Category: Marketing

Home-Start Resources Page

I currently host around 40 Home-Starts with a couple more in the pipeline. I also started working with Matt Hann and Tanya Freedman (HSUK) and look after another 40 sites there on a three month rolling contract. The additional 40 sites are based on one promoted by Rutland Online who are no longer developing sites for HSUK. These sites are also in the same hosting you are in, just in a different account. My role is to maintain them each month. 

I have hit quite a few problems in the way these new sites were set up. To help people there is a page you can also use here https://wingrove-media.uk/hsuk/ which lists those websites, but of greater importance, at the bottom of that page are some self help guides. You are free to use these if you wish. Some relate to the way that the hosting works, some relate to specific issues in that design of website. Many are relevant to you as well.

#BehindTheMask

I have just added one which contains a specially built slider to add the existing slides used on the Home-Start home pages to help promote #BehindTheMask. Please do help yourselves and download your copy of the pre-built slider and the instructions. It only takes 5 minutes and I have done the hard work for you. Note that the dimensions of the sliders used on your sites are different to the ones used on the HSUK sites. I have done two sets, just take care to pick up the right one. 

I also have a couple of posts prepared which you could also import and publish including the graphics. Contact me for more information. 

Social Media Strategy or just winging it?

During my business career, from around the mid 1990’s there was a phrase that used to be passed around in “Marketing Speak” which was “Work Smarter not Harder”. 

This article and the corresponding PowerPoint attached below is really all about this. I have come across examples where there is either a lot of effort going into administering and keeping a social media feed up to date, and nobody is paying attention to the website, or both are working independently. 

The discussion looks at the problem from a number of angles, and asks several relevant questions in terms of what you think you are trying to achieve. For example if you have a facebook group, do you realise that this facebook group is similar to a congregation and you are preaching to the converted?  Really what you want to be doing is extending the reach of your organisation and growing the interest in your website (and facebook group). 

It is not difficult to do, but it does encourage you to stand back, see what is happening and then ask yourself is it yielding dividends for the organisation, or are you just doing what you think everyone else is doing without understanding why. 

The Social Media Strategy ppt explores ways of helping you to reach further, and grow your viewers. The website is central to everything and is like the Oracle, it contains all knowledge about your organisation and news. You copy links from your site to social media. That means you do not have duplicated effort, so you can now work more efficiently. 

Anyway enough of my marketing, if it encourages you to think out of the box and ask why, it was worth putting together. Drop me a line if you have any questions or seek clarification. 

 

Social Media Strategy

From website referral form to CRM

Mainly for Home-Start organisations, but it can apply to any group with online referral or application forms. 

I have built a proof of concept which has a referral form online which is quite complicated. 

The user inputs data into the form and then sends it to the recipient. 

The recipient has a very easy form to read. The form formatting can be applied to user requirements. 

Within the form the data is duplicated as a CSV string of characters (Character Separated Value). You can copy this block of text and paste it into an Excel spreadsheet and then apply Text to Columns command. Now each cell has a data field contents in it. You can manipulate it further from here, or even import it into your CRM system. 

To find out more and look at a working example with documentation that you can try online, go to here:  http://wingrove-media.uk/generic-application-or-referral-form/

Follow the link above to visit the page with the form on and try it out for yourself. 

For Home-Starts and a couple of questions

On the 1st of February of this year I was hosting 41 Home-Start sites from around the UK with two of these in development. Since then one of them has been published. 

It occurred to me that it might be a good idea to let you know where they all are. No two sites are exactly the same, and while I follow the branding guidelines issued by Home-Start, each site has the personal stamp of the local organisation. 

If you have a few minutes to spare, it might be a good idea to have a look around and see how other people do things. There is no single magic answer, but some of these sites are showing the same things and have been handled in different ways. As such they may offer different ways of engaging your audience. You may see some features you do not have on your site and wish to explore those further. 

