Online Breakout #2
Your Relay Online—
Communication & Promotion
Facilitator Guide
Program Overview:
This is the second 75 minute face-to-face breakout session for online chairs at
Great West Summits. There is a web-ex module that will cover the basics of the
event manager center that is essential for all new online chairs to attend. The goal
of this breakout is to ensure they have an understanding of the event options tab
in the EMC, coaching emails, SMS, and how to promote their website.
Target Audience:
This breakout is designed for any American Cancer Society volunteer or staff
partner who has event manager access to their event’s 2013 Relay For Life
website and has the primary responsibility of updating and promoting the
website.
Materials:
Computer
Internet Access
Flip Chart and Easel
Markers
Projector and Screen
Handouts:
Event Email Schedule
SMS Quick Start Guide
Estimated Agenda:
Welcome
1 minute
Coaching Email
15 minutes
EMC Management
15 minutes
Event SMS Campaign
15 minutes
Online Fundraising Promotion 15 minutes
Resources
7 minutes
Closing
7 minutes
75 minutes
Welcome
Slides 1-3
2 minutes
Slide 1 & 2
- Welcome back!
o Introduce yourself again
o In our second breakout today, we want to expand your knowledge of
the communication strategy for Relay For Life online and the
promotion of your Relay website.
Slide 3
- Review the objectives of the afternoon session
o We will walk through you how to send a coaching email from the
EMC of your site.
o We will talk about the Event Center tab in the Event Management
Center.
o We will review the Event SMS Campaign for all RFLs to use.
o We will discuss promotions for online fundraising, as well as how to
promote the website at local meetings.
o We will show you where to go for help and resources.
Coaching Email
Slides 4-13 and Training Site
15 minutes
Slide 4
- There are numerous different types of coaching emails an online chair can
send through the website:
o Meeting Updates: Emails created at the local level to remind team
captains and participants about upcoming meetings.
o Fundraiser Updates: Emails created at the local level to remind team
captains and participants about upcoming fundraiser and activities
o Local Newsletters: Emails that are a combination of meeting and
fundraiser updates created locally.
o Engagement Emails: Emails created by fundraising professionals that
have clear call to actions. These emails are automatically added to
your site.
o Recruitment Emails: Emails created by fundraising professional
targeted to past participants encouraging them to sign up with clear
call to actions, as well. These emails are automatically added to your
site.
Slide 5
- Only 53% or 265 of our events are sending out the recruitment and
engagement emails. These emails are proven to drive traffic to our
websites, and have an estimated revenue of about $1,000 per email sent
attached to it.
o 142 sent out both
o 71 sent out engagement emails
o 52 sent out recruitment emails
- Emails from our websites are the preferred method to contact our
participants because:
o We must give them an option to opt out
o Opting out or other changes to their records updates our system
Slide 6
- The next strategy is the coaching email strategy that focuses on the impact
of the engagement and recruitment emails and ensuring our participants
are receiving quality messaging that is promoting fundraising. These
messages are more than the local meeting and fundraiser reminders.
Slide 7
- Events that send out the engagement and recruitment coaching emails
raise more money.
o Events that send out zero emails only raise $1,336 online on average
o Events that send out 3 emails online raise $3,264 online on average
o Events that send out 4 or more emails raise $7,488 online on average
Slide 8
- All of our events will have 4 recruitment and 8 coaching emails scheduled
for them. These emails can be customized at the local level by someone
with event manager access by canceling and updating.
- It is important that if your event cancels and/or copies the emails that you
do not change the email title in the system and leave the Google coding in
the email. This is going to allow us to measure the impact of these emails
and the campaign.
Slide 9
- This is a list of the emails that will be going out in the recruitment and
engagement email strategy. These emails will be sent out base on event
date focusing on 1 month prior and post event.
Slide 10
- Resources:
o Calendar. You can access an electronic version of this at
GWOnlineHelp.org.
o Your staff partner is a great resource, as well as GWOnlineHelp.org.
Handout: Event Email Schedule
Slide 11
- Events still have the ability to send their local messages out, as well as
canceling the RFL Engagement and Strategy and adding local content.
- Let’s take a look at how to cancel, edit, and send coaching emails.
Slide 12 & Training Site
- Go to training site: login/pasword relay2013,
- EMC>Coaching Email>
o Show the attendees how to cancel an email
 (make sure there is one before Summit scheduled)
o Edit email without changing name
o Show them how to edit the email, leaving the Google analytic code
o Filter the email to select groups
o Schedule email to go out
Slide 13
- There are numerous resources to help you with your coaching emails:
o 2013 Online Guide
o Email Calendar to ensure that you aren’t overlapping
communications
o GWOnlineHelp.org has a wealth of resources including training
videos on how to send an email
EMC Management
Slide 14 & Training Site
15 minutes
Walk through the Event Center option of the website. Ensure that you talk about
editing participation types, rather than creating new ones.
Event SMS Campaign
Slide 15-31
15 minutes
Slide 15
- We are excited to offer SMS capabilities to all of your Relay For Life events
this year.
Slide 16
- Before we begin, we have a quick question for you. What does SMS Stand
for?
o Who thinks a. short message service by a show of hands
o Who thinks b. standard messages by a show of hands
o Who thinks c. service mobile system by a show of hands
o Who thinks d. I have no clue by a show of hands
- The correct answer is a. short message service. SMS is just a fancy way to
say text message. SMS gives 160 characters to message people who have
opted in to receive our communication, this is not a text to give program.
