2018 bridge conference deck creative session_final

// Put Your Creative to Work!
August 1, 2018
11:15 a.m. -12:30 p.m.
Copyright © 2018 PMX Agency, LLC. All rights reserved. This information is deemed proprietary and confidential. Unauthorized use or disclosure is prohibited.

Who Are We?
Bethany Maki,
Vice President of Nonprofit Strategy,
PMX Agency
Andrew Magnuson,
National Director of Digital Fundraising,
American Heart Association

Today’s Agenda – What You’ll Hear Today
• Creative – It’s more than just an art.
• What Creative looks like today.
• Driving Performance – The Key Elements of
Testing & Creative Strategy.
• American Heart Association Case Study.
• Achieving Collaboration.

Today’s Agenda – Key Learnings
• How to think about Creative as a way to bridge
your aspirational brand goals with the data to
power your strategy.
• How to consider Creative across audiences, media
platforms and creative formats, in order to inform
your testing strategy.
• How to integrate Creative into your overall
fundraising and marketing roadmaps.
• How to get Marketing, Fundraising and Creative
speaking the same language.

We have BIG BRAND GOALS
“We want constituents to believe in our cause,
our mission, and their power to make a
difference.”

And more data than ever…

Sometimes, there is tension…

Like this….

What
Creative
Looks
Like
Today

Telling stories across channels…

Across media…

Across devices…

And across formats.

What’s the formula for Great Creative?
We’ll give you a hint, there’s no ONE right answer!

5 ElementsofCreativeStrategy:
G.U.M.B.Y.

FIVE ELEMENTS OF CREATIVE STRATEGY
Gis forGOALS
• What are your main objectives? This is
different from what you want designed or
written.
• Communicate fundraising and marketing
goals.
• Ensure your Mission is always in sight.

SIMPLE GOALS
Creative solutions can be extremely impactful
when goals are clear and simplified.
TRAFFIC CONVERSION
RATE
AVERAGE GIFT
VALUE
REVENUE

U is for USERS
• Who are the audiences you’re creating for?
• Promote empathy: encourage Creatives and other
team members to think “outside-in”. Being too
close to the organization’s mindset can limit
thinking.
• Review how the audience’s needs are being met by
other/competing organizations.

Case Study: Boys & Girls Clubs of America

CHALLENGE
Connect more meaningfully with key audiences by
creating a site that reflects everything BGCA stands for,
including a greater emphasis on the three key pillars of
Academic Success, Healthy Lifestyle, and Good
Citizenship. Offer individualized, intuitive pathways to
allow critical audiences to easily navigate the site.
Before
Mission: Enable all young people to reach their full
potential as productive, caring responsible citizens.

SOLUTION
Introduce a self-selection starter
on the homepage to guide
audiences through the site.
Iterative Test & Learn
Comprehensive user testing was
conducted prior to, and during the site
build. It was important to understand how
a real parent, teen or donor would navigate
through the site’s content.
The addition of “Find a Club” on the
homepage and global header.
The site features beautiful videography
and photography that blends all of the
powerful things that BGCA stands for, and
works towards.

Results
+28%
Increase In
Traffic Pre & Post
2017 Launch
-9%Bounce Rate
Decrease Of
Visitors
+18%
Users Navigating
To “Find A Club”
Landing Page
+13%
Increase In
“Donate Now”
Conversion Rates
13.5kSite Visitors Used
“I am a…”
Self-Select
Option
Results based on March 28, 2017 and May 31, 2017 time period.

Mis forMATERIAL
• What assets are available?
• Encourage new ways of
expressing the same message in
a different format.
• Formats and channels often carry
their own sentiment. Know the
differences.

What makes a channel good or bad at conveying your
message/ask?
Timeliness
Visual Appeal
Sphere of Influence
Depth of Content
Your Constituents’
Preference

Experiment with Formats: InstaStory

Experiment with Motion: Video
With people gazing 5x longer at video than at static content on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, you can share the experience
you offer, feature your mission in action and deliver your message with video.

Bis forBRAND
• First rule of branding: DO NO HARM. Do not
compromise the brand for short term gains.
• Ensure brand guidelines are documented and
distributed. Speak with a unified brand voice.
• Communicate the Value Proposition. Messaging should
map back to these key brand values.

