Speaking of gifts

 

Subject line: Don’t Forget Your Gift by June 30!

When you read that in an email on June 29th, your assumption would be...?

That you'll get a gift with some offer that ends on June 30th. So you may click out of curiosity or out of a feeling of FOMO, two strong incentives to open an email. ( See 7 ways to grab customer attention in subject lines)

What would be your reaction, though, when you discover that the gift referred to is not for you but one that the sender is demanding you send by June 30th?

That's what the New-York Historical Society did for its email campaign as you can see from this screenshot of the email:

Would you be inclined to feel generous and hasten to make this arbitrary cutoff that the organization says is the end of its fiscal year?

Are you using the right KPIs for your campaign?

I have no doubt this subject line generated more than the usual number of opens. Perhaps whoever was tasked with this email campaign was told that's the primary KPI and so resorted to clickbait that turns into a bait-and-switch.

As Stephen Covey said, "Have the end in mind."

It's important to lose sight of the real end goal -- putting people in the frame of mind to want to donate to the organization.

Tricking them into clicking is not likely to do that.

False urgency

Neither is attempting to create a sense of urgency by declaring you're one day away from your fiscal year. If the donation comes in July. it's not going to make much of a difference.

The only end of year the donors care about is the calendar year if they are able to take a tax deduction for the donation. Remember, when you're asking something of someone else, you have to make it center around them and their needs -- not your own timeline.

If you want to use content marketing effectively, you should always be thinking about what is the likely reaction of your target audience to your communication. Failing to do so leads to major fiascos like the one currently experienced by Budweiser and other missteps described in Major Marketing Missteps from Adidas, M&M's and Coke.

Don't lose the goodwill you've built up over years to a thoughtless marketing message, get a seasoned pro to craft the right message for your organization and your demographics. Learn more here and book a free consultation call.

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Better tracking for better results

A nonprofit adopts a health information technology platform to decrease challenging conduct and restrictive residential living for people with behavioral issues.

Services for the UnderServed (SUS) is a New York City-based nonprofit organization that provides $185 million in services to individuals with disabilities, people living in poverty and those facing homelessness. The organization, which has a staff of close to 2,000, needed a way to track measurable results for people with behavioral issues, so it adopted a health information technology (HIT) platform.

HIT platforms make it much easier for health care organizations to gather and report results of value-based care delivery to governmental organizations and foundations. Proven success rates can also pave the way to get program funding

Read more in 

Health IT Platform Results in Better Patient Care

Getting the healing power of music to more patients

from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maroper_Music.jpg

 When Bob Marley said, "When good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain," he was on to something that researchers are now bringing to light.

In "Music as Medicine," the American Psychological Association named numerous studies that documented the benefits patients derive from music. It promotes healing in a number of ways: It can alleviate anxiety, reduce stress, lower blood pressure, mitigate pain, and even boost the immune system.

Given the obvious benefits to patients—as well as to caregivers and staff ,who also get a lift from hearing the music—Griffin says that hospitals want to be included in the organization's program. However, the organization's growth has been fairly slow due to the manual processes involved in recruiting volunteers and matching up musicians and guide volunteers with the hospitals.

Read more in Software Helps a Nonprofit Bring Music to Patients

Big data and social networks for students preparing for college

The common denominator between both these uses of technology is the nonprofit organization College Summit.  You can check it out at Charity Navigator

In Bridging the Gap to the Goal With Educational Data
I focus on the use of data:

Armed with that information, educators can make informed decisions about what modifications are needed to better prepare the next batch of students for their college careers.As Camille Jacobs, Assistant Principal, Pathways College Preparatory High School, Queens, NY, noted in the College Summit whitepaper, "With postsecondary data, we have the ability to work backwards, improving or revising our practices to provide targeted instruction and services, addressing the varying needs of each of our students."

In College Apps for College Apps I look at the social media apps designed to help students to and through college. College Summit was one of the key organizations behind  The College Knowledge Challenge, which awarded prize money to the best apps for student use.