Tag Archives: Instagiv

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Content Ideas for Charities

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Here at InstaGiv, we understand that it is often difficult to create content that raises cause awareness and raise the profile of your charity. There are so many charities and non-profits out there who are of similar nature, so it is often hard to get yours to stand out.
After some research, we have put together a few ideas that may help catch the eye of your target audience and supporter base.

Vlogs/Videos

Everyone loves visuals, right? Rather the reading reams and reams of text, a short video clip or a vlog documenting some of the work of your charity is almost guaranteed to catch the eye of your supporter base than paragraphs of text. According to My Social Networking Market; 20% of browsers will read text on a website or social channel, whereas 80% will watch a video.

The use of visuals is definitely a good call, which brings us to our next point; images and infographics. A picture can tell a story better than any type of wording can. Images are great for catching the eye and infographics allow you to place some facts and figure on there also.

Go behind the scenes

Why not create a short piece of content showing your supporters the hard work that happens either on the road or within your office environment? Everyone loves a “meet the team” or “check out our HQ” – show your audience what the day in a life of someone who works to fight the cause in which they support is like. Everyone loves a nosey behind the scenes!

Interview your volunteers

Why would this help? Volunteers are there for a reason, they often do not get paid for the time or work they give to charity. It is therefore essential to get their views, thoughts and opinions and put them at the forefront of your charity. These people give their spare time to help a cause that they feel strongly for, a clip of them in action or telling the rest of UK why they do what they do, maybe perfect to help pluck on the heartstrings of your audience.

One final point before we finish this blog, another thing that has recently surfaced after some conversations with employees in the office, we discovered that Instagram stories are a big hit at the minute. We have also seen online some facts around how most Instagram users prefer to watch the stories of those that they follow, rather than scroll through their feed. Some food for thought – sometimes we are afraid to get in front of the camera, but perhaps when you do it once, that is the barrier broken.

Written by: Caitriona McCarry, Marketing

We hope you enjoyed the read! Feel free to let us know what blog topic you would like to see; Caitriona@instagiv.com.

Running happy kids in green field during summer time

What summer fundraising ideas have you got in your pipeline?

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Running happy kids in green field during summer time

It might be hard to believe, but summer is almost here, and if you haven’t already, you should start to think about your fundraising ideas for the next few months.

While it might be effective, standing on the street with collection buckets in the pouring rain just does not sound appealing to anyone. Fortunately for us, there are loads of other fundraising ideas that don’t involve a raincoat and an umbrella.

Institute of Fundraising

According to the Institute of Fundraising’s most recent giving report, SMS donations are on the rise, and with the help from Instagiv, we can help you get the most out of your text message campaigns. By creating a fundraising campaign with us, you can take the time and hassle out of fundraising, freeing up your staff and volunteers to use their time much more effectively.

They’re quick and easy, as well as being user-friendly and have a very fast turnaround. Not only that, but Instagiv’s mobile fundraising and engagement platform will let you send donors a response message instantly, thanking them for their donation. You can enter information relevant to your charity response message, as well as adding a short URL link directing more traffic to your website if you wish.

Track in real time

By using Instagiv’s platform, you can log in, receive SMS donations from your keywords and track the progress of the campaigns in real time. Another great feature that we can offer you is to send outbound text messages to anyone who has previously donated and given consent to your campaigns so that you can create a long-standing relationship with your supporters. A quick text message can prove too much more effective and prompt donations than a phone call. Just upload a list of phone numbers to the Instagiv platform, and you can start to send out and schedule messages in advance, which is great when you are busy with other fundraising campaigns.

90% of texts are read within three minutes

While it might seem that text messaging is a thing of the past, 90% of texts are read within three minutes of being sent, and the end of the day will have read 98%. It is still an extremely effective marketing channel, which is also cheap and easy to set up and maintain. The great thing with SMS donations is that no matter how old it is, any mobile phone can receive a text message.

Regular giving, competitions via SMS, address capture, response SMS’, bulk outbound sends – we have it covered.

Why not request a free live demo with one of our experienced team members and see what Instagiv can do for you?

Instagiv

5 ways mobile-fundraising with InstaGiv will benefit your charity

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Mobile-fundraising is a fantastic tool used by charities and not-for-profits around the world to raise donations. Donors are given the opportunity to donate money through their mobile phones. These can be smartphones or tablets, and the whole point of mobile-fundraising is to making donating quick, easy and straightforward.

People can give to an organisation from anywhere in the world, through their mobile phone. We use our mobiles for everything in the world, so why not for charity fundraising too? It’s an amazing tool, that can help your charity raise more donations than ever.

