Check out these “brain tricks” from Katya’s Nonprofit Marketing Blog, at 7 Totally Surprising Brain Tricks to Sell Your Cause:
- You can’t go wrong with pictures of babies.
- Use high-altitude imagery or get donors physically high up to help get them in a giving mood.
- Raise money to help people, not to fund causes.
- When asking for money, include a big ask. It makes other amounts look small.
- Approach donors according to a group they’re in — a faith, locality, ethnicity, even hobby or profession. People like to be part of groups.
- In design, use the golden mean (A width-to-height ratio of 1.618 to 1). It’s inherently interesting.
- Do something unexpected in your messaging .
Filed under Future Fund Raising Now by on Dec 1st, 2011. Comment. 
The luxury market might be defined as much as a point, though luxury is an indefinable quality inside the eyes of the beholder – or the consumer. What is luxury to 1 person is commonplace to one other, which is why the term ‘luxury market’ has no defined meaning. On the other hand, does affluence preserve exactly the same definition in a recession as when occasions are excellent?
Very first, some words on how the affluent marketplace is defined. It could be defined as people who can afford to purchase greater priced goods and services that middle income consumers can not afford. In other words, luxury consumers. On the other hand, this is pretty vague definition, and it truly is greater to put a figure to it.
The truth is, the affluent marketplace might be defined as the wealthiest 10% of American households, who account for nearly 50% of all consumer spending inside the country in terms of money spent, and representing 70% of the net worth of all houses inside the USA. The top 10% earn 36% of the total earnings inside the country, and hence comprise a really significant marketplace for those companies which will make use of it.
These figures apply when occasions are normal, but throughout recessions, or when the economic climate just isn’t bright, the so-called affluent marketplace tends to withdraw, decreasing unnecessary expenditure and shield its investments. At the very same time, as a result of falling sales, those producing and promoting luxury goods have a tendency to respond by undertaking one thing they would by no means ordinarily dream of undertaking: supply discounts or incentives to buyers of luxury goods.
Let’s forget here what the definition of a luxury item is, due to the fact we all know what constitutes luxury. It is a initial class plane ticket, a Prada handbag or an outside deck cabin on a world cruise. When occasions are negative, these are the initial items of luxury to suffer, and also the initial to supply incentives. These may possibly incorporate cost reductions, coupon offers, or even volume discounts that would happen to be unthinkable in financially normal occasions.
Whatever it truly is, though the definition of the affluent marketplace does not modify, those which are getting these ‘luxury’ goods and services are no longer the affluent. The ‘aspirers’ to affluence can now afford luxury items to which they could previously only hope to operate and save challenging for, and those promoting such goods uncover themselves relying on the aspiring marketplace instead of the affluent marketplace.
So are these aspirers which are now buying a substantial proportion of luxury goods readily available at cut costs the new ‘affluent marketplace?’ Absolutely not, considering that that marketplace is definable though ‘luxury’ just isn’t so. Maybe luxury goods are now no longer luxury goods, and maybe we need to look upwards to seek a definition of ‘luxury.’ Or perhaps this aberration will continue only for as long as a recession lasts!
This latter suggestion may be the most most likely: that when points develop into normal again, the average middle classes will when more develop into aspirers instead of important players inside the acquisition of luxury goods. How do we tell? The smart way is usually to ask them – ask the aspirers and ask the accurate affluent marketplace what their future plans are, and how they’re forecasting the future?
To complete that you really need to carry out what is usually called ‘affluence research’ and conduct a marketplace survey on how the numerous strata of society see the future and forecast their spending habits. Most companies are unable to do this: in truth, almost none can! Why is that?
It really is largely due to the fact the accurate affluent society will not volunteer such info to standard marketplace study firms. The aspiring middle classes may possibly, but with only half the story, there is no possibility of establishing the accurate situation concerning future spending on luxury goods.
The cause for this is that the affluent will probably be reluctant to supply confidential info to any marketplace study business unless they’re confident that they are going to stay anonymous along with the info they offer confidential. There are firms that specialize in researching the affluent marketplace in its expenditure on luxury items, and these firms preserve databases of those that fit the above definition of ‘the affluent.’
The info they accrue and format into standard marketplace reports contain confidential spending forecasts along with the disposal money that the affluent members of their databases intend spending on more than commodity goods. Such study is useful in delivering an insight into the prospective future spending of the top 10% earners inside the USA, as well as often on how they intend to invest that money instead of invest it.
