Launch
December 2019
Marketing Automation & Campaigns
Amnesty International Germany – Write for Rights 2019
Success
The number of Write for Rights participants who took part online increased by 62.23% compared to the previous year.
Engaging messages
Every year Amnesty International calls for participation in the Write for Rights campaign with the motto “Write for Freedom”. During the campaign period, the participants support people suffering from human rights violations with digital and analogue letters. The flood of letters puts pressure on the authorities concerned to change the situation for the local people. It is up to each Amnesty country section to take measures to push the action and get the most out of it. And this is exactly the point where we were allowed to support.
Source: Amnesty International, Photo: Sarah Eick
Challenge – Identifying, highlighting and fully exploiting potential
Amnesty International is one of the most well-known non-profit organizations worldwide. Since 1961 they have been active in the fight against human rights violations. Their actions are known and enjoy great popularity around the globe. One such example is the Write for Rights campaign, in which the organization uses analog and digital letters and millions of participants to help individuals affected by human rights violations every year.
When we were given the assignment, Amnesty International Germany had already defined their two goals, which they wanted to achieve for themselves as an organization through the campaign: Generate new leads and turn participants into donors through targeted follow-up communication. In order to achieve these goals, messages are needed that are well received. We therefore developed communication measures to reach the appropriate target group at the right time through the right channel. In addition, we faced the challenge of developing unique and attention-grabbing content. They should arouse curiosity and generate clicks. At the same time it was important not to deviate too much from Amnesty’s “wording” and to respect internal restrictions.
Solution – catalogue of measures according to the lifecycle principle
In the first step we determined the status quo of existing measures. We needed to know: What is already being done to attract more participants – i.e. new leads – to the Write for Rights campaign? And how are they bound afterwards? The result was surprising. Indeed, the German section had taken few measures to support the action so far. With 202,086 letters sent and 61,934 online signatures, the 2018 campaign has already been a great success – and with more manageable online marketing. So a huge potential target group was still waiting. Amnesty International Germany also largely dispensed with follow-up communication up to this point. After successful participation the marathon writers only received a very simple thank you email. So we had to develop a concept that covers the various lifecycle stages – i.e. promote the action and bind and convert the participants through targeted communication. Affected were the lifecycle stages “new”, “interested” and “developable”, whereby the two stages “new” and “interested” were combined in the conception.
New/interested: In order to reach new and, above all, more young people and teachers, as Amnesty wanted, they should be made aware of the campaign via social media and the Google Display network and encouraged to participate.
Developable: After participation, the participants should be retained and converted – through target group-oriented follow-up communication. It was important for the success of the project to react flexibly to the complex and individual requirements that the Amnesty project team had to meet. Thanks to our experience, we have been able to provide a Plan B when needed – because the satisfaction and individual needs of our customers are important to us.
Implementation – harmonization of tools and channels
In order to encourage new, especially young people with an interest in human rights to participate in the Write for Rights campaign, the campaign was advertised in advance via a paid story on Facebook and Instagram. The aim was to arouse curiosity and increase attention to the campaign through advertisements with unusual statements. The ads ran until the start of the campaign on 01.12.2019. After that, the target group was animated to participate in the letter marathon through ads on Facebook, Instagram and the Google Display network.
The e-mails for the follow-up communication for the participants capable of development were sent via ActiveCampaign. An automated journey through the topics “Thank you”, “Courage” and “Success” should convert the participants into donors. The lead-to-donor journey began with three e-mails and a landing page. While the first two mails contained a call-to-action by default, the third mail was only visible to those who had not yet donated. Through integrated engagement scoring, the behaviour of the contacts was measured and the journey continued according to the interaction.
All contacts who had not yet donated after the third email were transferred to a Facebook Custom Audience. This target group received sponsored posts with targeted donation CTAs. Those who showed a high level of interest in the mails and their contents through many e-mail openings and clicks, but could not yet be converted to a donor even after the targeted retargeting on Facebook, were handed over to Amnesty’s telemarketing department.
As a human rights organization, Amnesty International attaches great importance to the issue of data protection. A particular challenge was therefore the transfer of contacts and information to ActiveCampaign. Instead of a petition tool, Amnesty International uses its own forms that are integrated into its CMS. We installed an e-mail parser which retrieved the information from the forms via webhook and transferred it to ActiveCampaign. In this way we were able to avoid manual export and transfer the data in real time and automatically.
“With getunik’s help, we broke new ground in this project, questioned old structures and showed courage. This has enabled us to make a great campaign even better.”
Oliver Reff, CRM / Online Fundraising Manager, Amnesty International Germany
Effect – positive figures and valid database
Social media and the Google Display network reached more than half a million people and the number of online subscribers increased by 62.23% compared to the previous year. Four times as many people visited the website as last year. More than 10,000 euros in donations were collected online and via the Facebook fundraisers.
Another positive finding is that courage pays off. As part of the project, Amnesty International agreed to try something never before seen. With the help of tracking, we have thus succeeded in creating a valid database for the coming year. The implementation of the Facebook fundraising was also uncharted territory for Amnesty International and did not receive full support at first. But Amnesty showed courage, dared to try something new and, with the implementation of the Facebook fundraising, created a further pillar of ongoing fundraising campaigns. Also in the area of wording and internal restrictions it paid off to break new ground. The second e-mail with the subject “Courage” showed the highest interaction with a click rate of almost 21 %.
getunik-services
getunik was able to support Amnesty International in these steps:
Reach potential target groups
Young people in particular were the target group of this year’s letter marathon. In order to reach this group with all its needs, we developed various measures around social media.
More attention through Facebook Ads
During the campaign period, cases of the Write for Rights campaign were presented again and again. Through the paradoxical statements they created curiosity and attention.
Exclusive gimmick for participants
As a thank you, all participants were given the opportunity to use an exclusive frame for their Facebook profile picture. The benefit? Participants can show their support and show their community that they are committed to a great cause. In addition, we were able to ensure greater visibility of the campaign on Facebook.
Increase loyalty through tailored communication measures
Through a tailor-made journey the participants could be bound to the organisation step by step and converted into donors at the end of the journey. Depending on the engagement score, they ended up in a Facebook custom audience and handed over to telemarketing.
Thinking outside the box – discovering and activating unused potential
In the course of developing appropriate communication measures, we noticed that Amnesty International Germany has so far not made use of the opportunity to start fundraising campaigns on Facebook. Together with the managing director of Amnesty Internationals, we fought our way through internal barriers and implemented them.
Optimize monitoring and reporting
Last year, the only information collected was the number of signatures. Together with Amnesty International we optimized the monitoring and reporting, which was still in its infancy at that time. In order to obtain a first valid result, we therefore carried out a matching process between donors and the contacts who went through the journey. In addition, better analysis of website traffic and data from Facebook, Instagram and ads from the Google Display network was carried out.
Amnesty International – For more human rights.
Amnesty International is the world’s largest human rights movement. Amnesty is independent of governments, parties, ideologies, economic interests and religions.