In this short blog, we’ll give you five ways in which instaGiv can help your charity in 2019 with mobile-fundraising.

 

Instagiv
Instagiv

Bulk Outbound SMS tool

Upload your recipient list and send your supporters bulk outbound SMS texts. This can be used to inform your supporters about an upcoming event, marathon, support for a petition and much more. This tool allows you to stay engaged with your donor family, keeping them updated on recent news or requesting a donation. This bulk outbound SMS does not cost the supporter anything to receive; it’s free to the user and allows you to target an audience suited to your charity.

Instagiv
Instagiv

Consent Feature

With the built-in consent feature tool on the InstaGiv online platform, you can ensure you are always compliant with the latest GDPR polices. You can enable the consent feature tool on all of your campaigns, giving your supporters the option to either opt-in or opt out of future communication. The system automatically groups the mobile numbers of donors who have opted out into a separate list allowing you to differentiate between those who have given consent and those who have not.

Instagiv
Instagiv

The new Gift Aid Feature

We have recently just launched our new Gift Aid collection mechanism. We will now automatically match your Gift Aid declarations to SMS donations collected on the platform and provide straightforward tools that allow you to download batches of donations for processing with HMRC. Gift Aid declarations can be collected from supporters via SMS or through our new mobile-optimised form – both of which we have ensured are compliant with the relevant regulations.

Instagiv
Instagiv

Data Ownership

Clients get full ownership of all data and activity on their instaGiv dashboard and platform. The InstaGiv platform has many features allowing you to see detailed statistics on your fundraising campaigns as well as supporter information on all donations and SMS’ received. The platform gives you the ability to download all your campaign data in report form using the download CSV tool which brings several benefits. Having the ability to download your campaign data and donation amounts allow you to effectively analyse your different campaigns and see which works best for your Charity.

Instagiv
Instagiv

Track donations

When you log in to your InstaGiv account one of the first pages you will see is your dashboard with all your donation and campaign activity – updated in real time. There are graphs, charts and statistics illustrating the success of your campaigns, how much money each different campaign has raised, top campaigns, incoming activity, monthly donations, and overall amounts. You can instantly see any incoming donations with options such as viewing how many times a supporter has donated.

instaGiv

To find out more about our services, and how we can help your charity, get in contact today. 

SMS Marketing

5 reasons why you should be using SMS marketing over Email

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SMS Marketing
SMS Marketing

Email is usually the medium of choice for marketing. Most people find that they receive a couple of marketing emails daily and ignore quite a few of them. Or they spend their lifetime sitting in an inbox, with the ‘intention’ of being followed up on. But that never really happens.

SMS, on the other hand, remains a much more intimate way of getting in front of your target audience. It’s usually a quick message from a friend or family member. With more and more people using their smartphones for their everyday business, people tend to look at their phones much more than they will look at their emails.

SMS marketing campaigns have increasingly become a quick and cost-effective marketing platform. And when you look at how audiences respond to SMS marketing, you may be surprised to see how well it competes with email. Let’s look at some of the main advantages of an SMS marketing campaign, compared to an email marketing campaign.

SMS can reach more people than any other platform

Email can reach anyone with an internet connection, but what about those who don’t have access to it? Of the 7.5 billion people in the world, less than half, which is around 3.7 billion have access to the world wide web.

Mobile phones are a very different story.

According to GSMA real-time intelligence data, there are now over 9.01 Billion mobile connections worldwide, which surpasses the current world population of 7.67 Billion implied by UN digital analyst estimates.

Just think about it, people may have one or two mobile phones and generally use them every day. It’s not uncommon on the other hand for people to have a couple of email addresses, some of which are rarely used. They might use just one regularly, meaning your marketing messages may be getting lost in transmission.

Mobile phone figure stats
Mobile phone figure stats

Higher open rates for SMS marketing

Common sense can tell you that people are more likely to open an SMS than an email. According to a new research study, Americans check their phones an average of 80 times a day while on vacation, with some checking their screen more than 300 times each day.

Opening your inbox and finding five or six marketing emails can make you unlikely to click any, especially if you have lots of other emails coming in for other reasons.

Email marketing can prove difficult when people receive so many emails. An SMS, on the other hand, is so short that most people will take the time to read it. Recent research showed that the average open rate in the UK for emails was just under 25% while estimates for SMS marketing in recent years state that as many as 98% of phone owners open an SMS message, usually within a few minutes of receiving it.