Currently the list is located on this temporary website: http://wingrove-media.uk on the home page. It is not really a website, just a play area for me to explore ideas. 

Sharing Info

It also occurred to me that each of these sites has a Google Analytics Token assigned to it (once they are launched). There are statistics for each site.  Would there be any benefit in collecting data from each site and showing it distributed anonymously. For each participant, I could tell you the reference number for your organisation and see how you are doing compared to your colleagues?  This might open a path for continuous improvement. 

Let me know if you are interested in exploring this further: mark@wingrove-media.com

Effective Use of Social Media with WordPress sites

I thought I would kick of 2021 with a reminder to everyone, or perhaps this is totally new to you; how to use your site effectively with social media.

Many of you already understand this and “get it” but as I work around the 130+ sites I am hosting I see examples where there is little activity on the site, but lots of activity in Social Media. So, social media has basically replaced your website as the means of conveying information and raising interest.  The reason why this is not a great approach is you are preaching to the converted.

The problem

Some people find adding things to social media really easy, and adding things to your website takes longer. While this is true, the benefits of adding things to your website in terms of news is of much greater importance than adding it to your social media feed. So it is worth taking the effort to do it. There is no excuse, because if you have forgotten how to edit your website there is a guy in Buckinghamshire who will be glad to run an online Zoom session, and show you how. From around June of 2020 I started to run online editing sessions over zoom and recording them and adding them to your site. I also now add Editor pages into sites with guidance built in. So all the help you need is there, just ask. 

Why posting only in Social Media is not a good idea

Many organisations have their own Facebook, Twitter, Instagram accounts. This is good. But think about your audience. Your audience (people that have signed up to join your feed) are already fans or interested in what you do. They have already bought in to your value proposition. So you are preaching to the converted. But are there any new people coming along. Probably not. 

There is so much social media around now, probably in excess of 100 outlets you are unlikely to stumble across a feed which will be of interest to you. It is more likely you will locate a feed through a website with a link to it. That is important, people find social media feeds largely through visiting websites. This is because search engines mainly refer to websites, and people are used to browsing websites. Think about those feeds you have signed up to, how did you get there in the first place?

Think Website First

This is the approach I recommend you take, and how to measure it. Firstly plan, what is it you want to say? How do you want people to respond? Hold those thought at the back of your mind when you create a post for your website. 

You have the benefit that you can say a lot in a blog (news page) on your website. So get those messages out crisp and clear. Add an image or two to keep it interesting. You have already exceeded what you can show easily on Facebook and Twitter. 

Avoid Text in Images

Some people go to great lengths producing graphically rich content. Which is fine for humans. But the internet infrastructure works on Text. Computers cannot read what is in an image. Also accessibility standards state you should not put text in images because people with visual impairments cannot read them. (Their computers read text, but cannot read images). By all means show an image, but make sure the key points are in text in the post. Then search engines will be able to pick it up. 

Assign any relevant categories to your post and publish it. 

Turing to Social Media

Now that you have your full message on your website, you can now turn to Social Media. Pull your website up in your browser, navigate to your news page and open the new item so it is full screen. Copy the URL (Web address) for the page. 

Now switch to Twitter, Facebook etc and paste that link into the feed. You do not need to write everything again. But you could put a short note there. Usually what happens is social media will pick up some of the text and images from your website. 

Check GA in a few days

All of my sites have Google Analytics added to them, so you can go to your GA account (contact me if you need access and have not been there before), and check what has happened on your website.  You should anticipate a big spike in visitors, because they have been referred from Facebook, Twitter, et al. 

But……

You are still only reaching the converted. So how do you spread the net wider?

This needs a little research, but is definitely worth the investment of time. You could start by looking on a map at the major regions around your location. Then look on Social Media to see if there are interest groups in those areas. For me, there is Your Prestwood and Great Missenden. It is generic, and designed to connect people together. Unfortunately many of these feeds are cluttered with adverts from businesses. However you are different. You are a charity in need of help and promotion. It is likely that the moderators and admins will look sympathetically at your case. 