- Can you believe that we asked this question last night to all of the team d
and event chairs and only XX% answered it correctly. (Only ask if the % is
low)
Slide 17
- Some fun info graphics to show the impact of having this form of
communication
o Graphic 1 on the left show us that majority of the people opting in
are between the ages of 25-35, followed by 18-25 and 25-55 with a
men being slightly more likely to opt in.
o Graphic 2 on the right shows that the average American is spending
2.7 hour per day on their mobile device, more than twice the time
they spend eating.
Slide 18
-
This info graphic that shows us the average person sends over 500
messages with a majority of them being sent by individuals between 13 and
17 and declining as the age of the user increases
Slide 19
- SMS messages will enhance your current communications.
- Events will see higher open rates for emails, and can use the SMS tool as an
easy way to send out reminders and announcements.
- Some examples of uses are listed here. Can you think of more?
Slide 20
- Let’s introduce you to how the system works.
Slide 21
- To get started, you submitted a help ticket to gwonlinehelp.org requesting
your login information for the HipCricket system.
- HipCricket is vendor to numerous Fortune 500 companies and nonprofits
for sending out SMS messages.
- Your followers will send a keyword provided to you to the number: 22723
- All of your push messages can be sent from http://acs-gw.hipcricket.com
Slide 22
- You must have followers before you can start to get messages.
- A follower would send your provided keyword to the number 22723 in a
text message to opt out.
- The user on the right sent the their keyword, 3196, to the 22723, and they
received a confirmation email from ACS.
- Users must opt-in to receive messages
- You are not able to customize your SMS campaign keyword-it has to be the
4 digit code provided
Handout: SMS Quick Start Guide
Slide 23
- Going to the site http://acs-gw.hipcricket.com you can login using the
provided username and password. You can change your password, once
you are logged into the system.
Slide 24
- Once logged into the system, you click on “Advertiser Club”
- This system is used by for-profits companies, so some of the wording may
not make complete sense in the Relay world.
Slide 25
- You will then click “Promotions” under My Club on the left hand navigation
bar.
Slide 26
- Then “Click here to create new PUSH campaign”
- This view provides you with each of the campaigns your event has sent out
Slide 27
- Then you will click do txt push to start creating your message.
Slide 28
- Step 5 is naming your message with the format Year Month day: Custom
Message Name
- Step 6 is where you enter your 160 characters for your message
Slide 29
Next, you select the date you want your message sent and click save. Make sure
that you look at the time zone to the right of the date and time.
Slide 30
- After clicking save, your message is ready to go. This screen will show you
the time your message goes out, and the number of consumers (followers)
the message is being sent out to.
- Clicking “Push This Message Out” sends your message out at the scheduled
time.
Slide 31
- There are numerous resources for you on GWOnlineHelp.org under the
SMS Resource button. Also, you can submit a help ticket at
gwonlinehelp.org
- HipCricket is available for support, as well. Their contact information is
listed on the left hand navigation for your site.
Online Fundraising Promotion
Slide 32-37
15 minutes
Slide 32
- Promoting your website and fundraising is essential to the online chair role.
It should be your major goal to increase use of the website and promote
fundraising.
Slide 33
- Last year, we did a couple of challenges:
o Leap Into Fundraising
o Fire Up Your Fundraising
o Win The Fight
o Pack The Track
Slide 34
- The Online Task Force meet before the fiscal year was over to plan out
challenges for the 2013 Relay Season. We are planning out rolling out this
plan by January 1st for all of our events.
Slide 35
- What local challenges have worked for you?
o Each OTF member should have a list of the online challenges local
events promoted
Slide 36
- Another important way to promote your website is through face-to-face
time with your event’s participants. People from your committee who are
attending the “Team Captain Meeting/Kick Off Experience” seeing an
example of a team captain meeting with an online station.
- Team meetings and kick offs are great ways to promote online fundraising
to a captive audience
- Other outside of the box ideas are hosting office hours at a local Starbucks,
McDonalds, or another place with wifi. This way people can come to you
for helping sending out emails, registering, etc.
- Another way is you can host Online Fundraising Rallies. This is a meeting
designed to promote online fundraising. You would challenge all of your
teams to attend a location with wifi or computer access. You could give
awards for the team who sends the most emails on the day, raises the most
money online, or has the most people with an updated participant page.
- What are other ways you could promote online fundraising to your
participants?
Slide 37
- Some ideas for local online promotion presentations at team meeting or
kick offs are:
o Registering Online
o Sending Fundraising Emails
o Updating Your Personal Page
o Using the Facebook Application
o Fundraising Using Social Media
o Team Captains: Promoting Online To Your Team
- Can you think of other presentations that would be helpful to show?
- When is the best time to show each?
Resources
Slide 38 & Website
7 minutes
- There are two main resources that will help your journey as an online chair:
o GWOnlineHelp.org has numerous resources <go to website>
 Explain the tabs showing where resources and EMC videos are
located
o The Great West Online Chair Network is a Facebook group operated
by the Online Task Force and the Great West eRevenue team. This
group was designed for online chairs across our 12 states to share
ideas, and seek advice. This is a great resource for you.
Closing
Slide 39
7 minutes
- We hope that you leave today feeling a little better about your event’s
website and have some tools to help you be successful.
- It important that you try to replicate as many as the tools showed to you
today as possible.
- If you remember in breakout #1 you filled out index cards.
o It appears that we answered all of your questions.
o For those of you who questions didn’t get answered, I will post them
on the Great Online Chair Network page with an answer. We want to
make sure that we are meeting the needs of all of online chairs.