Guest Blog: To make the most of digital, get offline and get real.

Get offline and get real

Many charities now see ‘digital’ in all its forms – websites, microsites, building email lists, placing content on all the social media platforms, creating video content, podcasts, memes etc - as the place to move your organisation’s investment in time, money and resources.

However, a mistaken mindset is to think digital is the new way of targeting people far more cost effectively. To think this way is totally missing the point. There is a real danger of a false economy.

Leveraging the power of Digital

To truly leverage digital, I’ve come to realise you also need to focus more on the real, offline, world. The non-digital stuff if you like. This is because digital communications, especially social media, give people a means to share something and talk about you. That’s its real strength. 

So instead of ‘how can we target people?’, you need to think ‘how can we give people something to talk about?’

Those talk about moments are just as likely to happen as a result of people to people interactions. It could be at an event to engage supporters, or it could simply be the interaction with your organisation when someone comes to visit your office, or how you deal with an inbound phone call. Of course, digital content can create talk about moments too (although this can often be as a result of capturing something off-line).

Give a great experience and people may well talk about you to their networks of family, friends, and colleagues. Someone talking about you in a good way to their contacts is better coming from them than it is from you. And the medium many will turn to is digital because it’s an easy way to share. Doing offline engagement poorly will also work against your digital strategy as a bad experience is also easily shared. Social media means word of mouth can now scale and ‘digital’ gives everyone a voice. That’s the point. It’s not just a means to target people. 

What sort of decisions will trustees, and senior leaders, make if the wrong mindset pervades? The danger is parts of the organisation that deliver ‘talk about’ moments and experiences may be cut back to allow more investment in ‘digital’. As a result, both will suffer.

Making the most of Digital

If you want to really make the most of digital, think about getting some basics right, and doing them brilliantly so people talk about you in a good way.

• Focus on creating moments and events that get talked about - that give plenty of opportunities for photographs and/or videos taken by participants having a memorable time and to capture content you can share. Simply give a powerful experience, and no doubt some will want to share how they felt. The Poppy Appeal is a great example of creating events and moments that people talk about.
  
  
• Invest time in dealing with inbound telephone calls that get people connected directly to other people, rather than going through an automated tech solution which puts you into what feels like an endless loop of "press 3 for this, press 4 for that”, driving callers to despair. I recently tried to call a national charity to tell them about an in-memory fundraiser for them and got stuck in an automated loop. I nearly gave-up, but my persistence paid off and eventually I spoke to someone (who was wonderful).
  
  
• What about how you respond to inbound @info emails? The moment someone presses send is the moment you have their attention. Every hour after that it starts to wane. I gather Anthony Nolan have a team that reviews inbound emails twice a day and seeks to get on the phone within hours to speak anyone who has emailed them hinting at fundraising for them.
  
  
• Think through what happens when you have a visitor to your office, even an unexpected one. Make it a good experience that they would talk about. At SolarAid we had a supporter who liked to drop in and write a cheque. We would offer him a cup to tea. Each visit the cheque got bigger – the last one I recall was £5,000. Not bad for cup of tea!
  
  
• Send people such a great thank you in the post, even if they give online, that they will want to stick it on their fridge or take a photo and share it on social media.

A CEO of a small charity, with just two staff including her, told me how a donor was so impressed with the handwritten thank you he received through the post he called the charity. With a small ‘team’ the CEO took the call. It turns out the donor was seeking a charity partner for his company and had donated to several charities he had researched online. His inspiring phone conversation with her confirmed his choice. The other charities, with standard 'thank-yous', or a bland phone manner didn’t get a look in. The partnership has turned into annual 5 figure amount.

In Summary 

I’m certainly not saying don’t invest in digital - far from it. But don’t just see it as pouring budget into pay per click advertising and cutting back on the real offline world. The two worlds are connected.

Adopt the right mindset, away from targeting people, to one that recognises everyone is now a channel, including your supporters. So, give them something good to talk about. Don’t be fooled and see digital just as a cheap response channel. It doesn’t just work like that. It’s a sharing channel, that has the power to connect people and build communities.

 

About the Author

Richard is a fundraising catalyst helping charities adapt their approach to fundraising.

As Chief Fundraiser for SolarAid Richard Turner used a different approach to fundraising using the principles outlined on his website. He has also shared his thoughts on the sector over this time through a regular blog.

Richard has been a professional fundraiser for 25 years, including Director of Fundraising for FARM-Africa and ActionAid UK for 5 years respectively. He has also worked as a fundraising consultant for 2 years at Cascaid and is currently an associate consultant with Alan Clayton Associates. 

In 2001 Richard was awarded Fundraiser of the Year by the Institute of Fundraising and FARM-Africa was awarded best 5-year fundraising strategy in 2002.

You can tweet Richard @ifundraiser