Stephen Anderson from Rock Coast Media is up first. He is going to go through PPC in the search space for non-profits. He says that search tends to work, and the challenge for non-profits is that there is not many pro bono opportunities available. Google has its grants program however there are some stipulations when you use it.
Non profits must compete in an open marketing. It can be an extremely effective medium and donations can still be driven. He gives an example of Amnesty International USA which wanted to drive donations online. They started working with their objective, looked at keywords. They developed copy and landing page copy categorized by brand, issues, current events and donation keywords. The result of the campaign was a success, it drove 76K in donations. When they looked under the hood, the brand keyword where driving the success of the campaign. A comparison between brand terms and non-brand terms, the brand terms outweighed the non-brand terms considerably.
Another one of their clients, Environmental Defense wanted to drive sign up for their online emissions petition. They did the copy and landing page work, over all the results were a bit different than Amesty. SEM recruits of high value over time. They had about a 100% subscriber retention rate. They were very active recruits which could be marketed to later on. They also asked friends to sign up as well. What the campaign was trying to do, is get Bush not to veto the stem cell bill. They did take advantage of search spikes on current events. They also addressed the emotion /intent behind the search. In summary, search works, there are high value recruits out there for non-profits.
Kevin Gottesman from DonorDigital and starts by explaining what these pictures have in common of extreme figures and says that those are keyword he buys every day. What his organization do is fundraising, list building ( to convert to donors) and contacting donors. He gives the example of Defcon, which was trying to get Pres. Bush not to veto the stem cell bill and do a lot of politicking to get politicians to support the initiates of Defcon stem cell campaign. Another example is the American Jewish World Service which wanted to form a rally to stop genocide in Darfur, Sudan. They created a campaign around keyword unique to African aid. They did postcards and online campaign; it had really great success of rallying people for support. His last case study is from the Humane Society and the pet evacuation & transportation act. They wanted to urge congress to pass a bill. They had 5.5 million impression, 60,000 clicks, and lots of new members to the humane society. He gives some stats, that 200 billion was given to charity in 2005. There has been an increase in donors giving money online. Declining direct mail efficiency however. The need is for solutions for online fundraising, ie. Search.
Rick Mitchell from World Vision is up third. This speaker came up to a bunch of people in the audience before hand to see who was in the audience. He says that donations are becoming a vertical all there own. World Vision does a lot of children in disaster areas. They are positioned globally in 100 countries to respond rapidly to disasters. They are prepared to help 24/7. Search popularity has increased in non-profit search. He talks about how his charity has done all this world with world disaster and responded to places of need. The Asia tsunami is mentioned a lot. He puts up some interesting stats about the increase in online giving. It has risen dramatically. He says that when there is a disaster people go to the internet. The term “tsunami” became a household name. He next goes into how World Vision does PPC and search.