Join some groups locally around your location and when you are looking for volunteers, or looking for donations, or simply wish to promote your work, you create a post on your site, publish it. Take the URL for the post and paste it in these newsfeeds. Now you are preaching to an audience that may not be aware of you. Not everyone will come, but you should get a significant blip in interest. 

 Spreading the net wider

So, start to think bigger, how can you reach out to a wider audience and bring people into an inner circle of “friends of your organisation”. You will find this approach can yield big dividends in establishing your presence, value and needs. 

Don’t forget the search engines

Another advantage with this approach is you have generated back links (links back to your website) which are vitally important in your ranking with Google and other search engines. The more you have, the more important your website is perceived to be. Also the content has been indexed, and may come up in searches. So you have increased the possibility of being found. 

Working Smarter not Harder

I think if you adopted this approach, you will see results, and unlike just using your social media groups, you are exposing what you do to a larger audience. That will ultimately bring more people to your site, and that may increase your supporters.  In this process you only created the post/ news item in one location. So you did not have to do it multiple times. All you posted in social media was a link back to your news item. The only other thing you needed to do was check on the social feeds in your local communities. 

Capture and Retention Strategy

You could all take this a stage further. Many of you have a newsletter function built into your website using MailPoet. If you regularly publish news on your website, then this news can very quickly be built into a newsletter (it takes less than 5 minutes). You send the newsletter out to subscribers to your website.  Maybe once a month, or once a quarter. Here you are taking your website out to the subscribers rather than waiting for them to come back. This too will cause a huge peak in website visitors. 

Putting this all together, you have these classes or groups of people. 

    • Group A: Those that have never heard of you  (Millions)
    • Group B: Those that have heard of you and watch your social media feeds (50-100)
    • Group C: Those that visit your website (80-400 per month)
    • Group D: Those that are subscribers (50-100+)

Group D are the most loyal and most attentive group. Your goal is to grow this group by measuring the number of subscribers on your website. 

Group C will contain regular fans, and passers by. Prominently advertise on your site that you have a free subscription. Convert Group C members to Group D members. 

If you are treating Social Media (Group B) as a separate thread to your website, then the chances are those watching Social Media are not looking at your website. By posting links to your site from Social Media, you can change that. If you can drive Social Media watchers to your website, then you can get some of them to sign up to Group D (subscribers).  Remember you can measure that.

Group A is where the gold is. In B, C & D those people are already aware of you, you need to reach out to those that are not aware of you to grow your numbers and levels of interest. This is where you should be placing as much effort as you are on your own social media channels. In group A are donors, volunteers, prospective employees, trustees, subject matter experts, the list in endless. They just don’t know about you yet. 

Put a Marketing Plan together

A marketing plan can and should be larger than this activity, but just focusing here for a moment. Set your self some goals to get more hits on your website. Most local charities with a few exceptions get around 150 site visitors a month. Give yourself the goal of growing it by 50%. 

If you have a subscriber list and newsletter in your website aim to get that to 100 (which should be relatively easy to do). 

The point here being that these are things that the average person can do, and better still you can measure whether it is having an impact or not. So you are not working blind. Use the statistics on your site through Google Analytics, and the subscriber list to provide the assurance that you can make a difference, and drive it relentlessly throughout the year. 

It is not all theory

Here are three examples of why I believe this can work for you. 

1). Prestwood Village Association (https://prestwoodva.org.uk) this organisation is based in my village. I joined them in 2011 and built the original website. It is now on it’s third iteration. We added the newsletter to the website and used Social Media outlets to market the site. Using the same methods I have mentioned above. Prestwood in Buckinghamshire has around 2,500 homes.  The website has over 1000 subscribers. That means Prestwood Village Association at any time can reach out to 1000 people in a matter of a few hours. 

