Great stories can turn a passive browser into a financial supporter. But to do this the story must be relevant to your supporter and to how they think and feel about your organization and brand.
In this sector, we are blessed with lots of great stories. We have great stories to tell and it’s our responsibility to do them justice.We often tell these beautiful emotional story and there is almost a discomfort about an ask. People care what they know about. Fundraising is about helping them to care more. Align your case and mission with what your donor actually CARES about.
Like any media
You can discover your online audience based on Google Analytics or Facebook Audience profile. You can check out your top 20 pages in Google Analytics which will tell you what your online audience to looking at your work. You can also use a free service like "mention.com" to find out what people are saying about you.
Once you have found out about your audience, it is time to develop personas. Keep yourself focused on what the donor wants. It is key to remind people who the audience it.
Digital stories have to be grounded in a universal truth. Some of these truths are painful like the Holocaust. The Endowment Book of Life for Jewish Foundation of Manitoba is a great example of using a lot of different channels and media to get out stories through many channels.
In planning your media efforts and thinking about channels, you need to work to optimize effectiveness. It is key is to think about trans-media storytelling. As part of this you need to
For example, 90% of texts get read because it is a very personal form of communication. So if you are using this channel, need to use a very personal message.
As a charity, you also need to tell your story in Episodes. in each story, you need to map out a story like any novelist, which channel will best convey this story, and which content you have that lends itself the best to a story
Every single thing an organization does online needs to connect emotionally to your supporters to get them to click. Over time that builds engagement and after 6 or 7 clicks, you can convert them.
As part of your strategy, you can sequence the story but your audience is going to watch your content in a asynchronous manner. So you will need to develop tactics to ensure that your audience can watch any story in any sequence.
A great example of a charity who does digital well is Million Miracles. The charity allowed their whole team to field blog, allow recipients to tell their own stories. They even filmed an eye surgery. A great content manager can curate this content and build the story. Key for this charity was that they asked at every touchpoint and also showed very clearly showed the impact of each gift.
To achieve your revenue goals, your organization must create content that is highly emotional, informative and sometimes entertaining. Key to this to make sure you have a well developed strategy and has a route to an ask. Great content is what people remember and share. With great content, the internet then becomes an infinite distribution (and acquisition) network.
Recently nominated for the 2016 Impact 25 list for her positive contribution to the NFP Sector, Shanelle Newton Clapham, MA, MFIA, Founder and Chief Digital Strategist of Parachute Digital, has more than 12 years of experience as a digital marketing and fundraising strategist. Her vision is to transform supporter experiences online through great stories, interactive engagement and easy to use donation forms. Parachute Digital's purpose is to connect people that care, to the causes that they care about. Shanelle works to give your donors a positive experience at every touch-point, action, ask or gift - this is her mantra and she’s got the results to prove it. Shanelle has raised over $5 million dollars online for charity in the last 4 years. She describes herself as a ‘digital adventurer’ because she encourages organisations to do things that are bold, fun, challenging and even surprising. Shanelle is a serial donor, she’s got an impressive client list that boasts both UNSW and UTS and she is the author of Attracting Donors Online – Digital Marketing That Works.
