Epilepsy Society transforms their digital fundraising and changes digital culture
Working with Raise Thru Epilepsy Society have transformed their Individual Giving programme, doubling their supporter database with 11,000 new subscribers and generating 300 regular gifts in six months. Using challenging and engaging creative the charity has changed the way they reach warm and cold audiences online while being an innovator in the healthcare charity sector.
THE BACKGROUND
Epilepsy Society had previously produced simple Facebook Ads mostly for traffic driving, however they only used small budgets and without an emphasis on attribution tracking or using the Facebook pixel effectively.
Epilepsy Society got in touch with Raise Thru to discuss how to elevate their Facebook advertising and start to build high level lead generation and conversion campaigns using digital channels. Raise Thru realised they were perfect for the 12 week Facebook Accelerator Programme.
THE CHALLENGE
Epilepsy Society wanted to transform their supporter acquisition strategy, increase long term income and grow their supporter database. But they had three main challenges:
1) Creating a more challenging approach to digital marketing, and building creative that’s bespoke for each channel
2) Lack of knowledge around attribution tracking and optimising current digital campaigns
3) How does the charity convert new audiences outside of our own distribution channels (database, social media followers etc)?
THE SOLUTION
Raise Thru empowered Epilepsy Society to build a highly successful Supporter Acquisition Programme using a range of digital and offline channels including automated email marketing, TeleMarketing and Facebook advertising. This included techniques for optimising landing pages for lead generation and conversion.
Using our unique model of training with real hands on learning mixed with a consultancy. We were able to guide Epilepsy Society through the set up, delivery and optimisation of their campaign but leaving them with the tools to push all of their campaigns to the next level.
Epilepsy was able to learn from others who had had tracking issues and learn the best way to set up a Facebook Campaign so it was as effective as possible. They utilised their Facebook Pixel and used a ‘test, analyse, refine’ approach to ensure they were constantly learning and improving the campaign. By implementing the correct tracking, and using their Facebook Pixel, Epilepsy Society had the means to analyse and optimise.
By doing internal marketing and having calls with RaiseThru Epilepsy Society showed the power of a new type agency who is collaborative and has an emphasis on training the charities to build these programmes themselves, and use their learning on other campaigns/digital projects.
"Raise Thru helped us set up our campaign, build our landing page, and gave us insights into what works and what doesn’t. Through their expertise and the weekly calls with other charities we built a high level, scalable acquisition programme which has transformed the way we fundraise online."
Peter Walters
Individual Giving Manager
CHALLENGING CREATIVE
The 12 week Accelerator Programme has a heavy focus on creative. The creative used in the Facebook ads is one of the key things to the success of any campaign. Using Facebook's own creative process and adapted it for charities, it's called Creative Hacking. The process is designed to produce more creative (focusing on videos) for very little cost, in less time. This allows a charity to produce more highly effective ads and test them against various audiences in a special campaign structure called the Rapid Scaling Matrix. Epilepsy society chose a challenging subject for their creative and followed this methodology to great effect.
THE RESULTS
The lead generation programme is the biggest driver of regular givers for Epilepsy Society. They drove 302 RG's in their first 6 months and have smashed their target. Their CPA is £81 and they have signed over 11,000 leads.
Senior Management have been blown away by the success of the campaign.
Q & A with Carl Charlesworth, Channel Marketing Manager, Epilepsy Society
1. What is your biggest success?
Our biggest success is the use of Facebook advertising to build our database while also generating long term income for the charity. After six months in we've had over 300 Regular givers just from them signing the petition, seeing a donate page and then being passed over to a telemarketing agency.
We’ve kept everything very simple, using just four channels (email, Facebook advertising, Telemarketing and a website landing page) and maximising them to reach our goals. We haven't tried to complicate the user journey, and we used automated email marketing to build the supporter relationship after sign up.
2. Do you have any tips for other charities doing this journey?
The TeleMarketing and the online journey was split between two teams with fundraising concentrating on TeleMarketing and the marketing team concentrating on the Facebook advertising. This really helped us, it meant we both kept focused on our specific goals to get the online journey and TeleMarketing journey working in sync for optimum conversion.
This split also meant the fundraising team could work on the scripts and listen to all the calls, while the marketing team concentrated on optimising the Facebook journey. The email journey was then built and managed as a collaboration. I believe the biggest reason behind the success of the campaign is this split which meant we could have specialists in each area optimising for their particular goal to reach an overall income objective.
3. Would you reccomend Raise Thru?
Yes, I would recommend Raise Thru as a new way of working. As it's both a training course and a consultancy, it helps to develop in-house skills so charities become less reliant on agencies. The collaboration between charities on the Zoom calls also creates an environment of collaboration and mutual learning, which brings the not-for-profit sector closer together, and proliferates knowledge through the industry.
Interested in joining the programme?
Set up a call with Chris and see how he can help