Defining & Communicating the Brand Value Proposition
Value Proposition: The big WHY
Mission Statement
Charity Water is a non profit organization bringing clean and
safe drinking water to people in developing countries
• Better health
• More time to focus on the things that really
matter
• Expand worldview and build better future
Campaign/messaging
Campaign: “Clean Water Means”
Message points

Yis forYARDSTICK
• Provide a baseline or historical performance metrics.
• Discuss what KPIs will be used to measure the success
of the project/initiative.
• Show how the KPIs map back to the overall Goals.
• Follow up with results.

Qualitative Data Tools
Tools like Hotjar and Crazy Egg help Creative and UX professionals create empathy by observing
user behavior.

Use analysis and data around creative to ground your
test approach
✓ Continually Improve the
Audience Experience
✓ Ongoing Performance
Optimization
and Iterative Learning
✓ Mitigate Risk/Quantify
Potential Gain

1
SETUP &
DISCOVERY
Identify goals,
business
problems and
KPIs.
2
QUANTITATIVE
ANALYSIS
Identify patterns
and areas of
opportunity.
3
QUALITATIVE
ANALYSIS
Understand the
users’ needs.
5
HYPOTHESIS
FORMATION
This is the
basis for the
test. Include
the targeted
variable,
predicted
outcome, and
rationale.
6
TEST
PLANNING
Prioritize and
set up
experiments.
7
ASSET
CREATION
Design and
copy
variations to
be tested.
8
TESTING &
REPORTING
Run split test
with live
traffic.
Analyze and
report
results.
4– IDEAS TO TEST
Keep a running list of test ideas.
REPORT NO-BRAINERS
Fix things that are clearly broken.
// Testing Methodology

Case Study:
American Heart Association

How can we not sound like
“the people in the white coats”?
Transforming the Brand Value Proposition

AHA Case Study – What We Knew
Our “typical” Donors:
• Knew basic age/gender/income
• Overwhelming majority were
personally affected by heart
disease or stroke
Our Donor Prospects:
• Low existing affinity for
the organization/cause
• May or may not have been
affected by heart disease
Needed to determine:
• Common emotional
denominator, that
answers the question
“Why should I care?”

More Than Basic Demographics – What was the
emotional connection with the cause?
What is the emotional motivation?
• Because of our varied prospect audiences, we needed to consider different attitudes
and orientations towards the brand.
• We also needed to make tangible esoteric concepts like research and science.
• How can we deliver moments of ‘unexpected delight’ to our audience?
What types of content/creative connect with different
generations?
• Surprise takeaway: All segments responded to themes of “intergenerational
connectedness”, but in different ways.
• Younger demos responded to keeping kids+families healthy, older demos respond to
the concept of more quality time with family.

Example: Multi-generational Testing
EOY & Giving Tuesday

• American Heart Association’s pre- and through-Giving Tuesday
efforts encouraged users to share their reason for supporting heart
health, using the hashtag #MyReasonThisSeason
• Creative and messaging supported this larger storytelling arc by
featuring various "reasons", and calling users to support theirs in
the form of a gift to AHA.
• The team tested creative across generations in social and email to
gain insights into which copy/creative combos resonated by age
segment in advance of holiday and end of year flights.
• The campaign ultimately drove donors back to a dedicated "Donate
Now" landing page on AHA's website that showcased creative from
the #MyReasonThisSeason user generated story.
#MyReasonThisSeason

#MyReasonThisSeason
Primary take-away was that offer and positioning were
key drivers of new donor conversion and increased
revenue performance:
• 47% increase compared to GT 2015
• Social media accounted for 24% of total GR
revenue driven
• Created an opportunity to gain insight into
demographic positioning
• Millennials  aspirational
• Gen X  Young Family/Relationships
• Boomer  Multi-generational connections
Social Media emerged as a critically important email support
channel to compete for mindshare.