Higher click-through rates for SMS

The data also shows a much higher click-through rate for SMS messages compared to emails. The most recent research shows that email marketing tends to generate a click-through rate of around 4.2%, compared to 36% for SMS messages. When you work that out, that means around one in every 25 people will click-through when they get an email, compared to one in three for an SMS. SMS is a much more effective way of driving potential customers towards your website.

Quality Over Quantity

As people’s email inboxes take in more and more messages for all angles, the chances of your email sitting there unnoticed are quite high. This means that email marketers tend to send quite a lot of emails, hoping to eventually catch the attention of their target with one or two.

For SMS, you know the open rate and click-through rate is high, so you have to work on crafting one or two good messages. That’s simple too as you only have a small number of characters to fill. You just put the most important information in your text and get right to the point straight away. Campaigns that adopt SMs marketing often prove to be much cheaper than email marketing campaigns.

SMS is Cheaper

It’s a much cheaper medium, as you are sending out fewer campaigns. It should also be more cost-effective, as a high click-through rate should lead to some sales. This means the SMS campaign should soon pay for itself.

They also take much less time to create. You don’t need to worry as much about the design as in an email. You also don’t have to worry about how it will appear on different devices. InstaGiv can help your charity create SMS marketing campaigns that work. We work with more than 300 charities to help boost their fundraising with SMS. To find out more, check out our Services page or Contact Us.

Donations

Why are Charity Awareness Days Important?

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In this week’s blog post we have come up with the main reasons why we think that awareness days are important and the importance of promoting them.

The purpose of awareness days is generally to give knowledge to the public about various health, social, humanitarian and cultural issues.

There are various awareness days for all types of causes throughout the UK.

  • They not only help raise the awareness of what they are, but they help raise cause awareness also. Do you think I have used work awareness too much?

Well, what we mean by this is, for example; from the 1st – 31st of March is Ovarian Cancer Month, this is the perfect opportunity for cancer-related charities and not for profits to get their message out there, shout from the rooftops about the work that they do and how it helps. This is a great way to spam your social newsfeeds with your upcoming campaigns projects, fundraising events and ways for your supporters to donate to your charity.

  • They make the public more aware of “what to look out for” in terms of their health

What we mean by this is, awareness days give us an insight into the signs of the likes of breast cancer, prostate cancer when someone is having a stroke and much more. Campaigns for causes such as these educate us on what to look out for and how to recognise when something isn’t right.

  • They encourage your supporters to participate in a fundraising event or do their activity to help raise funds and awareness for a cause.

When people are reminded of a good cause, it often inspires them to do something to help that cause or charity out. It may be a good idea to have an event or fundraising campaign running alongside the dates of the awareness days that suit you. This can be something as small as a sponsored walk, no sugar for a day, no alcohol or a week or a larger event like a fun run, sleepout or a fashion show. People like something that gets them out of the house and out of their comfort zone. I am the worst footballer, and I am not a great cook either, but I would still make a good attempt at a fundraising Five Aside Match or Come Dine with Me!

We hope you enjoyed our thoughts and took something positive away from this blog. Let us know what you would like to see next!

Why are charities using text-to-donate?

Fundraising Ideas, SMS Marketing, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am sure you often wonder when you’re working within your charity or fundraising role, what is the best way to go with your next campaigns? Or why are charities starting to use SMS donations more and more now?

We have put together a few of our main thoughts as to why charities may choose text-giving over other methods, or else to add to their list of donation collection methods.

User-friendly

Our first thought is that text-to-give is incredibly user-friendly. There are no forms, fuss or verification checks required. The donor simply texts their chosen charities “keyword” to the 5 digit shortcodes and a donation is made.

People don’t often like to partake in anything that takes up too much of their time or requires long-haul forms. It is also user-friendly for the charity. Text campaigns can be created and inactivated in a matter of minutes. This helps to reach deadlines that little bit easier.

Quick and Easy

SMS Giving is also quick and easy to do. It takes around 60 seconds or less to send a donation by text. If someone wanted to give a charitable donation without much effort – SMS is the answer.

Most people within the UK today either own or have access to a mobile phone, therefore, it is one of the most effective ways to make a donation. If you are at an event with no change in your pocket, no problem – you probably will most likely have your phone with you so the donation can be made easily through your phone. Donations can be as little as £1 too.

Detailed reporting on progress

Reporting is so important when it comes to SMS fundraising, you need to be able to monitor the progress and measure the success of your campaigns.

Mobile Fundraising and Engagement with InstaGiv has a realm of various reporting functions from your inbound campaign report, consent and opt-in report, Gift Aid collection report and much more.