2). Horsewyse CIC  (https://horsewyse.org.uk) is an equine facilitated learning school for children with special needs. They raise additional revenue during school terms by holding day care/ supervision for children for one to five days a week. Coronavirus pandemic excepted; through out the year adverts are placed on the website to say when the next set of dates are coming up. I send out a newsletter to a growing number of subscribers, in the newsletter I ask people to share it with their friends, so more people sign up. That subscriber list has gone from nothing to over 140 people in a couple of years.  Here again the messages are taken out directly to people that interested to know what is happening. 

3). Home-Start Cotswolds (https://home-start-cotswolds.org.uk) I was working with one of the members of the Home-Start Cotswolds team in January answering some questions. I noted that there was an unusual peak of activity on their site over the Christmas period. Bringing around 60+ people to the site in 2 days. I commented that is looked like the site had some unwelcome attention from hackers probing the site. But happily it was not the case. The website editor had posted news on Facebook which directed people back to the website where they were seeking volunteers. You could track the number of accesses to the volunteering page as well. – Well Done Home-Start Cotswolds, that is the way to go!

Got some ideas, not sure what to do?

Drop me a line. Happy to help get you started. 

Suite CRM

Over the past 9 years I have built up quite a large number of contacts and accounts. These have been managed through various platforms such as Excel (multiple spreadsheets) and email. I have a local redundant server with accounts on for each client where I can track the work requests that have come in as well, and I keep working files and backups there. But it has all got rather too large to manage now, especially with regards to customer management and invoicing using spreadsheets. It was creaking at the seams so something needed to be done.

One of the issues has been tracking payments for services. An analysis we carried out in November 2020 showed around £2000+ of unresolved invoices over a 20 month period. Many of these had been overlooked by my clients, some had been paid, but not using the recommended method of a BACs transfer, so were hard to track.

Solving the problem

I looked around for potential solutions and came across a CRM system (Customer Relationship Management) which is based on an Open Source Sugar CRM which is widely respected across industries.  The package is called SuiteCRM.

It is possible to load the CRM into a hosting account, and the reason I mention it, is it might have wider appeal than just my application. It is basically a complex website fronting a database. The database is built around accounts, the accounts can have contacts, projects, invoices, notes, attached emails etc. It is really very thorough, and so far quite robust. I have even created my own module to cover hosting details for each client.

If you are managing projects, people, organisations on a spreadsheet and wish to move to the next level it might be worth a look.

How much does it cost?

Like WordPress the software is free. It is supported by a community, and is recommended by the UK Government, and also used by the NHS. If you have come across SalesForce CRM it is similar to this as a system.

If you have someone that is a bit techy in your organisation, and can give you local support, then it might well be a useful addition to the systems you use.

Is it easy to learn?

These days I generally judge technology on how easy it is to pick up, figure out and work around. I don’t want to plough through a 300 page manual, and if you find you have to do that, it can put you off. In my case, I have lightly read up on various things when I have hit a problem. After 3 weeks, I have now loaded in around 130 organisations, over 200 contacts from those organisations, details about websites, and services provided, invoices sent out etc and linked it all together. The really big step is creating a whole custom module for my application. I figured out how to do that and link it into the system.

However I deal with this stuff every day. But I know that in many organisations you have IT people either on your trustees, or staff in your organisation. If anyone is interested in learning more, then let me know.

My plan

Over the rest of this financial year, I am going to start adding in projects, work requests, quotes, email communications into this system and get it to generate invoices by the end of March. If I get this far, I will have a complete workflow from start to finish, including support requests for post release.

Researching SuiteCRM

You can find out more about this package which can be loaded in your hosting area by following these links: Main website is here; https://suitecrm.com/ and documentation you can find here: https://docs.suitecrm.com/

In my case, I grabbed a copy of the software and installed it locally on a Linux Server in my office. But the same package could be added to your hosting account, or better still a new and therefore isolated hosting account.