By registering to obtain the reports of such specialist marketplace study companies, manufacturers and study facilities will have some basis upon which to plan their future study, and also their future retail and promotional efforts inside the luxury goods field. It really is usually not feasible for individual companies to develop the trust of the affluent marketplace towards the extent that they would be in a position to establish this info for themselves.
Filed under Chris Stoddard by on Dec 2nd, 2011. Comment.
Filed under Nicva by on Dec 3rd, 2011. Comment.
Let’s see — what forms of fundraising are dead or dying this week? Direct mail? Deader than a doornail. Radio? Pushing up the daisies. Email? Moribund.
That’s what it’s like to read some of the blogs in our industry. You can create a facsimile of vision by making sweeping proclamations about the death of entire fundraising media.
(One clown recently claimed that Twitter fundraising is about to kick the bucket. Really! It hasn’t even come to life yet, and it’s already dying!)
Newton’s Media Fix looks at these premature dire predictions at The Chicken Little Syndrome — The Sky is Falling!
… we are living in a changing world. Sure, there are new and exciting ways to communicate our message. Everyone thought when TV came on the scene that Radio was going to die and go away; when the Web came on the scene it was going to gobble up TV and TV was going to go away. Neither theories has proven to be true. Projections of doom are often overly-pessimistic and sometimes can cause very unwise reactions or, even worse, sudden over-reactions.
Change is inevitable. All the media are changing. We have to respond to these changes, or watch our efforts net less and less revenue for our causes.
But the only media likely to “die” anytime soon are the ones that never quite caught on in the first place. Like QR codes. And even then, I’d hesitate to pronounce them dead until it virtually no longer exists.
The fact that you (and all your buddies) never respond to direct mail says nothing about the health of direct mail. It doesn’t even point to a gloomy future for it. Direct mail is the greatest fundraising medium ever created — after the church collection plate. It’s changing, getting more complex and more expensive. But it’s not dying.
Next time you see, hear, or read someone telling you one of the established fundraising media is dead or dying, do this: Mentally mark that person as clueless; they have publicly displayed a mile-wide streak of either ignorance, incompetence, or irresponsibility. Take everything that person says with a big grain of salt until they prove themselves wiser and more reality-based.
And keep raising funds. By the media that work for you, not the ones people claim are the next big thing.
Filed under Future Fund Raising Now by on Dec 3rd, 2011. Comment.
A webpage will be the image of one’s business. If your webpage just isn’t effectively organised then folks are simply not thinking about you. For finding your business common you have to take appropriate steps for developing an useful webpage. Following are a few of the ideas which will enable you to to build an useful too as effective webpage.
• Background: It truly is very required to choose a appropriate colour for your background as when the text is displayed it should really be clearly noticed. You cannot go a red text on a blue background but it is possible to use any light colour on black background and dark colour on the white background. It truly is very required to be careful about the colour selection as the webpage should really be clear sufficient for the folks to read and fully grasp too as they should really be comfortable in the time of searching.
• Pop-up Windows: Pop-up windows are usually irritating. The pop-up windows are frequently noticed in web sites no matter if skilled or semi-professional. People today usually stay clear of sites that include pop-up windows. So it can be suggested to stay clear of creating use of pop-up windows unless and until very required.
• Hide the counter: It truly is not required to show how lots of visitors you had on your site. It truly is crucial to maintain a track of visitors but in the very same time it can be of no cause to display it. Once you display your counter and you have limited number of visitors then the new visitor get your site of no use and leave it which ultimately provides you a loss. It truly is better to track your visitors by hiding your counter.
• Serve what users want: A typical mistake is performed in the time of designing and which is the designer don’t organise the design and data. It then becomes hard for the user to obtain what they search for. When users are unable to locate what they look for they leave the site instantly and this is of no use for your site. It truly is very required for you to organise the design and every piece of facts so that the user gets all he wants in 1 sight.
• Avoid keeping issues moving: Once you design your webpage, you have to bear in mind 1 factor that it consists of a consistent design. The adjustments that may be produced are only in the primary page. should you maintain on moving issues around your site’s navigation or if 1 page is totally diverse from the other then, your shoppers get confused. And such confusion forces them to leave the page.
• Create a sticky site: Just believe that you simply don’t need to promote your site, it can be just the users maintain coming. This is feasible should you build the site in the way user wants. Then the user will look for your site, stay for longer period and maintain coming back.
All of the above six ideas helps you to develop an useful too as a best website design. Now virtually every website companies make use of these ideas for developing a webpage that user wants. Users are in want of design too as facts and not just any one of them.
Filed under Chris Stoddard by on Dec 4th, 2011. Comment.