’t just inundated with spam we are flat out existed and frustrated by it.

He then advises:

YOU MUST DEVELOP A GAME PLAN STARTING RIGHT NOW ON HOW TO DEAL WITH THE CONFLICT OF DELIVERABLE ISSUES.

1) Follow my lead generation system. If you are not doing an OPT IN list you are going to be in a lot of trouble. I promise you. On the next page after sign up WALK THEM THROUGH how to white list your website. Finally, direct them to a thank you page after the opt in to keep them engaged.

2) YOU MUST start considering how to integrate audio and video into your email campaigns. Mark my words - if you delay too long on developing a well thought out and budgeted game plan your email list will be unresponsive because of the industry change that will be happening soon. Some are converting to video newsletters, or video lead generation sys ems that are small infomercial type news settings.

3) Start to keep an archive of your newsletters. If your viewers are not receiving your email you better give them a place to find your news. Also give them an easy contact box on that page that asks them if they are having problems receiving your newsletter so you can resolve it.

4) Focus on your Evangelical customers. The 20% that bring in 80% of your foundations revenue. These are your family members. These are your mavens. Love them!

5) The more you ask for interactivity on your website or newsletters the more responsive your viewer will be. Become the master of surveys. Engage your viewer or loose them forever.

6) Get everyone in your foundation involved. If you have a message board or a chatroom, dedicate time in there to answer questions or just to say hello. Let them know your position. “Hi this is Carey, the online marketing director, I just wanted to drop in to say hello. Are there any questions I can answer for you today?” They will start to become a novice of your site and start to act as moderators with out even knowing it.

7) Get out of the habit of only sending HTML emails. They are getting harder and harder to make it through the spam filter and there is an annoyance factor going with some who don’t know how to right click and view the image. Refer back to my notes above with exploring with audio and video.

8) You have to start focusing on the educated consumer. Email marketing is becoming very transparent. It is still early in the game. Create shock and surprise in your industry. I have some tricks up my sleeve that I will send you when testing is done.

9) Be bold. Implement my 5 minute rule. Start calling your donor right after they donate. If you could hear how excited they are to hear from us, you would have started yesterday. If you would like the script of the call we make, just email me, I will send it to you.

So there you have it.  Smart people.  If you have something smart to add, please comment or better yet, be a guest star with your own blog entry here.  I am always happy to turn the spotlight on you.

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3 ways to a better newsletter (or none at all)

I get about a dozen nonprofit newsletters a week, either via email or in snail-mail.  Most are so poor they aren’t worth reading, and for that reason, they weren’t worth writing.  There are notable exceptions, thanks to people like Kivi, who is hosting a carnival on the topic this week, but in general,  I feel about newsletters the same way I feel about most mission statements—nonprofits spend a whole lot of time on them, but no one much cares.  Newsletters?  Not so much.  So how do you become the dazzling exception?  Here are three suggestions.

1. Don’t do a newsletter, do something different.

People are inundated with newsletters, just like they are with wristbands and appeals with address labels.  Yawn.  So why not put your time and energy into something more unique and personalized?  Like a phone call from your staff five minutes after someone gives (see yesterday’s post), or journal entries from program beneficiaries? 

2. If you do a newsletter, write to the medium.

If you do a newsletter through the mail, fine, if it follows #3 on this list.  But if you are doing an electronic newsletter, you CANNOT simply take the format you would use in the mail and throw it into an email!  Write to the medium.  Online communications need to be shorter and formatted for the web.  You should not have to download a PDF and turn pages on your computer.  Grab attention with photos, short text, good stories. 

3. Make it about the donors and what they did—or whoever is your target audience.

The newsletter should not be about how great you are, it should make your donor feel important.  It should be about how great your donor (or audience member) is.  And it should do something for that audience - make them feel good about themselves, or, if you’re a membership organization, make their life easier.  Giving out information about your charity is not the same thing as making someone feel good!  I like what CARE does - they always start newsletters with a thank-you, although the last one I got was a little cold—“In fiscal year 2006, our generous and committed donors enabled CARE to reach 55 million people in 66 countries. The following are just a few glimpses of the difference your support has made over the past year.”  “Fiscal year” is not a warm and fuzzy word. 

