Insights
INSIGHTS
All Topics
How to create digital content for fundraising
21 Apr 2020by Christine Chiu
How to create the right content to drive your fundraising initiatives
Emotive, authentic, and real digital content helps charities express their cause and increase digital fundraising. The squeeze on finances and plethora of on-cause donation requests have created a competitive environment where unique content for digital fundraising is a differentiating factor. Creating content tailored for fundraising can motivate new donors, help spread the message, and increase reach through social media.
Charity content as part of a purposeful digital strategy
An integral part of digital strategy, developing, launching, and tracking charity content is instrumental in digital fundraising. Beginning with charity digital strategy, content should be framed around the goals, personality, and distribution channels. Charity Digital’s Content Lead, Aidan Paterson recommends constantly asking the question: “Is this helping me get my message across?” to assess whether content should be part of your overall strategy.
Recently some of the largest fundraisers have used VR and on-trend messaging to create content and have raised nearly £29 million. NHS Charities Together, the health charity representing over 140 NHS has come together to raise the profile of health workers.
Making the most out of an opportunity to save an IRL event, the charity partnered with the Grand National horse race to produce a virtual event, using a random generator to pick a winner. Raising £2.6 million for the NHS Charities Together, the campaign maximised opportunities to engage with people – during lockdown, Forbes magazine has reported a 70% increase in internet use as audiences tune into digital TV and social media. For the health charity, creating VR content specifically for digital fundraising was a huge success.
Related Articles
Creating content from your archives
With lockdown in place, it could also be time to dust off those archives. New content can be created with unused video footage without the need to commission content film creators.
Advertisement agency WPNC announced its willingness to help charities develop new media to combat coronavirus. John Eversley, WPNC Agency Managing Director said: “Face-to-face fundraising is impossible, out of home is seeing a huge drop-off in budgets and exposure, and a large number of events have either been postponed or cancelled. We’re launching the emergency ad service to protect charities’ incomes by taking advantage of people spending more time online and watching TV.” For charities with older video footage, the agency can help remake media into digital campaign content.
Sharing fundraising content on platforms and channels
Charity digital leaders can plan ahead by deciding what type of content to create, from text, images, video, GIFs, memes, quizzes, to infographics. Charities battling coronavirus impacts can also think about sharing content demonstrating the impact of the virus.
When choosing media, it’s important to tailor that content to the distribution channel. Alan Moody, CEO of Microsoft shows off his content and distribution skills. HaircutForCharity rides on the coronavirus-themed digital fundraising and has been tailored for specific social media channels. Charity digital fundraisers post before and after photos of their self-inflicted haircuts, raising money for charity at the same time. Perfect for sharing on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, the campaign has already motivated 279 donations. For charity digital leaders, ‘shareability’ can help turn a digital fundraising campaign viral.
Choose your channels wisely
More sophisticated coronavirus campaigns can also be managed by social media platforms. Lightful, the social media management platform, offers strategic advice for content launch and management. Across the social media platforms, best practice includes:
Facebook – is all about the engagement and conversation. Content posted on Facebook should focus on quality and not quantity. Lightful recommends posted 2-4 times per week.
Twitter – real-time reactions achieve the most impact. Charity digital leaders can think about posting tweets a few times per day.
LinkedIn – for formal or professional announcements, LinkedIn is best for networking and thought leadership. Post here when there is something significant to say.
Instagram – a great outlet for high-quality videos and images. Lightful suggests posting here once or twice a week.
Generating a conversation on social media platforms can also be streamlined through social media management platforms. Platforms can empower charity digital marketing and communications teams to schedule content and track engagement.
Tracking your content
Coming full circle to Charity Digital’s Aidan Paterson, tracking content and assessing whether content is helping to get the message across is an important measure of success. Whether it’s by number of reads, shares, likes, or amount of funding raised, content should be tracked so that efforts can be refined going forward.
Christine Chiu
Christine Chiu
More on this topic
Recommended Products
20 Dec 2024by Laura Stanley
Webinar: Getting your board on board – how to communicate about AI
20 Dec 2024by Ioan Marc Jones
A-Z of the best fundraising ideas for charity
19 Dec 2024by Christine Chiu
How to recruit digital volunteers
Our Events
Charity Digital Academy
Our courses aim, in just three hours, to enhance soft skills and hard skills, boost your knowledge of finance and artificial intelligence, and supercharge your digital capabilities. Check out some of the incredible options by clicking here.
© 2022 Charity Digital Trust. All rights reserved
