Campaign Planning
2020 ushered in a new target audience for brands and nonprofits: the (skeptical) activist consumer. They want to support but don't entirely trust your organization. People under 40 control $3 trillion in power purchasing power and will inherit $84 trillion in generational wealth. 8 out of 10 of these people shop with brands that give back, donate annually to charities, and expect their dollar (whether a purchase or a gift) to make a measurable difference. Despite efforts to design meaningful campaigns, marketers and fundraisers spend $5.6 billion in digital ad waste trying to make connections.
While Program Architecture implements a grand vision, campaigns weave a cohesive story, allowing others to participate in the steps to reach that North Star. Quick wins through isolated campaigns might be tempting. However, shortsighted efforts can also lead to confusion and backlash from potential and current supporters. Campaign planning is an omnichannel approach to growing trust and sustaining stakeholder partnerships.
The Trust Imperative
Tristan Harris compares technology overload to climate change. He says it's leading to the societal ills of our time: "addiction, information overload, polarization, radicalization." In the wake of AI, people are inundated with spam, questioning deep fakes and how to trust the content.
At the root of a mental epidemic is the relationship between trust and loss of social capital, where people avoid simple everyday interactions like asking for help, attending social events, and chatting over the fence. Consequently, 49% of Gen Zers feel lonely, and nonprofits struggle with a generosity crisis. Campaigns provide an opportunity to build trust and sustain people in meaningful action that boosts mental health and provides a sense of purpose.
Meaningful Campaigns
Creating meaningful campaigns requires strategic planning tactics to combat apathy. Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy are the noise before defeat. Sun Tzu (~500 BC)
Common reason organizations fail to meet public expectations:
The organization has a lack of credibility. People worry about fraud and bad actors.
The organization appears to be a poser, conflating donations and brand citizenship. People worry about seekintegrity.
The organization fails to define achievable and measurable goals.
The organization fails to remain consistent in its cause messaging
Structuring Campaigns
Structuring a campaign shares many similarities with Program Architecture. The primary steps include:
Identify Stakeholders
Create a Value Proposition
Define KPIs (Is your campaign outcome or activity-driven?)
Align Campaign to Calendar
Build a Branding Identity
We also recommend here to organize a content marketing strategy. Unlike a campaign designed for short-term impact within a specific timeframe, a content marketing strategy is your long-term roadmap. It provides a drip of information designed to build values alignment, support intimate interest, grow with people as their expertise evolves, and boost mental health. The roadmap takes people through six moon phases and accounts for the 6Ps or emotional states that motivate behavior (pride, pity, PR, personal interest, pleasure, and peer references):
Acquisition: A donor connects with your organization through mass marketing or direct outreach.
Cultivation: Your nonprofit learns about the donor's interests and values, educating them about your work.
Solicitation: You make a significant donation request based on insights gained during cultivation.
Stewardship: After a positive response, your organization thanks the donor appropriately.
Retention: You follow up to keep the donor engaged and present more involvement opportunities.
Upgrade: The donor increases their giving level, prompting your organization to thank them again and maintain follow-ups for future upgrades.
Content Marketing Tactics
Tactic #1: Communicate with Clarity
Reason for apathy: confusing copy/formatting and unprofessional design
Tagline Tip: Use 3-words (verb, identifier, noun)
Digital Tip: Convey value in 200 words.
Snail Mail Tip: Send a package for lifelong learners. 6-8 pages of useful information and stories bests a 1-2 page letter that can appear spammy.
Formatting Tip: Bold a paragraph on the first page. Underline an important sentence. Add a P.S. with a "to do" note.
Tactic #2: Invoke Emotion, Not Rationale
Reason for apathy: the problem is too big, too removed from a personal connection or community, and too negative/depressing
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel," poet and writer Maya Angelou once said. Consider what actually drives your stakeholders to invest their attention, emotion, and action. 95% of our purchase decisions, according to Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman, take place unconsciously.
Word Choice Tip: Speak in visuals. One could hardly find a better example of this principle at work than Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered August 28, 1963, in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Nearly every sentence includes vivid imagery, from "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."
Emotion Tip: Relying on sadness or anger to "pull on heartstrings" may result in your community tuning you out entirely. People tend to avoid or remain unmoved by stories and situations that attempt to make them feel bad. Research tells us that people are really good at avoiding information for three reasons: It makes them feel bad; it obligates them to do something they do not want to do; or it threatens their identity, values, and worldview. Greenpeace was known for angry acts by a small group of champions chaining themselves to trees to demonstrate their anger toward environmental offenders. More recently, however, they have moved toward a strategy that includes optimism and inspiring others.
Tactic #3: Create Meaningful Calls to Action
Reason for apathy: the problem is too big, far away (geographically or from a personal connection)
"Sign our petition." "Follow us on Instagram." "Click here for more information." As common as they are, they don't tell anyone how to make a difference. They may leave people feeling like their efforts are mere drops in a bucket. They don't inspire. Meaningful CTAs quantify real world outcomes and track long-term impact.
Granular Tip: Be super specific with your CTAs. The 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott aimed at Jim Crow laws in public transportation and sought to end segregation of the bus system as a step toward ending racism. But the call to action was not "end segregation" or "end racism." How would the community even begin to know how to do that organizationally and strategically? Instead, the call to action was "Don't ride the bus." People knew how to do that: They rode bikes, set up carpools, or walked.
