By Nick Blake, Johanna Levy, and Will Valverde Some days, you just know a particular Slack channel is going to be on fire. When breaking news throws you into rapid response mode and ideas, questions, and docs are flying. Or on #willyouacceptthisrose the morning after a DRAMATIC episode of the Golden Bachelorette.
And then there’s Giving Tuesday. As matching gift ads go live and email inboxes fill up, the Slack channels where we at M+R share results along with our favorite examples of strategies, tactics, and creative look like this:
We know that nonprofits raised record-breaking revenue this Giving Tuesday. Our own data suggests a more complicated story: organizations saw total Giving Tuesday revenue both rise and fall year-over-year. Those responding to crises making headlines—especially the conflict in the Middle East and to post-election threats to our rights here at home—appear to have fared best.
We also know all too well that behind each and every dollar raised are teams of creative professionals doing the painstaking work of copywriting, graphic design, experimentation, and optimization.
This is a moment where striking creative and a willingness to experiment can really pay off. We’ve spent the last few days sharing the highlights—here are just a few examples that stood out to us this year.
Of course, many appeals included graphics to emphasize tactics and urgency — thermometers, countdown clocks, match promotions, etc. This email from the ASPCA balanced those elements with warmth (the adorable kittens definitely helped).
Nonprofits are sending multiple emails on and around Giving Tuesday—early bird offers, updates throughout the day, a report-back after… all of which creates challenges in finding something new or interesting to say.
One way to mix things up is to vary the message signer, from the executive director to fundraising staff to volunteers to donors. Our friends at The Trust for Public Land took things one step further with this email—from the perspective of everyone’s favorite park-loving, bench-sniffing dog. It’s a great way to show supporters a more playful side while presenting the organization’s core mission and values in a new light. They’re right: ain’t no rule says a dog can’t sign an email.
Digital Advertising
Advertising creative for a flash campaign can be tricky—urgency drives much of Giving Tuesday’s appeal, but it can be hard for the platforms to optimize and serve your creative on a strict schedule. That said, in terms of overall performance, we do still see some benefit from referencing the Giving Tuesday brand.
One creative way organizations are delivering a Giving Tuesday ask that is both timely and impactful is by simply starting earlier! This gives your ads time to deliver without missing the boat altogether. Here are a couple of examples from our friends at USA for UNHCR:
By going live with Giving Tuesday promotions early in November, we had time to optimize creative to boost performance on the day itself. As a bonus, the results of any advertising creative testing can help inform the content you deliver in email, social, and other channels come Giving Tuesday.
Mobile Messaging
Let’s face it—Giving Tuesday is stressful. Organizations stake a lot on emails and other outbound asks being delivered on time and to the correct audience. This year, some email providers and CRMs faced technical issues that delayed delivery.
No one wants their beautiful countdown clock email to reach supporters hours after the email was scheduled. That alone is a great reason to consider adding additional channels to your campaigns—and we are still seeing great results from SMS despite the flood of texts from political campaigns this year making us question if anyone would ever open a text again.
Some Giving Tuesday text messages even looked a lot like email! Check out this example from our friends at the International Rescue Committee:
There’s also this example from our friends at the Union of Concerned Scientists:
While longer (and more visual) MMS-style appeals can be more costly than the typical 160 characters, the tradeoff can be worthwhile! Days like Giving Tuesday are exactly the right time to consider investing that extra cost on the front-end to ensure that your best, most visually-engaging content is reaching supporters when it matters most.
In some cases, your MMS appeal graphics may also mimic what you’re sending over email. Here’s a great match promotion graphic from RAINN that would be equally at home in your email inbox or on your iPhone:
With more competition than ever before, Giving Tuesday has become a time to stretch creatively and experiment with different tools and channels. We hope these creative examples will give you some ideas to try through the rest of the end-of-year season and on Giving Tuesdays to come!