Our regular giving reporting displays everything from the number of subscriptions per month, number of new sign-ups, gross donations per donation, number of skips and stops, retention percentages and much more. This is essential and is readily available with InstaGiv campaigns.

These are just to name a few; the reasons are endless as to why charities continue to choose SMS giving as part of their fundraising efforts. Other thoughts we had include:

  • It’s cost-effective
  • Has a fast turnaround
  • Works in real time
  • It can be accessed 24/7 among lots of other benefits

We hope you enjoyed this week’s blog if you have any thoughts you would like us to focus on we would be happy to hear them. Reach out to us at help@instagiv.com.

More from instaGiv

Top Tips for your SMS Campaigns

Charities and Social Media

The Growth of SMS 

 

SMS comps

Top Tips for your SMS Campaigns

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We have brainstormed and came up with our top four recommended tips for your SMS campaigns. These tips will help your charity in the long run between gaining an extra 25p per pound donated by adding Gift Aid, to increasing your supporter base by enabling consent and gathering opt-ins.

First things first…

Customise your Response Message

Grab the fact that you get to create your own response message by the horns. The bounce back SMS goes straight to the donor’s handset after a donation is made, this is in place to allow you to thank your donors, you get 160 characters to use so we try to encourage our clients to use up this space wisely. Perhaps also say something like “check out how your donations help”, with a URL to your website, this, in turn, will help drive more direct traffic to your charity’s website. Remember, people tend to read and digest the contents on an SMS received to their phone.

Add Channels

Adding channels to your campaigns brings the benefit of knowing which of your marketing channels are working best for you. You have a number for every marketing channel that you have your text code and campaign advertised. Allowing you to analyse your inbound report and view which channel is reaching the biggest audience and drawing in the most donations. If you are spending your budget on paid ads or expensive advertising, channels are perfect for measuring success.

Enable Gift Aid

Our Gift Aid tool allows you to collect names and addresses from your donors. We have two GA collection methods for you to choose from, both of which records and stores all declarations on your platform. You can then view down downloads this information at any time to send to the HMRC for processing. Enabling Gift aid is recommended as you can claim an extra 25% per one pound that is donated to your charity.

Enable Consent

Add the consent feature to your campaigns, this is where you can gather opt-ins from your donors and supporters. InstaGiv has two methods that you can choose from; Implicit and Explicit. With both, all consent records and stored on your platform where you can easily view and download them. Consent is user-friendly and straight forward, for example, rather than having your donor’s text KEYWORD to donate, ask them to text KEYWORD, YES to donate and opt-in- simples!

SMS marketing

The Growth of SMS

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It’s no surprise that SMS has grown significantly over the last number of years with the massive growth of technology and smart phones.

Almost everyone owns or has access to a mobile device of some description. For many of us, our phone is like an extension of our hand – we physically could not live without it! (I know I couldn’t).

SMS is the one sure way to get your message across effectively. Almost all texts received to a handset, have an open rate of 100%.

We wanted to find out for ourselves

An online survey was recently carried out by our team, with participants across the age ranges of 22-50+ on the use of SMS and mobile technologies.

We will be creating an e-guide will all of our stats collated together and analysed to give an insight into the world of SMS and peoples preferences.

SMS is actively used by many businesses and charities to market their message across to their audiences.
I remember when I first started to receive such communications from businesses.

It was from my dentist, reminding me of the date and time of my upcoming appointment. I instantly thought to myself how handy that was! If you’re like me, you often forget things and are trying to organise yourself at the last minute, so this reminder text was perfect.

Why use SMS as means of communication or marketing?

The list of reasons why is endless but to name a few;

  • Its personal
    The recipient will open and read the text
    There is no junk/spam box on a mobile phone
    Texts are short, sweet and to the point
    It doesn’t cost a lot and is very effective

SMS within business

Text messaging in the business sector is commonly used for brand awareness, offer discounts, reminders, events, lead generation and notifications.

The charity or not-for-profit sector most commonly uses outbound for;

  • Support for petition
    Rallies for last minute disaster appeals
    Event sup ups
    Gathering opt-ins
    Gathering contact details
    Donation requests
    Advocacy
    Cause awareness

SMs is a great all-round tool for anyone wanting to raise either cause or brand awareness and for those who want to get their message out there instantly.
Our upcoming e-guide will outline SMS in a more detailed fashion, giving you the inspiration to go for it.

Use PSMS in a broadcast or DRTV appeal

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Premium SMS
Premium SMS

Trying to get your supporters to actively engage and donate on a regular basis can be tricky – especially heading into the new year. A great way to get in front of them at the right time is with Premium SMS (PSMS).