 

Give A Little Love Campaign

The following is just for those Home-Starts who have come forward and requested the promotional pack I have offered for free to support the John Lewis Partnership Give A Little Love campaign.

The list below covers those sites I have added it to.

https://homestartraw.org/   17/11

https://homestartnwglos.org.uk 17/11

https://homestartsd.org 17/11

https://hseeb.org/ 17/11

https://homestartbracknellforest.org.uk/ 17/11

https://home-startmedway.org.uk/ 17/11

https://homestartealing.org   17/11

https://home-start-cotswolds.co.uk  18/11

https://home-starteastsurrey.org.uk/ 18/11

https://home-startbanbury.org.uk/  18/11

https://homestartcheshire.org.uk/  18/11

https://home-startwatford.org.uk/  18/11

https://home-startsurreyheath.org.uk/ 18/11

https://home-startsittingbourneandsheppey.org.uk/ 19/11

https://homestartsurrey.org   19/11

https://homestartspelthorne.org  19/11

https://homestarttamworth.org.uk/  19/11

https://hsguildford.org.uk/  19/11

https://home-startnorthsomerset.org.uk/ 19/11

 

The following sites are in the queue to have the promotion added to their website:

Queue is currently empty!

Notes on managing the promo

I have used content from the HSUK website and not edited any of it other than making links into your local site for About Us and Volunteering. That means you get the benefit of showing the promotion.

The videos are running in YouTube and are not locally on your website. That means if someone decides to move them, they will stop working. If that happens let me know please. 

I have done three things:

1). Added an additional slider to your home page featuring the graphic for Give a Little Love, this slider is linked to a post. The slider can be edited if you wish to change the messaging. Look for Smart Slider in the sidebar of your site and locate the slider and edit it. It will be the first one in the set you currently use on your home page. 

2). Added an introduction which I think came from a Press release on the 13th of November. It is all generic and talks about the promotion. 

3). Added a detailed post which should also be at the top of your news page and the bottom left of your home page which includes the detail and the videos, and how to participate. Participation links back through to the HSUK promotion. I have not changed these, nor should you. 

You can edit anything I have added to localise it more for you. But you should keep the core part of the messaging to be consistent with the scheme. You may also add in other supporting news related to this promotion. 

While it looks like a lot of work, I am using the Divi system to it’s full advantage.  The work was initially carried out at Home-Start Runnymede, refined there, and then saved to a library. I can then visit your site and load the library and quickly produce the two posts and link them into your site. It takes me less than 10 minutes per site to do this. For this reason, I cannot spend a lot of time localising it further for you, and still do this for free. Hopefully the generic version, partially localised to your site will meet your needs. 

Best wishes, 

Mark. 

 

 

Home-Start and John Lewis Partnership Christmas Appeal

For Home-Start Website Owners Only

How this works out is currently dependent on how HSUK responds, but I will put it on the table so you are aware of it.

(Update 17th of November we are good to go and this is now being rolled out across my sites.)

A Christmas appeal has just been launched with matched giving by John Lewis for the benefit of Home-Start and Fareshare. I have had a few enquiries about this, and some hints that something is happening, but not sure what yet.

I met with Home-Start UK around 18 months ago in Leicester, in that conversation I mentioned that I look after 30+ HS sites, and there should be a way to help magnify any promotions by working together. Sadly it was never followed up by HSUK.

Setting an Example

In an effort to rectify this and demonstrate what could be achieved, I have the following offer to any Home-Start Divi based site that wishes to bathe in the publicity being generated in this initiative. This is all subject to HSUK agreeing btw.

You will need to be quick to see this, in case it gets removed. I have taken the HSUK promotional page which explains what it is, and how it is implemented and how to contribute. I have not changed the text, it is all generic, and I did not wish to alter the positioning. I have used their graphics, and referenced the videos which are on YouTube. The only changes I have made are with respect to where the About Us button goes to, it will go to your organisation’s About Us page so brings this down to the local level. The Volunteering button goes to your Volunteering page, so brings this down to the local level as well.

