Blog: Fundraising

Well Written, Unique Emails Stand Out in Crowded Inboxes

I’m still deciding which candidate to support in the primaries. This means I get a lot of email every day from the several candidates I’m following. I don’t pour over every message that hits my inbox. Usually I delete most without a thought and only read the ones that really catch my eye, which doesn’t happen all that often. Today I was excited to get an email that not only caught my eye but also kept my attention. 

There were two reasons this particular message worked – it was a clever idea and it was incredibly well written. The message itself was essentially just an email forward. Senator Chris Dodd forwarded me an update he got from his online director on how his online campaign is doing in comparison to the other campaigns. (Disclaimer: We designed the Senator’s first presidential website at the end of last year and helped with online strategy but haven’t worked with his team recently.)

The mass email forward has been done before by candidates and advocacy groups, but this one surpassed other efforts I’ve seen. Its personal tone and great writing throughout made me scroll down to read the entire email chain – and happy that I did. The email even made me want to donate so Dodd can beat John Edwards’ fundraising goal, and I like both candidates.

Kudos to the Dodd team for sending out a superb email – I think you’ll see a good boost to your fundraising numbers from it. I’d love to see some smaller organizations try to replicate this message for their causes. The returns will easily transfer to many issues, and sending supporters an honest and unique email like this will make a good impact when it’s well done.

Read the message and pay special attention to the tone and writing style throughout it – that’s what really sets this apart and makes the message work.

Spikes in Blog Chatter Can Predict Book Sales

There is certainly no shortage of stories of bloggers taking down politicians (Trent Lott, Mark Foley) or other public figures (Dan Rather) by keeping stories alive that then eventually work their way back into the traditional media. But do blogs also cause stories to reach the mainstream media in the first place, stories that otherwise may not have?

Conventional wisdom led me to believe this was the case, but I was curious to find out if there was any documented proof of this correlation. So I did some digging. And although I didn’t find any research specifically on the correlation of blog spikes to traditional media coverage, I did find some interesting research that shows that blog chatter actually does create bumps in online sales (specifically in Amazon.com sales rank and online music sales). This is pretty good proof that this chatter is also having an impact elsewhere as well.

One article (Gruhl, et al, this is an academic paper so you may need to recruit a student to access it) explains that a study found that a spike in online chatter about a particular book title or author tended to predict a spike in that book’s Amazon sales rank about half the time. This graph shows the curve in blog chatter about Lance Armstrong or the Tour de France compared to the sales rank of his book. 

In this particular case, it took about a two-day lead time for blog chatter to impact the book’s sales rank. However in other examples the lead time varied as far ahead as two weeks. 

If increases in blog chatter about a certain topic or individual increase sales, it’s safe to say that this chatter piques an interest in people. It’s pretty safe to assume that the impact of this greater interest is much more far flung than simply online sales – in many cases it’s bound to reach into offline sales, traditional media hits, and in the case of nonprofits and advocacy groups, more action.

SXSW is officially two days under way, and it’s been a great time so far. After thousands of people stood in line for hours on Friday to get their badges, the real activity started yesterday. (Friday night really, but that’s a different story.)

I’ve been to two standout presentations so far: “Turning Projects into Revenue Generating Businesses,” and the opening plenary session with Kathy Sierra of CreatingPassionateUsers. Neither had obvious correlations to building sites in Drupal for NGO’s, but I was surprised by amount of crossover. It’s always good to get perspectives on your work from people far outside of your daily network of interactions.

This article was posted on the Digital Divide Network listserv and is a good read for small non-profits or organizations looking for creative ways to fundraise. The town of Atkinson, NE raised more than $12,000 on ebay and shares what they learned in this article.Read Small-Town Fundraisers Learn Lessons in Selling on eBay.

Too many schools are dropping the ball and not using the Internet to reach out to their alumni, but I’m proud to say my alma mater is not. Right now I’m watching my high school's hockey team (the Berkshire Bears) loose to Taft live at the rink where I spent my Saturday nights for four Massachusetts winters (as a spectator).

This is awesome! And you better believe that when they come asking for donations this summer that I will see what I can give back. Why? Because they are making me think about the good old days and providing me with some early entertainment on a Saturday night. This communications policy surely beats receiving letters requesting donations with my bills or updates on events being sent to my parent’s house in Vermont. Now they just need to figure out how to beat Taft (still down 2-0).

Here’s the email I received a few days ago about the webcast.

This Saturday, December 4th, settle back and watch the Berkshire boys' varsity hockey team face off against Taft, live on your computer screen.