You can use PSMS in a broadcast outbound text, DRTV appeal, social event or any type of fundraising activity.

Last minute crisis

Sometimes things pop up last minute or unannounced, like an unfortunate incident. This could result in a disaster appeal and you may choose to send a broadcast SMS to gather donations or actively advertise your text code as widespread as possible, to raise awareness and ask for donations.

In terms of the outbound SMS, if you have a list of recipients or a database of opted-in supporters gathered from using our consent feature. You can use these to send an urgent text asking them to reply with one of your donation keywords, to give to your cause. You can use this as a single one-off donation, or to subscribe your supporters to regular giving which is monthly gifts.

To use PSMS as a standard text-to-donate campaign it is as simple as creating your text code, customising your campaign and advertising it to your supporter base. The journey is very straightforward as we like to focus firmly on the donor experience.

Keyword

Texting a donation is as simple as texting a KEYWORD to 70###. While we have fixed price points for all our donation keywords, we also offer our clients the full flexibility of giving their donors the option to give more or less than the default amount, without having to create additional keywords and campaigns.

All donations and responses to outbound texts are recorded on your InstaGiv platform. You can view your inbound report which captures the finest of details right down to the donation amount, date and time and content of inbound texts.

Our regular giving reporting is something we often get praised on also, keeping tabs on donor retention can be somewhat exhausting and hard to do, with our regular reporting we make it so much easier for fundraisers. Our system is equipped to capture and record data right from the number of sign-ups per month, repeat donations, number of SKIP/STOPS per month, cumulative retention statistics and much more.

Quick turnaround

Our turnaround time is very quick. We aim to have all new requests actioned and set up within the same working day. Often enough, we can do this very soon after the request or registration is received.

Find out more information

If you’d like to find out any more information on PSMS, shortcodes, a member of our team would be more than happy to talk you through the process. Fill in the form on our contact page and we will be in touch as soon as possible.

Alternatively, please contact us directly on 028 7087 8220 or email us at help@instagiv.com.

Instagiv
Instagiv

 

Gift Aid

Is your charity making the most of Gift Aid?

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What is Gift Aid?

Gift Aid gives charities the opportunity to get an additional 25% for each £1 donated by their supporters.

Traditionally, declarations were collected via forms, with quite a lot of paperwork involved. Nowadays, it is friction-less, efficient and with a much faster turnaround.

Gift Ait is one of the most important tax reliefs for charities and it’s worth over £1.2 million to the charity sector every year, according to HMRC.

Are you promoting your donors?

Research from HMRC shows that people respond the most when they are prompted to include Gift Aid in their donation. They also responded well when they are told exactly how much was claimed the year previous and what the money went to.

You must be transparent with your donors and tell them exactly how this money is spent. Explain what more could be done if everyone claimed it on their donations.

You also need to ensure your volunteers, and supporters fully understand what the Gift Aid system is and the benefits of it. HMRC have also stated that people who understand Gift Aid are more likely to claim it when donating.

Make the right claims

Education is so important when it comes to Gift Aid. You want to make sure your employees or volunteers are explaining it fully to your donors and supporters in order to eliminate any flawed claims.  It is estimated that around £45 million is made in mistaken claims every year – more than £15 million lost due to fraud.

To ensure you are keeping on top of all your donations, regular audits and internal checks are the best practice. You should also contact long-standing donors who claim gift Aid to ensure they are still paying tax.

How can InstaGiv help you?

We have modernised the way you manage your Gift Aid from your supporters, by solely capturing it with SMS. This integrated system is completely automated, that reports in a user-friendly manner to successfully make your Gift Aid claim with HMRC.

There are two ways to capture it, via SMS or via a web form. You can select which one you prefer in the setup of your campaign in the overview area.

For both methods, the Gift Aid ask is sent via SMS at a delay after the supporter receives their thank your response message. Supporters reply to the text with their details, and for the web form method, supporters click the URL and complete the form.

The Gift Aid ask is sent out at a delay, for example, 5 minutes after your donors receive the thank-you response message. Gift Aid can be claimed on future donations and those made in the past four years.

Addresses are captured and stored in a dedicated area of your InstaGiv dashboard, where you can easily download all declarations, in preparations for processing.

Our form has been approved by the HMRC and is fully compliant. Both the form and the SMS capture all details needed and has the appropriate legal terminology.

Book a demo today

To find out more, request a demo or a call-back today. One of our friendly team members will go over everything in more detail with you.

Alternatively, for more information on this additional guidance on licencing, please contact us at any time on 028 7087 8220 or email us at help@instagiv.com.

Instagiv
Instagiv