I love that the annual DMAW MAXIs allows us to see the work we all spend so much time thinking and talking about, and we get to learn what drives donors and donations for other organizations.
Even though I knew two of my team’s campaigns for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) were being recognized this year, I was still excited to see other successful fundraising efforts, and of course, I was anxious to hear which campaign won The Big Idea Award (which is given to one winning campaign each year and is selected by senior judges as having the strongest creative of the group).
Imagine my surprise when one of the ATC’s campaigns, the Year-End Giving Hike, was announced as the Big Idea Winner! Hooray!
What makes this campaign so special, you might ask?
I can’t speak for the judges who selected it from all the other impressive efforts submitted, but I can tell you that the K2D and ATC teams felt it was special from the start. It was the first time we’d worked on a year-end digital campaign together and it was truly a collaboration and partnership.
Our campaign goal was three-fold: First, we wanted to improve revenue compared to the previous year. Second, we wanted to strengthen the ATC’s donor base, so we needed to engage lapsed donors, and third, we wanted to grow the donor file so converting the email list and website visitors was critical.
Of course, this is not necessarily an easy thing to do during the year-end giving season. We knew we needed to grab the audience’s attention and stand out from the crowd, so we developed a very strategic, very captivating campaign.
Like a lot of year-end campaigns, we used a visual engagement to symbolize how close the campaign was to its goal, and we had the perfect image – an illustrated map of the Appalachian Trail!
The original illustration was developed for ATC welcome center visitors and used in direct mail, so transforming it into a giving hike brought familiarity to audiences that weren’t already used to getting fundraising emails.
The campaign consisted of nine emails that featured personal stories sent from different ATC staff members. The staff’s passion and commitment to the A.T. is contagious, and using their authentic voice and well-known imagery helped to emphasize the regional focus of ATC’s work, supporters' connection to the iconic trail, and shine a spotlight on different states and locations.
A matching gift offer was a prominent part of the campaign, which included a lightbox on the ATC’s homepage in addition to the emails.
When the giving hike reached Katahdin on December 31st, we were thrilled to see that campaign revenue was nearly four times the previous year, new donors made up 20% of the responses while 38% of gifts came from donors who hadn’t given in more than a year! New achievement unlocked!
We’re so thrilled that this effort was recognized by our peers. Most importantly it's the capstone of a team effort I’m proud to be a part of, and its success has meant more resources for the wonderful work ATC does to protect, steward, and preserve the Appalachian Trail.
DMAW Guest Blogger:
Lori Archut is Vice President of Client Services at K2D Strategies. She can be reached at larchut@k2dstrategies.com or (703) 517-0192.
