Monthly Archives: December 2013

1 Christmas Puzzles

I’m going to take a break for two weeks from today because readers are less likely to be around over Christmas and the New Year.  I’ll start posting again on Monday 6 January, picking up from where I left off.

I know everyone is always busy having fun over this period but just in case you’re at a loose end, here are a few puzzles! They’re along the lines of BBC Radio 4’s Round Britain Quiz, but easier!  They all have links to ancient TV and radio!

1. Who are these?  Jeff Scott Virgil Alan Stan Gordon John  Which one is the odd one out and who is he?
2. Who links these names but when (day, month and year)?  Jacqueline Hill, Delia Derbyshire, Carole Anne Ford, Verity Lambert  If you could add one name to the list to make the answer immediately obvious, whose would it be?
3. What links the BBC World Service, Rock a Bye Baby, The Old Pretender?
4. Where else might you find a river in Venezuela and Columbia, a town on the Island of Mull and an Eastern European Country.  The latter is a rather distant relative.
5. Who was nanti riah?  The answer is not beyond our ken.

No prizes but feel free to share your answers in the comments or ask for hints!

If you’re still at a loose end, subscribe to this blog.  As well as a weekly round-up of my posts, you will receive a series posts about my Campaign for Real Community Development.  Join the conversation!

1 Finding Your Site Using Social Media

This is the fourth Thursday post about how to encourage people to visit your site.  The full list of approaches to increasing traffic is in the earlier post “How to Help the Right People Find Your Site”.

Social media is popular because it is fun and immediately accessible to the user.  It can be an effective way to drive traffic to your site.  However, there are some issues you need to consider.  Social media can be:

Do not think of social media as an end in itself.  If you have a product, service or cause you can promote it effectively on social media but it is always best to encourage people who like your social media activity to visit your website and join your list.  Broadly you can approach social media in two ways.

It is possible to have a web presence solely on social media and there may be circumstances where this makes sense.  However, your website has some advantages:

1 Donations Follow Up

When you make donations follow up is important.  So far I’ve reviewed website page content for your charity and it is crucial you work out the best follow-up available to you.

Once your visitor has signed up for your email list and / or donated, they should arrive at a new page.  What’s on it?

First, thank them for signing up and / or donating.

If they have donated, explain you have placed them on your email list and so will keep them up to date with the work of the charity.

Most email services run a double opt-in service and I recommend you do this.  It means that once they’re entered on your list, they receive an email, asking them to confirm their wish to subscribe.  This way you know the people on your list have consented to being on it.  So, tell them there will be an email in their inbox where they can confirm they wish to receive emails from your charity.  Tell them to click on the link.

Why Follow-Up?

They’ve made one donation and so they are likely to make future donations. This is your opportunity to build a relationship with your donors.  They might donate again in the future or help you in other ways.

The big mistake many organisations make is persistent requests for donations.  Obviously you will request donations from time to time but this should happen rarely.  Your aim is to build a relationship with your list.  So, on the page tell them what they will receive from you now they’ve  signed up.  Here are a few ideas:

A lot will depend upon your organisation’s capacity but producing good content is not too difficult.  I will write about this in more detail later.

If you are going to offer something of significance you may want to flag it up earlier than on the thank you page, as a part of your campaign to get site visitors to sign up.  Your main concern here will be explaining how to get access to promised content or when to expect it by email.

Websites enable you to offer your supporters more information and so build relationships with them.  What sort of information would you welcome after you donate to a cause and what would turn you off?

5 What is a Marketplace?

We hear a lot about “the marketplace”.  The problem is these days business people and politicians decide what it is for their own purposes.

Regulation

At one time the marketplace’s role was to build community; it was the centre of activity for mutual benefit.

City of Sheffield Standard Measures of Length

Of course, there were always cheats and charlatans, so markets were regulated in various ways.  Weights and measures have always been regulated.  In the Old Testament you will find passages about fair weights and measures, eg Leviticus 19:35-36. Amos 8:4-6, Proverbs 20:10.  It is possible to see the standard measure of length in Sheffield city centre today.