I have merged two posts on the HSUK website to do this. You can see an example here: https://homestartraw.org/give-a-little-love/

My theory is a national campaign, can benefit the local offices too. The fundraising portal and instructions are all at the National level, so none of that changes.

Why might this help?

It will help to raise your organisation’s profile, and now rather than just the HSUK site carrying something it could be magnified 30x. So rankings will positively affected.  There are also 30+ (more) links back to to the national fundraising portal, so helping that too.

What will I do?

I will add in the post to your site and change the links for volunteering and about us to point into your website. The videos will appear to run in your site, but are actually running on YouTube, where the source videos are located. The links and instructions on how to raise money are unchanged and promote the national campaign.

I will also add in a special slider to the home page which uses the heart logo. I have done this on the HS RAW site, but it looks too busy and clumsy at the moment and needs to be simplified.

How much will this cost?

Nothing, it is my Christmas present to you, for all of the great work you do throughout the year, and particularly this challenging year.  The only issue currently is HSUK buy in because it is their ad and content I am redistributing. I am waiting to hear back on that.

If you are interested in joining in please send me a message.

This Plan is now being executed

See this article if you are interested in seeing examples, or wish to sign up for the free offer. https://wingrove-services.co.uk/give-a-little-love-campaign/ I am now rolling it out wef: 17th November 2020. The post lists the sites I have already updated and if you are on the list, what the eta is for your site. 

Looking for Donations?

I have received some requests over the past year to add “Donate” buttons in prominent places on websites. I am also asked for advice on ways of raising funds. Which are the best partners to work with.

I will try to capture here some of my own thoughts on the subject and hopefully you will understand why I look at things in this way, and alter your approach accordingly.

I need a donation

This is your need, and of course we all understand why in the current climate. The problem is so does everyone else. They all need donations as desperately as you do.

First Response: Put Donate buttons everywhere

I have been asked to do this, I can only assume that I am asked to this because someone else has done it. Home-Start UK does it, so everyone else wants one. However if we think for a moment, if you were walking down a street and saw someone on the side of the street holding a cup up for a donation, most of us would walk by. Why? Because the reason why that person needs a donation has not been established. You have not received or been able to process any “sales pitch”. It is just “I need money”.

Now consider this analogy to viewing websites online to walking down a street and everywhere you are looking people are thrusting donation boxes at you asking for donations. You can now perhaps understand why this may not be successful.

Sell your need

If you watch some of the 2nd tier TV channels like ITV3 and the other commercial channels you will see lots of adverts asking for donations. However they all spend most of their time explaining why they need your donations. If you need donations this is how you need to tackle it. Build your case with some solid examples, place them in a post or dedicated page on your website, add links to the donations portal/ partner.  When you have done that, copy the web address of your page or post and paste that around a few social media sites that might be interested to learn what you do. Finally check on the number of hits you got as a result of this activity and whether you acheived any donations or not. Then refine further.

What sort of donations?

Are you seeking a one off amount, or a regular donation?  A regular donation of £5/ month is worth a lot more than a single donation of £30. Build a story that you are going to reveal over time about your “need” and how people are helping to make a difference. In this case you could have a “Friends of” page where people sign up and make a regular donation and become an elite group of supporters. If you follow this path, think about how you can reward them for their generosity, make them feel special?

Make it very easy

Someone contacted me asking if I could add a standing order form to a website to help to generate donations. I was curious why this would help generate more donations? As a potential donor, I would have to a) believe in the cause sufficiently to b) download and print out the Standing order form. c) Fill it all in. d) Find an envelope, fill that in, e) find a stamp, f) post it.

