Is the campaign’s website the best quality possible? Are social media platforms showing consistent results? Is money going down the drain because of an email marketing campaign that’s not meeting fundraising goals?
For answers to these questions and more, keep reading. We’ve got the answers.
Quality Website
Why is having a quality website important? Quoting a study called, Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites, Forbes writes, “Participants liked sites that were informative, relevant, fresh, clear, and unbiased.”
At one point or another, everyone has come across a website that seemed like its design was outdated or poorly-made, making it difficult to understand, interpret or browse. While content and copy is important, it’s not the first thing that catches a person’s eye — it’s the design.
On top of having a maturely-designed website, check to see if the homepage is free of errors, succinctly summarized, and eye-catching. Website first impressions and user experience are important factors to take into consideration when designing a website.
According to Sweor.com, “It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not, whether they’ll stay or leave.” That means there’s less than one whole second to draw a user in to the website and persuade them to click through.
Who will be visiting the website the most? Will it be busy parents logging on to donate to the campaign or millennials browsing issues and planned events? Knowing the audience helps guide the quality and quantity of content to have. In the same Forbes article, when participants of the study were asked to provide reasons for why they trusted particular websites over others, they found people “specifically enjoyed when sites gave age-specific information and provided answers for frequently asked questions.”
Most campaign or cause websites have a, “What you can do to help” section that includes a link to ActBlue or another donation platform. The ROI is clear here; make it as easy as possible for people to donate to the cause. Good websites have a donate section on the homepage with a button in an accent color placed where eyes are naturally drawn.
For Diane Battiato, we placed a donate button at the top of her homepage where it was easy to spot and easy to navigate to.
ROI for a user-friendly campaign website has the potential to create advocates from voters browsing candidate information or deciding who to vote for. There’s also a potential for an increase in trust and dependability for the candidate. An increase in donations to the campaign are perhaps the biggest return on investment after creating a website with an easily accessible donate button.
Crafting Emails
When thinking of digital marketing, emails may not seem like the most extravagant or glamorous options of the different marketing strategies. According to an eMarketer study, “the median email marketing ROI is 122%. That’s four times higher than any other digital marketing channel.” If the digital marketing strategy is in place but you’re choosing to not utilize email, now’s the time to rethink strategy.
Emails have a high ROI because:
- Many people all over the world have an email account
- The number of email users increases every year
Stated in the same article, “By 2020, the number of email users is estimated to grow to about 259 million.” Most people use email for business, but more often than not, they are using it to keep in contact with their favorite brands, groups, companies, candidates, etc.
The best proof for email’s return on investment is through donation emails for candidates. Whether you are using ActBlue or Donorbox, it’s easy to attach the link to your donation page in emails.
Our content strategists are experts on creating engaging subject lines with high-open rates. They also know how to compose emails with strategic asks that turn leads into donations for the candidate on a daily basis.
Running Ads On Social
Social media advertising has an extremely high return on investment. Whether it’s reach, web traffic, or conversions, Facebook’s platform allows ads to target based on geographics, demographics, interests, email lists, etc.
One of the best parts about social advertising is how in tracking analytics you can uncover if your ROI paid off or not. Whether increasing participants for your lead form or increasing clicks to a website, track to see what value the ad had and learn what to do for future ads.
For example, let’s say you ran a Facebook campaign to increase donations while testing different audiences. The donation page then receives a flood of donations. You can now use Facebook to see which audience performed best and use that information for future social ads.
By using Facebook Insights, one can clearly track new followers, likes, shares, comments throughout the duration of an ad, making it easy to track the return on investment and finding out what does or doesn’t work.
Return on investment is important when it comes to digital marketing. New creative digital marketing tools are created everyday to track what the ROI is online. Don’t be stuck in the past; learn how to use digital marketing to the campaign and candidate’s advantage.
Why We Know What We Know
We specialize in digital marketing and we always deliver results to our clients. See who we’ve worked with and how we used our digital marketing skills to create a better website, to write emails that had high-open rates, or to run social advertisements to better their campaign or organization.
Interested in learning more? Send us a message on our website to see how we can start strategizing your return on investment through digital marketing and strategy.