Posts Tagged ‘results’
Monday, April 15th, 2013
For effective planned giving marketing, you really should be keeping track of your metrics. That’s because it’s not like traditional fundraising. You can’t send out a letter and count the dollars 6 weeks later. It just doesn’t work the same way.
I’ve seen some foolish things in planned giving marketing. But one of the worst mistakes you can make is to look at immediate revenue as your number one metric. Instead, since planned giving marketing involves a long-term fundraising strategy, you really need to measure “activities”… not dollars.
This has been proven effective in the private sector for enterprise-level sales (and you better believe that planned giving is an enterprise-level sale) where the best sales managers and marketing directors know that you shouldn’t only measure outcomes. Rather, you should measure activities. If the activities are happening and the numbers are going in the right direction, the revenue WILL follow. It works every time without fail.
Here are the activities we recommend you measure for effective long-term planned giving marketing:
1- Lead generation and disclosures
- Number of leads generated
- Cost per lead generated
- Number of highly qualified leads generated
- Cost per highly qualified lead generated
- Number of disclosures generated
- Cost per disclosure generated
2- Awareness/reached Number of people reached with planned giving messages in the following:
- Publications including magazines, newspapers, newsletters, etc.
- Inserts in acknowledgements
- Facebook posts
- Banners or posters
- Etc.
3- Cultivation numbers Number of people nurtured with on-going messages multiplied by the frequency of those messages via:
- Telephone calls
- Personalized letters
- Personalized emails
- Marketing automation emails
- Face-to-face visits
- Proposals written
- Proposals properly presented
4- Engagements With the right software, you can now track individual prospect engagement with your organization online including:
- Number of times visiting your website
- Number of clicks on that website
- Where were the clicks (what topics)
- How long did they spend online (on average)
- Number of cultivation emails opened
- Number of clicks on cultivation emails
Tags: marketing, marketing metrics, Planned Giving, Planned Giving Marketing, results, smart, strategy
Posted in Fundraising, Goal setting, lead generation, marketing, Multi-channel marketing, Philosophy/motivation, Planned Giving, Planned giving, Planned Giving Marketing, strategy, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
Between 2000 and 2050 $12 trillion is expected to go to charity in the form of bequests.
That’s $12 TRILLION!
Or, 12,000 X ONE BILLION.
Imagine a pile of a billion dollars. Now imagine 12,000. Hard to do, huh?
Here’s some help thanks to Susan DameGreene’s website. A six inch pile of $1,000 bills equals $1 million dollars. Stack those piles as high as the Washington Monument and you get $1 trillion dollars. So you’d need twelve of those to envision $12 trillion dollars.
Got that?
All that is going to charity. But how much will go to your charity? Now— that depends on how much time and effort you spend promoting planned giving.
Tags: Direct Marketing, philosophy, Planned Giving, Planned Giving Marketing, results, strategy
Posted in marketing, Philosophy/motivation, Planned Giving, strategy | 2 Comments »
Friday, August 24th, 2012
Do you use big words when you talk about your marketing campaigns? Do people have mystified looks on their faces when you discuss things like “value propositions” and “opportunity enhancement”?
Do your marketing materials look really nice? Especially on the wall? In a frame?
Are your designs hard to read because you think reverse type looks so darn nifty?
Are you constantly frustrated and have a hard time understanding why nobody else “gets it”?
Do your messages only make sense to you and your designer?
Do you find yourself working hard to convince others that your marketing works but you have no real-world results to support your claims?
If any of the above are true, you might be an enlightened marketer. But don’t worry. You can change.
Nalts does a good job showing us what to look out for here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH9vcZO9SKw
Tags: marketing, results
Posted in marketing | No Comments »
Sunday, August 5th, 2012
The following chart shows the age breakdown for the leads we generated and gifts we uncovered for one of our clients.
It’s interesting that there are quite a good number of 25-54 year old respondents interested in planned giving estate planning information. Furthermore, it’s also interesting that there are quite a number of 65+ respondents.
How did we get this information?
We sent out about 300,000 emails over the course of the year and generated about 3,500 requests for information. Among the requests, many asked us to email the information to them. We took those emails and appended age data to them. Only a certain percentage of those emails had age data available. The chart above shows what we found.
Time to think again?
If you want to generate leads and find “hidden” planned gifts, email marketing works.
If you think that the responses you get will only come from younger donors, you might want to think again.
Tags: Email, lead generation, leads, marketing, Planned Giving, Planned Giving Marketing, results
Posted in Email, Planned Giving, Planned giving, Planned Giving Marketing | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, August 1st, 2012
After sending out hundreds of thousands of mailers and emails on behalf our our clients, running ads in their magazines and providing a whole bunch of other ways to generate leads over the past couple of years…. I am pleased to present the following charts.
Any surprises here?
Tags: Direct Marketing, lead generation, leads, Planned Giving, Planned Giving Marketing, results
Posted in lead generation, marketing, Multi-channel marketing, Planned Giving, Planned giving, Planned Giving Marketing | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012
Everyone gets a rope.
Some are shorter than others. Some are thicker than others. Some have notches. And others are a little bit slippery.
Each of us has a choice.
You can either climb up the rope, dangle on it, or hang yourself with it.
What have you chosen to do?
Just imagine what the world would be like if all of us spent a lot less time examining the rope we were given… and a lot more time examining how we’re going to climb up them.
