Imagine you have an incredible story about someone your hospice has had a direct effect on. They want you to shout about the care your hospice provided for them, or a family member, to help you raise more funds.
What do you do with that story? How do you get it to as many people as possible? How do you know the best channels to use? And, more importantly, how do you turn that story into donations?
You take a truly integrated approach to have a real impact and make a real difference.
What is integrated marketing?
Integrated marketing is getting all of your channels to talk at once in a structured and strategic manner. It’s knowing which channels to use, which ones best meet your objectives, and using them as effectively as possible.
That means your social channels, website, PR, direct marketing, word of mouth – whatever it may be – work together as a unified force, rather than a fractured effort. It’s seeing the bigger picture and delivering the detail in a cohesive way.
We understand that the way some income-generation teams are currently set up don’t traditionally lend themselves to this way of thinking. But through dealing with hospices, we have found that the ones that are following in the footsteps of other charities and business, and embracing this joined-up approach to their communications, are the most successful in getting their messages heard.
Remember; messages heard mean more donations and greater awareness for your cause.
How does integrated marketing link to donations?
Hospices are time and resource poor. You want to be doing more, but it’s hard to know where to put those efforts.
That means your time counts for a lot – you want it to be well spent with a high return on investment. By embracing an integrated approach you’re able to work more efficiently across multiple channels and communicate with existing and potential donors in the way they prefer.
Let’s take our advocate from the beginning of the article as an example. Where could their story be told? Here are a few examples:
- a series of social posts
- a testimonial on your website
- a case study
- in hard copy brochures or direct mail
- as a voice/talking head in a video
- as a press release to local press.
And what does this achieve? It makes your work human. It tells a story to as many people as possible in the most effective way.
Most importantly, it makes people care.
By sharing this across every relevant channel, more people are hearing about your work. If people care, they’re more likely to emotionally engage with your work and donate.
How an integrated approach helped Hospice of the Good Shepherd
We worked alongside Hospice of the Good Shepherd to create an integrated campaign to encourage people to donate. To help them achieve some incredible results we:
- created a clean, fully-responsive website
- built an ecommerce shop integrated with MailChimp and Rapidata, a direct debit processor
- built a jobs board where users can browse, apply and set up job notifications
- completed an integrated social media plan
- ran multiple email marketing campaigns
- designed consistent event branding
- assessed their SEO (search engine optimisation) and offered best practice guidance
- created a PPC (pay per click) campaign to help raise brand awareness and push donations
- helped them to better understand their data and how to use it to their advantage
- provided training to help staff become self-sufficient
- built a lottery functionality on their site as a new form of income
- supported and brought to life live events to showcase their brilliant work.
This integrated approach translated into real results. Visitor numbers increased by 100% – and new visitors increased by 30%. Sales revenue doubled and the hospice secured two corporate sponsors, generating £10,000.
How to start your integrated marketing efforts
To carry out more effective communications for your hospice, talk to the team at Access. Our specialist background in charities and the public sector makes us experts at what we do.
We can help you:
- engage young people and attract new donors and volunteers
- generate more income
- build a truly integrated campaign
- capture new data and handle it securely.
These are just some of the ways we’ve helped other charities to build their brand and increase the reach of their work. Take your charity to the next level and engage Access in your integrated marketing efforts.
Access will be exhibiting at the Hospice UK Conference 2016, taking place in Liverpool from 16 to 18 November. Conference attendees can sign up for a free digital consultation and talk to experts about how to transform their integrated marketing efforts.
Visit Access’ website to find out more or call 0161 872 3455 and ask for Phil Fraser to receive a free, no obligation website audit and marketing communications review.
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