Which is most/least risky to you?  Donating for the first time to a brand,

• You’ve never heard of
• Whose name you’ve heard before
• You know

Answer: most, 2nd most, least.  Your only one path to growth comes from increasing the percentage of prospects that know you.  There is a huge chasm in likelihood to donate and lifetime value between “know you” vs. ‘heard of you”.   The brand measurement parlance for these is unaided awareness/brand recognition and aided awareness/brand recall, respectively.

These are measured in a survey,

• Unaided Awareness:   When you think of [insert your sector here] charities, which ones come to mind?
• Aided Awareness:  Which of the following charities have you heard of? (Select all that apply)

We’ve measured these and compared existing donor cohorts with unaided vs. only aided and the lifetime value is 50%-150% higher for those with brand recall.  Pulling this off is not simply a function of brand spend over time though that’s part of it.  Increasing brand recognition and recall is not just about being visible—it’s about being distinctively memorable.

The “distinct” part means I associate your ad with your brand.  How many memorable ads have you seen without a clue as to the brand that ran it?  At minimum your brand ads must have the name, mark and tagline very prominent.  Ideally you have some other visual cue to consistently incorporate.  The WWF panda was not a part of the original logo but today, seeing just the panda is all you need to instantly connect it to WWF.  Again, they started at zero association between panda and WWF.  You can get there…

But being distinct and memorable is more than just visual cues consistently shown over time.  Where you show up and how you show up matters.  I did work for Budweiser many moons ago and their mental association with sports was so strong that almost every dollar of Miller Lite ad spend on sports accrued to Bud.

Your where matters and it must be more thoughtful and nuanced than rattling off channels – e.g. social, display, CTV, out-of-home.

How you show up is your brand matching your prospects sense of self.  You’re not going to persuade people to give, at least not consistently.   Your message is three parts,

1. 1. Visual mark and associated brand elements/assets
   2. Message that speaks to the prospect that aligns their Identity with your mission (not brand).
   3. This is cheating a bit but you pull off #2 best with story – beginning, middle and end that goes from struggle to intervention to redemption.

You can be creative and inventive but do it within the confines of 1-3.  Bonus recommendations:

• It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It takes 10-12 months before you can expect to see lift in your activation marketing as a result of your brand spend
• Buy on CPM, it’s much cheaper.
• Focus on Reach, far less frequency.  In practice this is difficult since the two are correlated and many ad platforms love Frequency.  It’s more/less doable depending on platform but not trying to minimize frequency is burning money.
• Do not spend continuously.  Do 2 weeks on, 1-2 weeks off, rinse and repeat.  Ads have some shelf life for the exposed and this also helps minimize frequency within a given time period.

Kevin

P.S. If you think you’re spending all you need to on “brand” with your current direct marketing house file and acquisition efforts then I want to talk to you about my oceanfront property …in Kansas.

P.P.S. All this advice applies to small charities and doubly so.  Your total spend will be less than larger brands but the ratio/split needn’t be.  You can get there but only if you start.