Scale Tip: Make it doable. In one study, people were likelier to give to one child in need than to a group of children because as the number of children increases, people's sense of efficacy and impact decreases. In another study, when people were asked to donate to a single child facing starvation, the number of donations decreased as they were made more aware of millions of children who would still need aid. MADD did just that when they focused on the impact of one child's life taken by a drunk driver rather than the scale of the problem. Neuroscience shows that large numbers and statistics overwhelm our pathways. The negative feelings outweigh any positive feelings a person might have had from the action. The researchers refer to this as "pseudo-inefficacy."
Where They're At Tip: When designing calls to action, it will be essential to understand the habits and routines of your target community. The Ice Bucket Challenge—a viral social media campaign that persuaded people to post videos of themselves pouring ice water over their heads to raise money for additional research about ALS—did this well. People habitually scroll through their social media feeds. Asking people to post videos of themselves dumping ice water on their heads, donating money to ALS, and nominating others in their social network taps into these habits.
Geography Tip: "Too Far to Help: The Effect of Perceived Distance on the Expected Impact and Likelihood of Charitable Action," a new study from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that people are more willing to help charitable causes close to home because they think their donation will have a stronger impact than if given to a faraway cause. For example, suppose you are a University of Chicago alumnus living in a Chicago suburb. In that case, you may be more likely to donate to the university's annual giving campaign than would your alumnus friend living in California. Even though the alumni are connected to the university in a similar way, living in close proximity to the cause makes you more likely to donate.
Tactic #4: Tell Better Stories
Reason for apathy: cognitive overload and empathy gap
In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Pinker argues that the printing press may have had an important role in increasing levels of empathy following the Enlightenment by making it easier to read stories framed in the perspective of others. Indeed, Pinker speculates that some of the literature written from the perspective of black slaves may have been instrumental to the abolition of slavery.
Plot Tip: "People want stories that operate just at the edge of expectation," says Keith Bound, the University of Nottingham media scholar. In other words, we enjoy the comfort of knowing where a story is headed, but surprise keeps our attention. Similarly, computer scientists at MIT recently found that false news stories can travel faster than true stories because they defy expectations.
Fill the Gap Tip: One is allowing people to put the pieces together for themselves. "The audience actually wants to work for their meal," says Andrew Stanton, a Pixar director and screenwriter, in his 2012 TED talk "The Clues to a Great Story." "They just don't want to know that they're doing that. That's your job as a storyteller, to hide the fact that you're making them work for their meal. We're born problem solvers. We're compelled to deduce and to deduct,because that's what we do in real life. It's this well-organized absence of information that draws us in."
Mindset Tip: People fail to act not because they lack information but because they don't know what to do. If you start with this perspective as the foundation for your work, you can craft a strategy that helps people care and tells them exactly what you want them to do.
Tactic #5: Align Goals Through Values-Alignment
Reason for apathy: polarization and fraud
Research tells us that people engage and consume information that affirms their identities and aligns with their deeply held values and worldview. Are you solving a values-aligned problem that bridges gaps between people or reinforces a sentiment?
Fact-Checking Tip: 74% of Americans are very concerned about the spread of misinformation on the internet. Despite a partisan gap, most Democrats (84%) and Republicans (65%) are very concerned about this issue. Skepticism is high with people reporting that media does more to divide society (60%) than to unite it (11%) and allows powerful interests to control society (48%) rather than give people the power to change society (19%)
Common Ground Tip: One of the most straightforward solutions from the psychological literature is that identity-based conflicts require common goals or a "superordinate" sense of identity to bring people back together. In other words, we need a significant understanding of ourselves that can bridge more minor differences. This need to create a superordinate identity has been intuitive to rulers for centuries, who would use various traditions and ceremonies to help build alliances between countries and cultures.
Political Leaning Tip: Researchers have found that more conservative people tend to have an individualistic worldview. They value respect for authority, preserving the sacred, and protecting their community. By contrast, people who are more liberal tend to have an egalitarian worldview and value justice, fairness, and equality.
Family Table Tip: Half of millennial parents always research charities before donating, compared to 37% of Gen X and Baby Boomers and 29% of the Silent generation. Providing resources for kids can help make the campaign a family affair.
Tactic #6: Omnichannel Touchpoints
Reason for apathy: timing
Research indicates that seven touchpoints are needed to engage supporters. Digital channels often have low open rates, and real-world meetings may not be feasible. A hybrid approach that communicates across various mediums effectively reaches the right audience, especially when segmenting based on their willingness to embrace change. In his book, Diffusion of Innovations (1962), Everett M. Rogers explored "insanity and hearing" by looking at the type of person in a cycle of product adoption: (1) innovator, (2) early adopter, (3) early majority, (4) late majority, and (5) laggard.
Ask Again Tip: People are often busy, and a lack of response doesn't necessarily mean disinterest. It may be due to technical issues, personal tragedy, or other reasons preventing action.
Referral Tip: Word of mouth is the quickest way to get a yes. If the person can't help, asking for referrals can lead to a long-term partner.
Calendar Tip: Timing is a valuable tool for connecting with people. Resources are available for the best times to engage on social media, email, and more. Aligning campaign communications with specific times will enhance your strategy's effectiveness.
Drip Tip: Campaigns never end. Design drip communications to foster relationships.
Campaign Planning at Spotlight Tip: Consider the saying: “Skip the chitchat and get down to the nitty-gritty.”
Use art to create a powerful identifier of the campaign and use this art to band people together behind your campaign when they collect their in-app sticker.
Add tags to all Sticker types when creating your shop assets to help create values-alignment.
Share your Sticker externally using your Content Marketing Plan, QR codes, and URLs.
When applicable, use custom messages when setting up your campaigns in your Platform Dashboard to drip information to your supporters.
Apply Sticker art to real world impact (murals, basketball courts, etc) so that people can visit the installation piece that relates to the digital copy they carry in their pocket.