Whilst regulation is essential for a just marketplace, it is trust that makes the market work.  People mostly deal fairly because they know it is in their mutual interest to do so.  Regulation sets a standard of fairness and allows for redress when someone deals unfairly but it does not of itself make the market fair.

The Forum

Many community organisations call themselves a forum.  Today ‘forum’ almost means meeting or perhaps organisation.

If you have visited Rome, you will have seen the Forum and so understand it is a place.  It was the city’s market but far more than a place for buying and selling.  They shared news (on walls or from soap boxes) and citizens could contribute to political decision-making or take part in legal decisions.  It was possible to take a bath, have a meal and keep the children entertained.

If you had something to sell you took it to the market.  Whilst you must obey the rules you had a right to be there.  It was your expression of your livelihood.

Out-of-Town Centres

Contrast with today’s privately owned out-of-town shopping centre.  They resemble something like the traditional forum.  But their purpose is to enrich a distant owner.  They are designed to encourage people to go there for leisure and to spend.  It is not about enriching a community, it is about extraction of wealth from the community.

Where do you experience anything like old-fashioned markets or forums?  Is the Internet more like the traditional forum or an out-of-town shipping mall?

2 Burngreave New Deal: Place Related Outcomes

We’re half way through the lessons from the January 2012 evaluation of Burngreave New Deal for Communities.  So far I’ve covered:

So, here is the next lesson learned, place related outcomes:

 ‘in common with other NDC partnerships BNDfC achieved more in the way of observable change in place related outcomes – environment, crime and community. This is perhaps to be expected as interventions in these outcomes are likely to effect larger numbers of people than, say, projects which target those with specific health problems or skills needs. Nevertheless, evidence from BNDfC does suggest that investment in improving the physical fabric of communities, alongside projects which enhance community safety and provide diversion and engagement for young people can contribute significantly to reductions in crime, and to improvements in area satisfaction’

Credit where credit is due, this was a significant success. At the time Burngreave New Deal was third best out of 39 New Deals in the country.  Place related outcomes had the strongest performance with some other revenue focused activities, eg education.

You wouldn’t have known it if you’d read the local press during the final years of the programme.  Bad publicity coupled with the collapse of the asset based legacy and the failure of community development, gave Burngreave New Deal a more negative image locally than it deserved.  Overall my verdict is negative but the press coverage at the time was unfair and never touched on any of the real weaknesses in the programme.

Why No Evaluation?

However, the change of national government since 2010 means New Deal is ancient history.  There will be no more evaluations because the politicians have lost interest.  So, we’ll never know the extent to which New Deal’s successes were sustainable.

You would think, after investing £50 million pounds in each of 39 places, someone somewhere would want to know whether this investment generated positive change into the future.

Does Burngreave still benefit from these successes two years after the final evaluation?  Will it still benefit 5 years or 10 years after the programme?  My impression is nobody cares.

What do you think?

1 Spirituality in Marketing

I’m working with some other people on a publication called “Spirituality in Marketing”.  We have a lot of material and it will take a while to sort it out.  In the meantime, here’s some thoughts.

Why Spirituality?

Who is the booklet for?  One possibility is the “spiritually aware or religious person”.  That’s reasonable, although I have some reservations.  Does it impose unnecessary restrictions on our readership?

A few years ago Father Christopher Jamieson, Abbot of Worth Abbey, introduced a couple of television series in the UK, The Monastery and a few years later The Big Silence.  Both series were about ordinary people living in a monastery for a month or on a 9 day retreat.

Father Jamieson says after both programmes his religious communities experienced increased interest from people, not associated with the church.  After the first series a number of business people made contact and so he published, “Finding Sanctuary”, under a secular imprint about the benefits of Benedictine spirituality for the modern secular person.