I’m waiting for someone to make the newsletter so much about the donor that they use technology to insert the name of the donor in the newsletter title.  I’d be blown away with a newsletter called “How Katya has helped CARE,” for example, instead of being part of a good fiscal year.  Even if you don’t go that far, do everything you can to write to the audience and their interests.  That’s the key to a good newsletter, and the key to all marketing, always.  Consumers expect us to talk to them personally, and we have to deliver.

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Guest star blogger Carey Paris on how to double response rates

I was reading an email bulletin from nonprofit marketer Carey Paris saying some changes he’d made to a nonprofit web site increased donations by 62% and doubled the opt-in list.  So I thought I’d invite him to tell us how.  And he said yes.  Lucky for us.  Really lucky - this is a goldmine of good practices.  I especially like the five-minute rule at the end.  Read on!

careycliffhead

It is so important for non profit websites to focus on lead generation. As The Gilbert E-mail Manifesto states, “A website built around an email strategy is more valuable than a website built around itself.” I couldn’t agree more. It is the only true opportunity we have to build a stronger relationship with our viewers.  Here’s what we did for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation:

1) Placed live animation from LiveFaceOnWeb.com on our newsletter sign up page located here:
Click here to view

2) Reduced the number of form fields to sign up for our newsletter to lessen anxiety. Create a mini sales letter for newsletter sign up.

3) Bullet pointed the highlights of our newsletter.

4) After they submitted their information I added audio and text to make sure they checked their spam folder and looked for our confirmation link, and walked them through how to confirm their email. Click here to view

5) My favorite is the page after they click the confirmation page. I continue to build our relationship with them and thank them for signing up. Click here to view

6) To top it off I set up several autoresponders that welcome them to our website and ask them what we can do to help improve their experience on our website.

Our opt in list more than doubled!! Awesome!!

Opt In List Updates

Never forget that “QUALITY” is always better than “QUANTITY” in your list. If you do not have opt in or double opt in implemented, your open rate is suffering, and you could be violating spam laws.

1) I spent the past month mentioning in our newsletter that we were “scrubbing” our newsletter list for new CAN SPAM ACT laws, and asking our members to verify their email address to meet these standards. (What I was really doing was building a double opt in list of our members)

Our open rate increased by over 60%!

Here is a link to see the difference focusing on “QUALITY” rather than “Quantity”:

PROOF: Click here for results

Donation Page

The most important pages to all of us are the pages leading to the actual donation form. Are you taking advantage of these pages? You should! When they click that donate link you have 3 seconds to sell your foundation. What makes you different? Does your donation form cause anxiety? Do you take that final breath of air, that final approach to really reach out? How well do you say “Thank You” after the donation?

1) After a donation is made I recorded our COO giving a personal thank you for their donation.
Click here to view (Video of her speaking is coming up soon)

2) I created a unique value proposition on our website. We are different from other Alzheimer’s websites, but did our viewers know we were different? I created our UVP as: “The Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation Gives More of Your Dollar to Alzheimer’s Research.” and placed it directly above the donate link.
Click here to view

3) Our top awards are located directly next to a visual pie graph that shows the donor where their money is going and to instill confidence that the donation is making a difference.

4) Anyone who donates, randomly, I send them an automatic email that gives them a %50 OFF coupon to several of our affiliate partners. So we have seen some wonderful numbers on the back end from processing the donation and then the follow up affiliate commission sale.

5) There is now an exit traffic pop up on our donation page. If a viewer is on that page and decides to leave they will get a simple pop up that asks them to reconsider leaving with out donating. Some pop up blockers to block this… but it doesn’t bother me, yet. I have seen about 20 extra donations come from this exit pop up. Here is an example. Click this link, after the page loads, close the page and you “should” notice the pop up.
Click here to view

PROOF: Click here for results

Here is our biggest “secret” yet. We implemented a 5 minute rule with our donation department. We call every donor and tell them thank you within 5 minutes or less of their donation. We obtained 3 monthly donations this week alone from just a thank you call. That’s all we say. We didn’t ask for it. We said thank you and told them exactly where their money was going.

Was testing worth our time? You bet.

Above are examples of some of the small changes you might test on your own site. Don’t stop there!

Be Your Mission.

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Your donor wants to feel important

Here’s the most interesting (yet unsurprising) thing about our Six Degrees site:  people love it, and keep coming back to it, to see their own pictures and stories online.  Celebs might be the hook, but the audience’s own role is the sticky part.  People like to feel important.  They want to feel powerful.  They need to know they made a difference.

