Fundraising for a large campaign, like a capital or endowment campaign, usually involves asking for large amounts of money from a smaller group of donors. These big asks are important because of the size of the potential contributions and because of the limited amount of donors who can contribute. Failing to convert one ask can have significant consequences, thus it is important to use an ask technique likely to succeed. Face-to-face solicitation is that technique.
Face-to-face meetings with prospects are most effective for your fundraising efforts if two representatives of your organization meet with a single donor - ideally, the meeting will include the donor, the development director and a board member the donor knows. Meetings between a single representative and the prospect also are effective, however.
There are four components of the face to face ask: the opening; the involvement; the presentation; and the ask. During the opening, the representatives are introduced to the donor. This generally takes place weeks or before the other steps. The involvement is a conversation between the representatives and the donor about the organization, and, almost anything else the donor wants to talk about. This conversation can take place during the course of the face to face meeting or prior to it. The presentation and the ask both occur during the actual meeting. The presentation is the part where organizational representatives explain the needs of the organization, and the ask is when the prospect is asked to make the donation.
After the representatives make the ask, they should say nothing else during the course of the meeting. Make the ask once and only once. Resist the urge to follow up during the meeting; that will come after the meeting.
In order of effectiveness, the best solicitation follow ups after a personal meeting are:
* Personal letters; best with a telephone call to follow up.
* Personal phone calls; best with a follow-up letter.
* Personalized letter
* Impersonal letter
* Impersonal telephone
* Special events
If executed properly, your targets are going to feel comfortable enough with the organization and valued enough by the organization to make the large donation. The face to face ask can then be used as a foundation on which to build a long-term donor relationship, and that may help your organization even more than the single donation gained.
Face To Face Big Choice
There are many IM?ers today that are making large dollars serving as affilates only for many products and services you see everywhere on the web. They do not ever actually own these info products in any way. What they do is direct targeted traffic to a site and thereby collect a nice fee or commission by so doing. We will explore each option here and evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of each choice.
What are the pluses and minuses of launching an Internet marketing career as an affiliate versus a product owner? Being just an affiliate, you need not be involved in the long creation process, or the many other costs involved in product ownship such as list- buliding, merchant services,etc.
However, a major disadvantage is that you aren't in control of the product itself. You have to search the web to see if there's a product you feel sure of promoting. You can do this through ClickBank and other third party affiliate networks, but you're always going head to head with competing affiliates for a share of the Internet Marketing treasure.
Serving as an affiliate, you may not control the sales copy or added bonus items. Should the product owner fall down on providing quality customer service, it can really hurt the affiliate marketer too, long term in his hard earned, valued reputation.
As a product owner, you're locked into the entire process from start to the end. You have to develop a unique concept, create a product or pay to have it created using an outsourcing service, and then get everything up and running smoothly, if you want your cyber marketing venture to be a success.
You also have to recruit a larger group of affiliates and provide an ample toolbox filled with strategies they can use to help promote your site. But you retain control over the details of each site and can test and tweak sales copy for higher conversions and deliver any sort of product or bonus that you feel is worthy to your customers.
Is one individual choice better than the other for the cyber marketer who is considering all of their options? They each have pluses and minuses you must account for in your marketing decision making. Of course, the really big one is the higher profit percentage the owner may enjoy over the affiliate marketer working on only a commission basis
Actually in practice, most marketers do a combination of actions of here. They'll create their own information product in the form of an Ebook and then hyperlink recommendations back to affiliate products that they promote. It can work so many times in a great many cases. There are several ways to have the best of both worlds and experienced IM people can often point you in the right direction to accomplish just this in your own marketing endeavors.
This usually hikes the proft percentage of the created product and makes more passive money each time the product is advertised by the affiliate invloved. So many are now finding, the magic is in the proper mix of these two important cyber options.
Both Jacob Ackart & Thomas Spratt are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jacob Ackart has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fundraising, Business and Finance. Jacob Ackart is an active volunteer who has been involved in many fundraising activities for non-profits, from small projects to black tie events. For more information and ideas for fundraising, please visit the. Jacob Ackart's top article generates over 1000 views. Bookmark Jacob Ackart to your Favourites.
Thomas Spratt has sinced written about articles on various topics from The Internet, Fundraising and The Internet. Thomas Spratt, University of Iowa Marketing School Grad, Former Fortune 50 Executive Unocal Corp, US Military Officer, Vietnam Veteran, CEO CyberMoneyMap... Your Cyber GPS Virtual Roadmap In The Confusing World ofInternet Marketing. .. to learn "How To" m. Thomas Spratt's top article generates over 22200 views. Bookmark Thomas Spratt to your Favourites.