Spirituality is something all experience even if we don’t label ourselves as spiritual or religious.  So, how can spirituality support the business person whatever their formal religious affiliation.

Why Marketing?

Spirituality is about identity; how to become the person we are meant to be.  This is particularly important for the entrepreneur, who can easily lose sight of their purpose.  Business people make money and the question is, why?  They sometimes see their role as local benefactor.  In Sheffield, UK where I live you can’t walk very far without encountering names such as Graves, Firth, Ward and Osborn; all industrialists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  Their names are still current because the city recognises their contributions.  Every city has them.  Whatever the detail of their business, they cherished their role as public benefactor. This is more than we can say for present day hedge fund managers, who salt away their fortunes in offshore tax havens.

But public benefactor was not the only role.  Real entrepreneurial value resides in the hundreds of unsung men and women behind the co-operative movement.  At one time co-operative business underpinned most of the civic infrastructure we take for granted today, eg insurance, building societies, banks, department stores, wholesale and retail networks, friendly societies and various educational institutions and libraries.

Contrary to what our current crop of politicians would have us believe, mutuals make a vibrant and creative contribution to the economy; both entrepreneurial and committed to social justice.

Mutuality is not confined to one form of business and its spirit was perhaps shared by some public benefactors.  Sadly in our modern economy it seems business is solely for personal benefit.  We need to refresh our spirits by understanding mutuality and reclaiming it for our broken communities today.

How do you understand the purpose of economic activity?  Do you think spirituality can help entrepreneurs understand their role?

0 Finding Your Site Using Email Lists

This is the third Thursday post where I’m looking at how to help people visit your site.  The full list of approaches to increasing traffic is in the post “How to Help the Right People Find Your Site”.

Email lists usually encourage people to revisit your site.  However, if you manage your lists effectively, people will visit your site to join your email list on the strength of recommendations from your list members.

If you are going to do this, you need an offer to encourage visitors to join your email list.  This might be a blog, where you tell them about new posts by email or it might be an email sequence, so a baker might offer recipes for example.  And of course you can offer video or audio material.

Once people are on your list, you can send emails promoting your product, service or cause in real life or on your website.

If you offer something people like, they will pass information about your email list to others and so your list will grow.

I shall write more about email lists in future posts.  They are essential to building a relationship with your market, whether you are marketing a product, a service or a cause.

Have you any examples of good email lists from you own inbox?  Or bad ones!

0 Donations: Your Request for Support

If you’re following this thread about writing copy for seeking donations on your charity website, today we consider your request for support.  You will have read so far about the need to write about your charity’s

and with these your pitch for donations will be ready for a response from your visitors.  In what follows, I shall assume you are not seeking a single donation. If  you have someone’s email address, it means they are interested in your cause and if they don’t pay today, they may be persuaded later if you can keep in touch with them.

List First,  Donation Second

Most organisations ask visitors to sign up so they can build a long-term relationship with them.   You can ask them to (1) donate (and add them to your list), or (2) join your list, trusting they’ll make donations in the future.  Your list is actually more important than a one-off donation and so you will need to be clear about what you want your visitors to do.  This is where you may need to talk to a consultant.

This type of page is sometimes called a squeeze page and there are a number of things you need on it.  It is essential the page is not cluttered.  You want visitors to sign up to your list and possibly donate.  Their only alternative is to navigate away.  The term ‘squeeze page’ implies you are forcing a decision.

Your Squeeze Page

What is about a website that makes you trust it?  What do you find confirms your confidence in their bona fides or makes you suspicious?

0 The Awareness Ladder and Your Website

Last time I introduced the awareness ladder and today I’ll show you how to use the awareness ladder and your  website to structure your marketing.

Decide which rung on the ladder is your primary focus.  Some sites have pages that address each rung on the ladder, whilst others focus on one or a few.  So, your site might be for people who know they have a problem and not for people who don’t.