This is such an important perspective to keep in mind when you’re marketing to your supporters.

Here’s a really good comment to that effect from Tom Ahern in On Philanthropy today:

Donors aren’t ATM machines. I don’t think successful fundraising is about keeping the staff paid and the lights burning. It’s far more about giving your donors a vivid sense that they’re changing the world. It’s about recognizing that people want to feel important—something Carnegie learned from Sigmund Freud and philosopher John Dewey. And one way we feel important is when we feel we’ve made a difference, by making a gift to a terrific organization. I think fundraising’s real job is to give donors a powerful sense of accomplishment.

Yes, yes, yes.

 

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Hands up if you’re thinking of a new logo

  • Wed, February 07 2007
  • Filed under: Branding

A lot of energy goes into “rebranding” efforts, and not all that energy is going into the right place.  Before you “rebrand,” make sure you have identified the right problem to solve, and if rebranding is the solution to that problem, then do true “rebranding,” rather than simply changing your look with a new logo, organization name or website.  If you have an aging or dwindling donor base, problems articulating your unique value proposition or lackluster campaign results, you need more than cosmetics to change those facts.  As they say where I grew up, you can put lipstick on a pig, but that’s not going to make you want to kiss it.

As my branding friends say,

Most people see communications as the sun and branding as an outlying planet, but branding should be the center of the marketing solar system.  Your brand is about how you stand out, build relationships, win loyalty and inspire action.

That stand-out part has to be about more than color schemes.  Your organization’s whole programmatic approach - not just marketing - should reflect what your audience wants, what you’re good at, and what you do better than anyone else.  That’s what makes your nonprofit strong - and your brand a standout.

PS if you are redoing your logo - which is something you should only do if it’s in conflict with the essence of your brand, as far as I’m concerned—don’t choose clasped hands.  It’s been done already!

handscollage

 

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Three quick tips for membership organizations

I often get questions from membership organizations about how certain marketing principles apply to them - the benefit exchange, call to action, etc.  So, for any membership-based nonprofits out here, here are some useful questions to ask yourself and three quick tips for staying on track.

1.) Do your marketing materials (brochure, website, appeals, etc.) start by talking about what your organization does or what you do for the people who join?  Make it about your members, not you, and you’ll get more people to join. 

2.) When you talk about what you do for members, do you talk about process or results?  Are you talking about far-off goals like advocacy, policy, preserving the arts, etc. or immediate benefits like passage of a certain bill, help preparing taxes (check out AARP’s positioning this time of year) or great programs people can listen to now (NPR fund drives have this down pat!)?  Focus on the things you do for your members in there here and now, rather than lofty goals that may not be achieved in our lifetimes.

3.) Are you promising or are you previewing what membership gets you?  Don’t simply ask people to join—send them free resources, invite them to useful workshops or fun events, and prove you do something valuable for them.  Then hit them up for money. 

More to come…

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Worst web sites of 2006

I’m a big fan of websitesthatsuck.com, especially their annual hall of shame.  I go there when I feel depressed about my own web shortcomings - nothing like a dose of schadenfreude to brighten the spirit.

Here are just a few of the many useful lessons from the list of offenders this year:

1. Keep it clean and easy to read—busy is bad.

2. Have one, clear focal point (and, I’d add, one clear call to action) or else you’re making it very unpleasant for the visitor.  Don’t believe me?  Visit the Salt Institute (warning: take two Tylenol first).

3. Good navigation is essential and must be from the perspective of the audience, rather than your own.

I could go on and on, but they already did.  There are more than 100 more tips on their site—check out 148 Mortal Sins That Will Send Your Site to Web Design Hell.  Yikes, some of my work may be purgatory bound.  But at least I’m not the Salt Institute!

 

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Kevin Bacon may give your charity $10,000

Kevin Bacon is offering six, $10,0000 grants through SixDegrees.org, the site building on the popularity of the “small world phenomenon” to inspire giving to charities online. Through SixDegrees.org nonprofits and individuals can create charity badges to fundraise on their own web sites, blogs and AIM Pages.  The charities featured on the six badges that have the most number of donations between January 18th and March 31st at 11:59pm ET will get a matching grant of up to $10,000 each from Kevin Bacon. Simply create a Six Degrees Charity Badge and your nonprofit will be eligible for the grants.