Compare that to clicking on a Virgin Money Giving link which allows me to donate online either as a one off payment or a regular payment. I can do all of this online in a few seconds without leaving my chair.

While I do not pretend to know all of the answers here, why would someone fill in a standing order form compared to the online security and ease of use in going via Virgin Money Giving, or some other established fundraising portal a charity is providing in under a minute?

I think the only advantage of having an online Standing Order form which can be downloaded and printed might work with older donors, but for younger people, more used to working with computers and doing things online, I think the online portals offer a very easy path to raising funds. 

Other methods

Easyfundraising.org.uk is a great way to raise money. Just think of how much ecommerce is active at the moment with everyone shopping on line?  Most of you have EasyFundraising.org.uk accounts but some are more successful than others, why is that?

Keeping promoting

It takes a little more effort to place your orders via EasyFundraising.org.uk. I generally go to Amazon. John Lewis, et al, set up my basket in my account. Shut down the browser, open a new one, go to my account at EasyFundraising.org.uk and then look for a link to Amazon, John Lewis et al. That takes me back to where my basket is waiting. I pay and exit the site. Because I have come from EasyFundraising before I made my purchase a referral fee is paid back to EasyFundraising. That is how the donation is made. The major benefit here is it did not cost me a penny, but I did need to remember to finalise the transaction from EasyFundraising.

At your end, if you have an EasyFundraising account, you need to keep pushing your membership/ supporters / interested parties. You need to keep reminding them to a) signup, and associate their account with your charity, and b) make online purchases via their account. It would also be very useful for you to feedback to your supporters what difference they are making.

You could consider this a campaign; identify and collect subscribers/ supporters, and keep contacting them. Treat it like an exclusive club. There are some small charities that have a dedicated following which will generate several thousand pounds this way.

Fundraising page

Another advantage of Easyfundraising.org.uk is you can point or have a link which points to your account on your website. So there is little risk of losing someone interested in supporting you.

Amazon Smile

Amazon Smile works in much the same way, but only applies to qualifying products at Amazon. You access it by going to https://smile.amazon.co.uk  

Unlike Easyfundraising.org.uk Amazon Smile does not allow you to point directly to your account. All you can point to is the smile.amazon address. So your supporters have to locate you before making an association between your account and theirs. 

Comparing them both?

As far as I can tell, Easyfundraising.org.uk works with lots of online retail outlets including Amazon. However Amazon Smile only works for Amazon purchases. I have not seen any disadvantages of making Amazon purchases via an EasyFundraising account for example. So I don’t think you really need both. 

Final words

Whatever you choose to do, think of it as a value proposition to sell (receive a donation) and hold that mindset. If you are failing to meet expectations on raising funds, it possibly means that other charities are being more successful than you, so you need to up your game to compete. 

You do need to keep reminding people though, whether it is easyfundraising, Amazon Smile, or Virgin Moneygiving (or whatever your chosen partner is called). You do need to keep selling the dream. 

 

Head above the parapet?

We have all become uncomfortably aware of Covid-19 and it’s impact on society in general. In the classic change curve view of things that are thrust upon our daily lives, we are still adapting. There are some schools of thought that say things will never be the same again.

If I look at all of the people that contact me each month, things have become very quiet. For the first time since I started I am now down to two websites in the pipeline, and then nothing beyond that. I am not bothered about this, I have other things to be getting on with.

Looking across many of the websites I look after, numbers are down (site visits) due to everyone temporarily closing down. However over the past two months things have been picking up again.

You may also have noticed that there are some large charities advertising on TV seeking funds. Eventually everyone is going to wake up and start seeking donations. Without doubt it has been a tough year, and those typical annual sources of incoming have not been there. So what can you do?

Learn from the big boys

Now is a good time to give this some thought and start to put a plan together for your campaign no matter how small you are. If the large national charities are starting their campaigns as things start to ease off others will eventually follow, because there is only so much disposable income out there.

