Advertise for the charity of your choice

In MKT 798 last week, we stumbled across SocialVibe, a beta site that connects companies wanting to advertise with social media users. The goal? Earn donations for your favorite charity or cause. Turns out this is different than what our group assumed was the purpose of the site, but it still presents a unique opportunity for charities (including Chicago Tribune Charities) and companies alike.

Users are able to produce a "badge" through the site that they can then post to their MySpace, Facebook, or other social media pages. These badges then earn points which relate to the amount of money that's donated, and are based on the user's activity and influence among the network they're on.

Because the site's fairly new and without having actually tried it personally, it seems like a win-win situation: users can help out a charity without dipping into their own wallets, and companies get advertising exposure. Definitely something I'll be checking out for my own organization as well as using on my social networking profiles.

Below: SocialVibe Badge

Online vs. Print Marketing

My department just held its annual fundraiser last week in which we had over 150 people attend. It's a big deal for us given its revenue generation, and is probably our most widely marketed event all year. I'm now in the process of recapping the event, and making notes of things we should change for next year while it's still fresh in my mind.

One of my concerns is whether the ROI is there for our hard copy invitations we mail out. As you can imagine, the costs involved with designing a print piece, printing, and postage are anything but cheap. We also heavily marketed the fundraiser online via email blasts, our blog, social media outlets, etc.

When all is said and done, we are only aware of 2 registrations that we received from the mailed invitation (attendees are asked to answer how they heard about the event at the time of registration). My first reaction is that the mailer wasn't the best investment/use of marketing dollars, but I have to remind myself of a few things:

1. While most people selected that they heard about the event online, they may have received an invitation which reinforced the original message, or reminded them to register.
2. Until I get a chance to compare our registration list to our mailing database, it's hard to justify my original assumption.
3. If it turns out that our registrations were mostly from people who would not have received the mailed invitation at all, then it may be wise to reconsider doing a mailing for next year.
   

My main quesiton moving forward, however, is if most registrants did in fact receive the mailer but listed "online" as the source, how can we justify (one way or the other) spending money on that campaign?

Online Privacy & Marketing: Can Balance Exist?

My management memo this week featured an article on Google that highlights the scope of information they collect from users, and how that data is being used. Google has developed quite the portfolio when it comes to collecting customer information, and what may/may not be scary to users is that their technologies are becoming even more sophisticated.

This led me to the question: So how do marketers achieve the right balance between highly targeted campaigns, and maintaining customer privacy? Does such a balance even exist? Most internet users understand that the “free” online services they use will almost always come with a cost, which is usually sacrificing some sort of degree of personal privacy. It’s how these businesses make their money, after all, and most individuals are willing to give that up to a certain degree for the sake of convenience and other benefits. It’s very much a give-and-take relationship.

This dilemma can be applied to nonprofit organizations as well, including Chicago Tribune Charities. Once they begin collecting user email addresses on a regular basis and executing online campaigns, how will their donors react? Sure, email solicitations are used all the time, but this particular userbase previously hasn't been exposed to this type of communication from CTC.

More than likely, it'll take some trial and error to figure out the appropriate balance, and getting stakeholder feedback will be critical. There are always trade-offs with trying new marketing campaigns, but hopefully the ROI will make up for any negative feedback they might receive.

Cost-effective marketing

Working for a non-profit, I can relate to what it means to have a "tight" budget, limited staff, and the need to still produce consistent results. It was because of these reasons I was surprised to learn that Chicago Tribune Charities mainly markets its holiday campaign through print advertising and mailings - both of which are fairly expensive when compared to the costs of internet marketing which are minimal at best.

It may take some time to build an email database of past donors and prospects, but once its in place you can immediately begin sending out email campaigns for little/no cost and track the results.

The argument can be made that mailings produce results, so it’s still worth having those campaigns because of its ROI. It may take some trial and error, but once email campaigns start being executed, you can analyze how your database responds to online solicitations vs. mailings.