So how do you get donations through your badge?  Here are some tips.  I also recommend reading anything on the topic by Beth Kanter, who is widget super-woman.  I’m not exaggerating - she raised $100,000 in three weeks with a charity badge. 

1. Build a Great Badge.

The best badges have a touching photo, a compelling and tangible reason to give, and a clear call to action.  Use the limited space on the badge to make a strong, authentic appeal rather than simply cutting and pasting a boilerplate mission statement.  The badge can be created by you and your organization, or you can ask a highly involved donor or board member to be the voice of the badge, with their thoughts on why people should support your nonprofit. Link to compelling video or online slide shows if you have them.

2. Donate to Your Own Badge.

People like to feel they are part of a larger effort.  It’s not inspiring to see zero donations on a badge, so donate to your own badge to get fundraising momentum started for your cause.

3.  Post the Badge on Your Site, Blog(s) and All Staff Email Signatures.

Put the badge on the home page of your website.  Tell people that their donations could help your nonprofit get a matching grant from Kevin Bacon and Six Degrees.  Do the same on your nonprofits’ blog(s), and post an entry about your efforts that encourages people to submit comments and ideas for getting the word out.  You can also put a link to the badge URL in your staff email signatures.  Put a photo in the signature that is hyperlinked to the URL to grab more attention.

4.  Send a Link to the Badge to People in Your Email Address Book.

Ask all staff to send the badge link to the people in their own email address books.  Ask for donations and encourage these contacts to forward your email to others.  Your professional and personal circle is most likely to support you.

5.  Promote to Your Donor and Volunteer Lists

Email your donors and volunteers, targeting the call to action to the level of supporter they are.  Ask occasional donors to simply give via the badge so your organization can receive a matching grant from Kevin Bacon.  For your steadiest, most enthusiastic supporters, ask them to post the badge on their email signatures, websites or blogs and encourage them to pass it on to their own friends and family.  As the grant deadline approaches, last minute reminders and appeals may be effective, especially if your organization is among the top fundraisers and close to qualifying for a grant.

6. Ask Bloggers to Join Your Cause.

Go to technorati.com and search for blogs that are focused on your issue.  Tell bloggers about your campaign and ask them to post on your efforts.  They have a circle of active readers who are likely to care about your campaign.

7. Take Your Cause (and Laptop) Everywhere.

Ask your closest supporters – staff, board members, friends – to bring a laptop to social events, church meetings or other gatherings when they can talk about your cause and ask people to donate on the spot.  Beth did this to great success.

8. Thank People and Report Back on Progress.

Use your Donation Tracking Report (https://www.networkforgood.org/Npo/reports) to monitor donations and thank people quickly.  Tell them the progress you’re making for your important cause, so they feel good about themselves and the difference you’re making together.

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More clutter-free marketing

Yesterday, I posted on techniques for cutting through communications clutter as part of a nonprofit marketing carnival.  Check out the full carnival here - it’s full of posts with great ideas and inspiration!

I especially agree with these folks:

R. Craig Lefebvre: “It’s no longer about getting attention, it’s about earning it. Once they find you, you have three seconds to engage them, or they’re lost - maybe forever.”

Nonprofits should be communicating with, rather than at, audiences, says Allison Fine. Focus on participation, not dissemination.

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Five steps to cutting through communications flash, floam and fluff

I recently posted on the floam factor - my invented term for the relentless and overpowering marketing machines that our little, underfunded nonprofits are up against.  This requires us to be especially nimble and creative in order to get our message out to peoples’ hearts and minds.  This week, I was asked by blogger buddy Nancy Schwartz to talk about engaging with audiences on overload as part of a nonprofit blogger carnival on the topic, so here are some more thoughts on surviving in a world of flash, floam and fluff.

1.  Leave the wristbands to Lance.

We have a herd marketing mentality in our sector, and, in our defense, commercial marketers do too (Dr. Pepper/Mr. Pibb, anyone?).  When one nonprofit has a breakout idea that creates a lot of buzz, many others imitate.  That’s why we have thousands of cause-related wristbands of every color of the rainbow.  The first - the LiveStrong band, and maybe the second, but only because it’s Bono and the ONE Campaign), are memorable as marketing concepts, but the rest are not.  The 100th wristband does not only fail to cut through the clutter, it adds to it.  So don’t spend your limited budget on also-ran, me-too ideas.  Get something no one else has, like a chicken suit.