Tags: accomplish, accomplishment, achieve, achievement, goal, motivation, philosophy, results, smart, success
Posted in Goal setting, Philosophy/motivation | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
Although direct mail requires printing and postage, I have to say that… if it’s done right… it’s still one of the most effective marketing media channels ever. Don’t discount the traditional methods! MarketSmart has generated millions of dollars for clients with direct mail.
But you have to be smart with it. Make sure your list is segmented. Personalize your message for each recipient to make it as relevant as possible. Combine direct mail with an Internet landing page. Drive respondents online for more information – then give them opportunities to convert into leads by filling out forms to take advantage of your offer.
Ahhh. The offer! Don’t forget that part. You MUST have a great offer!!
And remember, if you don’t send highly targeted, relevant offers and information to your prospects…. it’s just “junk mail”.
Be strategic. Use your data to send the right person, the right offer, at the right time and direct mail will deliver an exponential return on your investment.
Tags: Data, Direct Marketing, lead generation, marketing, results, strategy, website
Posted in Direct Marketing, lead generation, strategy, website | No Comments »
Monday, March 19th, 2012
I hear that question a lot in lead generation marketing, planned giving marketing, sponsorship marketing and just about any other kind of marketing you can name.
Sorry folks. But usually if you ask that question it means you don’t have any business doing marketing at all.
The response rate really doesn’t matter.
I don’t care about response rates. Rather, I care about a return on your investment.
Suppose every time you and I work on a marketing campaign together our efforts only garner one response. And suppose that reflects a miserable response rate of .0001%. But every single time we run the campaign you generate $100,000 in profit from that single response.
Would you care that the response rate is just .0001%? I doubt it.
So don’t get all caught up in response rates unless they mean something to you. Otherwise, concentrate on your return on investment and your profits. That’s where it counts.
Tags: Direct Marketing, lead generation, Planned Giving Marketing, response rate, results, return on investment
Posted in Direct Marketing, Email, lead generation, marketing, Philosophy/motivation | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
Add relevance and a personalized URL
Yes, I’m talking about personalization. Direct mail works best when it is relevant. So we recommend you send targeted messages to each person based on their preferences.
Say you have 612 people in your database who like red boats and 410 who like blue boats. Send the 612 an offer for a red boat– “Special Sale on RED Boats Ends in 7 Days!!” And of course, the 410 should get a message for a blue boat.
We also suggest you ask your prospects to respond using a unique, personalized web page created for each individual target.
For instance: “Special Sale on RED Boats Ends in 7 Days!!! Go to www.gregwarner.redboatsale.com for Deep Discounts!”
You can use each prospect’s name as the anchor and some nifty technology to create 612 unique landing pages for each person who likes red boats and 410 unique landing pages for each person who likes blue boats.
That way, when they arrive at the page, their name will appear. But even better, the unique web pages will show them their favorite colored boat.
And best of all, you will be able to see who logged on (name, address, phone number) since the personalized urls will have been created from your original database. So you will be able to track each individual visitor.
That way you know who visited, when, where they clicked and what their interests are. For bigger ticket items, this is great information for your sales force so they can follow-up armed with information
Tags: Direct Marketing, marketing, results, strategy, website
Posted in Direct Marketing, lead generation, marketing, Mass Media, website | No Comments »
Monday, November 8th, 2010
Here's our number. CALL US to get a free website assessment- Over 34 ways to turn your website into a marketing machine.
These days there’s a lot of talk about how you should use your website as a marketing machine. …A lot of talk about search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising (PPC) to drive traffic to your web site or landing page. …A lot of talk about Facebook fan pages and social media.
But what you really want is to have an interested prospect call you… not just click around here and there online. Right?
In order to increase the likelihood of that happening, here are three things you should do:
1- Make sure your phone number is on every page of your website or advertising landing pages.
I can’t tell you how many times I have looked at a website and wanted to contact the company but could not easily find the phone number. So then I’m forced to look for a “Contact Us” page. If that’s not too hard to find, I go there. But very often even I can’t find that because their designer got cute with it and called it something else. Or, after I finally find it, the phone number is buried somewhere on that page. Sometimes I’ve found myself scrolling way down below the fold to find it. Huh? Why on earth would you put your phone number so far out of reach? Or worse yet, I’ve seen some companies’ websites that are absent a phone number so it’s impossible to call them unless you leave the site and search a phone directory. Crazy, isn’t it?
2- We recommend the top of your web pages.
That’s where people expect it to be. So just put it there. Don’t get tricky. And don’t let your designer try to get creative by putting it sideways or by doing something cooky that only a designer would understand. Getting calls is not about style. It’s about money.
3- To improve your chances of getting a call, try an offer.
This works especially well on advertising landing pages but it’s worth trying on your main website if your business is well-suited for it. Say, “Save 25%! Call Now.” or “FREE Gift! Call Now.” If they are looking at the phone number, they are in the consideration phase of the decision making process. That’s the point at which people often need a little push to go just one step further. An offer may be just the push they need.
Also, if you are doing a lot of advertising (online and/or offline), we recommend you use several 800 numbers to track your calls. Each ad and corresponding landing page should have a unique 800#.
Tags: Facebook, Inbound telephone calls, results, search engine optimization, SEO, telephone sales, website
Posted in Inbound Internet Lead Generation, Lead Generation/Nurturing, marketing, Pay-per-click marketing, SEO - Search Engine Optimization, strategy, Uncategorized | No Comments »
