One of the real joys about working for Edit is that a huge part of our proposition is creating marketing that matters for our clients, customers, colleagues, and communities.
I had the original idea about creating Edit’s CrEDIT fund during a sunny weekend of gardening. Things have moved quickly. I could barely have imagined the response would be so positive. My team were immediately behind it, our internal marketing team have been hugely supportive. And above all, our media partners have been incredibly generous in supporting the fund with hugely generous discounts across all media touchpoints.
Now in place, Edit’s CrEDIT fund is there to support those faced with challenges. Those having to pull budgeted spend, those with income lost through the cancellation of fundraising events and those who previously relied on income generated from Face to Face fundraising. .
Since lockdown, we’ve been focused on when it comes to supporting the re-building of vital funds that charities rely on in order to run and support those in need.
Despite all the relative doom and gloom surrounding Covid-19, it has already proved hugely rewarding to be able to give back and support those most in need during this very strange time. For charities that are faced with having to pull back on spend, the longer term impacts on brand health and share of voice have the potential to be devastating. So, for Edit, it was simple. Doing our bit to make media much cheaper and more accessible will help with this.
Our first client to benefit from crEdit was a charity we have worked with for over 10 years.
They wanted to launch an emergency response campaign to COVID-19. The intention was to generate donations that would help fund aid to those most in need. Their brief to us was simple. “We need some help to do this as cost-effectively as possible, and we need it turned around as quickly as possible”.
The first channel they briefed, owing to its short lead times, was press. They briefed us on the Friday afternoon and were immediately able to utilise the press space within our fund. We got straight to work and were were able to identify those relevant titles where we had discounted or free space. Time was against us, but we we managed to achieve a discount of ahead of the weekend.
We presented a working schedule on Monday morning. Sign off was quick and the first ads appearing in titles on the Wednesday.
For the initial burst, we achieved a 50% discount off their historic/market rates. This, along with judicious use of cost-effective formats and a strong call to action, contributed towards generating an ROI of 4 off this initial spend. An amazing result for a charity appeal, even in normal circumstances. Following this, we went on to book a 2nd and 3rd week of press. To date, this campaign has generated over £125k in donations with ROI still high at 3.6. And there are more ads still to run
The client was so pleased with the press results, we were subsequently asked to look at other channels where we could both build reach and scale up the number of donations. Again, looking at the fund and pairing this against their objectives, we recommended inserts and TV.
- For inserts, we utilised historic results data. This gave us an understanding of which titles were likely to work best for the client. We then leveraged some of the available titles within the fund, whilst finding more titles to bolster the plan. All of this, coupled with discounted print costs will help generate a high ROI for the medium.
- For TV, we were able to take advantage of the discounted TV CPT’s and the no late booking charges. This, paired with with inflated ratings meant that we could create a schedule which would deliver extremely cost-efficient reach of their typical donors, plus reach a wider pool of prospective new donors; who we wouldn’t normally hit.
As with many charities, this particular client normally concentrates their spend in Q4. So, this was a real departure for them. And a potentially high risk one. Despite this, precision targeting, discounted media and our expert knowledge of what can work really well for charities, we were able to mitigate the risk somewhat and as the initial results show, deliver a short term boost to their donation income.
At the time of writing, we’re actively in discussion to expand crEdit in order to support 8 charities of varying size. We are also looking at ways to expand the fund, including free data audits through our PURA data cleanse platform. This exercise helps us remove deceased or goneaways. Additionally, with more consumers at home, people have had a lot more time to look at marketing preferences for their e-mails . Evidence for this has already surfaced from some work we’ve done with the clients, who have seen their databases shift already during this period.
Understanding your current data is therefore crucial. When we do finally emerge from lockdown and client budgets start to return to the “new normal”, data will need to be clean in order to be of value. If your data isn’t clean, compliant and up to date to start with, your campaigns simply aren’t going so to work. The data your could be making decisions on isn’t going to be robust and representative of your current customers. This will lead to inefficiencies, poor response, huge cost wastage and a bad customer experience.
If your charity would like to enjoy the benefits of our crEdit fund, then please get in touch here.