2.  Keep the concept simple.

Convey one idea and ask for one action.  That’s it.  There is great complexity to your work and your issues, but the more you say, the more you dilute your message and the more people tune out.  It’s like telling your life story on a first date.  Yuck.  Check, please.  Once your audiences start supporting you or changing their behavior, over time, you can convey more nuanced information as you cultivate your relationship with that audience.  But not in a mass marketing campaign, ever.

3.  Hitch your wagon to a star.

Oh goody now I have an excuse to post another celeb photo from Sundance.

870659683109_0_BG

Seriously, we’re all underfunded nonprofits and so to cut through the clutter, we need to connect to someone or something that’s got more reach than we do.  At Network for Good, we tied the idea of charity badges to the Six Degrees idea everyone already knows - and a bunch of celebs.  But you don’t really need the celeb part to “hitch your wagon to a star.”  Hitching your wagon to a star really means simply connecting your cause to something already in the headlines - a news item, a crisis, an issue of the day.  If everyone’s attention is directed at something else, don’t despair - use it!  Show how you relate to what they’re already interested in.

4.  Seize the open-minded moment.

Get people in the moment they can actually listen to your message and take action.  This is one of the best-kept secrets of communications, sadly.  Do not feel you need a brochure or billboard or big budget to compete in this world—you don’t.  You just need to know the magic moment when your audience will be most receptive to your marketing message.  For Network for Good, it’s getting “how you can help” links next to online news stories during humanitarian crises.  It is not millions of banner ads on an average day.  The link gets someone in the open-minded moment.  The banner does not.  You could spend millions on a PSA campaign on radio telling people to get fit by taking the stairs, or, if you’re focused on open-minded moments, you’d do what you see below (thanks Craig LeFebvre!).  Special K clearly knows a thing or too not just about where to put boxes on the cereal aisle, but also where to plug physical activity.

special_k_stare_ways

5.  Take risks and fail.

The marketing campaigns that break through the clutter tend to be gutsy.  That means some level of risk.  Do all the safe stuff that already works, but also try something bold at least once a month.  Not all of it will work, but some of it will - really well.  And you don’t know if you don’t try.

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Sundance and celebrity

When I left for Sundance last week, I thought I’d have time to blog about it from Park City.  But we were so busy running around asking celebs to join Six Degrees and getting them to sign swag for charity, that it didn’t happen.  We were very pleased by the response (nothing like celebs to get the media to pay attention).  I can report that Jeremy Sisto and Heather Graham are especially stunning in person, not just outside but inside, since they were supportive of Six Degrees!  If you’re a Six Feet Under fan, you’ll be happy to hear Jeremy and Lili Taylor signed the same swag bag for charity.  But of course I’m the biggest fan of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick for all they’ve done to call attention to charity.  Here they are signing swag bags, which we’ll be auctioning off on eBay. 

signing

We spent the week in the EW Photo Studio, where Six Degrees partner Entertainment Weekly was taking photos of the casts of many of the Sundance films.  They kindly let us set up in their green room, where we met with the celebs and talked about Six Degrees while they were waiting to get photographed.  Tons of people were outside the studio hoping to get a glimpse of the action, and every time my colleagues and I stepped out on the balcony to check out the scene on the street, you could hear the collective sign of disappointment that we were not famous or glimpse-worthy.  Clearly they weren’t Robin Hood Marketing fans.  Here are the photogs mobbing the lovely Famke Janssen, (white beret) who signed a Six Degrees swag bag for us.

scrum

I also met P Diddy, who patiently agreed to my request to sign a bag for charity at the EW party.  (That’s Kevin Bacon’s back.)  When Diddy walked down Main Street earlier that day, he had a massive pack of fans and cameras tracking his every move. 

diddykatya

All the celebs we approached were willing to sign bags—just goes to show you they’re just like us.  If you make something easy and it has a reward, people will usually take action. 

I find it interesting to have had this celeb-extravaganza experience the same day research came out showing celebrities don’t much influence giving, but that the word of friends and family makes a big difference.  Our hope is the site will draw people because of the novelty of the celeb involvement, but that what will engage them is a chance to be a celebrity for their own cause, in their own circles, by asking people to support their own favorite charities.  We’ll see - so far we have good traffic and donations steadily ticking up. 

I invite comments and reactions from the smart folks out there.  It’s all a work in progress and feedback is a good thing.

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