The following is simply a one man brainstorm, but hopefully there are some ideas in here to get you started.

1). Are you on Easyfundraising?

Easyfundraising is an attractive method of raising funds because it costs your donors nothing. But you need to put some effort in. Just think about how much is being purchased online these days. Some charities, even small ones can receive £1000’s this way, but you need to engage your supporters.  Find out more at https://easyfundraising.org.uk

2). Are you on Amazon Smile?

I have an Amazon Prime account, and while it is not always the cheapest option, I make a lot of purchases via Amazon. An Amazon Smile Account provides a 1% donation based on purchases. I think EasyFundraising is a better option because it is broader than Amazon, but if you have a lot of people purchasing things at Amazon you could request that they sign up to Amazon Smile so you can benefit. It means you need to take out an Amazon Smile account. 

3). Have you told the world what you have been doing?

For the first 5 months of the lockdown, I was incredibly busy. I expect that while you adapted, had more things on your plate than normal, you had to adapt as well. If you continued to provide services to your clients even though those were no longer face to face, why not put together an article and publish it on your site.

Make it a case study on adaptability, make it the cornerstone of a fundraising drive.

Many sites have gone quiet, not published very much at all. But most of you have carried on, albeit with reduced services. How has it been? What challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?

4). Do you have a particular goal?

You may be struggling internally with achieving the support levels you would like to provide within the funding envelope available. Tell people what your goal is, list it on your site with some supporting narrative. Celebrate any movement towards that goal. 

People will be more likely to help if they can see what the problem is, and what you are trying to do about it. 

5). News News and More News….

One thing which you may not realise is that Google and Bing search engines visit your site whenever you publish something. If you don’t publish something, they have no reason to visit, and your listing in the respective search engines will become stale. Any more active organisation in your area providing the same or similar services will become a competitor if you do not take any action. 

6). Newsletter

Think about a site visitor. They have not been to your site before, but they like what they have seen on your site. They spend 15 minutes on the site and then leave. 

A week later you have an important announcement which might have solicited a donation from this visitor. However you are unlikely to see them again any time soon. 

It is much better to capture those people that are interested in your website by inviting them to sign up to a newsletter. The newsletter runs in your website and allows you to repackage content you have already written. (So you don’t have to write it again). Very easy to use, all fully GDPR compliant. 

So, let’s run through that again. Think about a site visitor. They have not been to your site before, they like what they see. They spend 15 minutes on your site. While viewing the news page they can see they can sign up to the website newsletter. They go ahead and do that. Takes less than a minute. 

A week later you have an important announcement which you hope may solicit some donations. You publish a post on the opportunity, and you send out the post as a newsletter to your subscribers. Easy. In this case the “fan” receives your website in their inbox. So you have maintained the engagement with the visitor. 

7). Do you put your news on Facebook?

STOP!

Put your news on your website so more people can see it. Facebook is mainly for those people who have already made a relationship with you, so it is sort of like inhaling your own exhaust!

Try it this way: You have some announcements, you put them on your website as discrete posts. When you publish your posts you display them (during testing). Now copy the URL (web address), go to Facebook, and create a post on Facebook, by inviting people to read the article on your website by pasting the URL into Facebook. 

If you do it that way, you have only written it once, but it is visible in two places. The fact that it is on your website as well means it will help with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and allow your item to be found through searches on Google and Bing et al. 

8). Do you put text in images in your website, like posters?

STOP!

While they can be read and understood by humans, they cannot be read and understood or indexed by computers. That means the text in your important poster will never come up in a Google Search. Always put the details of an event as discrete text into a post. Supplement it with an image, that is fine. However do not always rely on just an image. This equally applies to PDFs which may or may not contain text. Always have anything that is important in text. When you publish it can be indexed by search engines. 

Whatever happens next, do start to think about how you can re-energise your website with new fresh content and start to drive more traffic to your site. 

Need help? Drop me a line. 

 

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