Example: Iterative Testing
Donor Impact Report

DIR Evolution & Iterative Testing // Results
1. May DIR: Headline Testing
The next iterative DIR test sought to build upon clickthrough rate
optimization with a focus on content module headlines. The test sought to
provide insights into the following research question:
▪ If we shorten headlines for each story segment of the DIR, can we reduce
friction and increase clickthrough rates?
control example
test variant example
▪ RESULTS: The test variant with shorter story headlines outperformed the control
with a 4.4% lift in CTR at 99% confidence.
Implications: For subsequent DIRs, the following approach was utilized:
• MAR Test Champion  Subject line: “Your [Month] Donor Impact Report is here”
• APR Test Champion  Shorter body copy
• MAY Test Champion  Shorter headlines

2. June DIR: Design & Layout Testing
The next iterative DIR test continued building upon clickthrough rate optimization with a
focus on an updated design and improved UX. The test sought to provide insights into the
following research question:
▪ If we update the DIR UX with cleaner blocked image formats for desktop and stacked content on mobile,
can we reduce friction and increase clickthrough rates?
Based on the clickthrough rate analysis, we see that the new, mobile optimized test variant was
associated with a 2.3% drop in clickthrough rate at 94% confidence.
However, with nearly 60% of all DIR opens occurring on either mobile or tablet, these results were very
surprising. Before accepting these results as a valid challenge of our assumptions (that a cleaner, mobile
optimized layout would drive stronger CTRs), we first needed to fulfill the following due diligence:
• Verify there were no technical issues with the a/b audience split
• Rule out any potential mitigating factors which may have impacted the KPI
• If results are found valid, form hypothesis as to why the control outperformed the test variant.
!

2. June DIR: Design & Layout Testing (continued)
After further investigation, we observed that the new test variant layout resulted in a latent consequence which impacted the
pre-header text.
▪ The DIR control contained pre-header text which served to
introduce email content.
▪ While the DIR test variant also contained this introductory
content, the pre-header was front-loaded with “JUNE 2017”
which is effectively a repeat subject line content and offers
no additional value to the supporter.
These pre-header text differences had a notable impact on open rate; the test variant pre-header was
associated with a 4.3% reduction in open rate at 99% confidence.
!

2. June DIR: Design & Layout Testing (continued)
To control for the differing open rates, we examined click-to-open rate (CTOR), or clicks as a percentage of total opens,
to gain insights into the impact which the new layout may have had on clicks.
Results: Controlling for opens using the CTOR KPI, we see that the test variant (the new layout) had a 2.05% lift in
CTOR at 91% confidence.
Implications: For subsequent DIRs, the following approach was utilized:
• MAR Test Champion  Subject line: “Your [Month] Donor Impact Report is here”
• APR Test Champion  Shorter body copy
• MAY Test Champion  Shorter headlines
• JUN Test Champion  New design layout; and used pre-header text format from the old layout

Some Key Takeaways:
• What story formats resonated with different generations?
• articles vs. videos, long-form vs. short-form, text-heavy vs. graphics
• How did we alter our storytelling approach?
• Stories are positioned from the perspective of the target audience
• No “informational agenda” – primary focus is to deliver perceived value to each
audience type
• How did we put some rigor around the creative testing?
• Took the long road, only testing one variable at a time with each audience
• Validated each test “success” with subsequent tests using the winner as the
control

marketing
fundraising
creative

The Fundraiser Perspective:
• What are the realities, from your perspective, of the Creative
process?
• How do you work with your partners on aligned goals – from
concept to execution?
• How do you create room for experimentation and innovation?

The Marketer Perspective:
• When do you pull Creative into the conversation?
• How do you integrate across disciplines? What do the working
relationships look like?

The Creative Perspective:
• Numbers aside, what is my job as the artist, and what is my duty
to the end user?
• How do I elevate my role to align with organization’s broader
marketing, business and fundraising goals?

Takeaways:
• There may not be one single formula for Creative, but there are
best practices for communication and collaboration that we can
follow.
• When it comes to measuring the success of Creative, qualitative
metrics are just as important as quantitative ones. Use an
empathetic approach to understand a user’s journey with the
brand.
• Don’t view Creative in a silo. Do integrate – it’s crucial to the
alignment of goals, objectives and outcomes across the
organization.

// Thank you!

2018 bridge conference deck creative session_final

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Ähnlich wie 2018 bridge conference deck creative session_final

Ähnlich wie 2018 bridge conference deck creative session_final (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

2018 bridge conference deck creative session_final