Landing Pages – Steps 0 and 1

There’s a plague of frogs and you want to drive people to your site.  How will you respond to their level of awareness?

Someone aware of the problem, who wants to know how to handle the plague of frogs might Google their problem.  If so, they want their website to appear close to the top of the list Google generates for ‘plague of frogs’ or something similar.  To do this analyse keywords and then search engine optimise (seo) your website to move it closer to the top of the list.  I shall write about these later.

If you want to target people unaware of the problem, they’ll never search for it and so you must advertise.  There are several ways to advertise online.  You don’t always need to pay.

Whichever method you use to find visitors, when they click on a link to your site it should take them to a landing page.

The landing page should be relevant to the path the visitor followed to get to you.  So, people aware of the problem will arrive on a different page to those who are not aware.  When they arrive they should see they’re at to the right place and so carry on reading.

For the plague of frogs site, I might have one landing page for those who are not aware.  For someone who is aware, a second landing page can move them from the problem to consider various solutions.  Those not aware of the problem would move from the first landing page to the second if they want to know more.

Step 2 and 3

Movement from landing page to home page would be the start of a funnel, drawing the visitor deeper into the site.  Later pages would lead my visitors to common solutions to the problem (step 2) and then my solution (step 3).

Steps 4 and 5

Step 4 would be a few optional pages, with evidence my solution works.  They might cover research or satisfied customers.

Step 5 is a page where the visitor places their order.

Sometimes these later pages can be landing pages too.  If you know your visitor is likely to be further up the ladder, there is no need for them to read the earlier pages.

In future posts, I’ll walk you through each of these three parts of a website in more detail and show you what is possible.

Do you know of websites that use this approach.  How effective do you think it is?  Have you purchased from such a site?  What persuaded you to make a purchase?

2 Burngreave New Deal: Project Management

I’m half way through the lessons learned from the January 2012 evaluation of Burngreave New Deal for Communities.  This time: project management!  So far I have covered:

Here’s what the evaluation report says:

‘sound project management is vital in ensuring that objectives are met: this means not only ensuring financial probity but also that business planning is based on solid and legally binding contractual agreements; BNDfC was optimistic in its assumptions around support from government and statutory agencies which was not subsequently forthcoming and this resulted, ultimately, in the early end of the programme’

So, what happened?  This is why you never ever throw £50 million at a community!  Actually you can’t throw £50 million at a community because it is always mediated by other interests.  Why?  Because it is £50 million and responsible people are hardly going to let go of it, are they?

Potential Sources of Continuation Funding

Partnerships (at least in the fevered imagination of government ministers) were supposed to form between statutory, private, voluntary and community sectors.  They would plan together the best ways of spending the money, always with an eye to the end of the programme when funding would continue to be either mainstreamed or funded from assets.

So, this funding was to come from two sources:

1. local government, including the health authority and police
2. through capital assets that would guarantee ongoing revenue funding for community projects

Mainstreaming

The NDC money ran out about a year before the end of the 10 year programme and all the partners disappeared apart from the community members of the board and the accountable body who had to stay with it whether they wanted to or not .  As the lesson learned states, there were no binding contractual agreements to continue to mainstream the revenue funded work under New Deal.

We have to face it, the partners were on board out of self-interest.  They needed funding and NDC was a source of funding.  When it dried up, they had to move on in pursuit of other sources of funding.  No-one blames them for this, as the lesson states there were no contractual obligations to continue with mainstream funding.  If mainstream funding was available it could be deployed from the beginning of the programme, enhanced with New Deal money.  Maybe this happened to some degree.  But it was hardly going to miraculously appear at the end!

Assets

Burngreave NDC had assets, oh yes.  There were 3:

So, what happened?  Two things did for Sorby House.

So, we ended up with 3 white elephants.  The only option at the end of NDC was to hand ownership over to the accountable body.  There were vague promises that they might be handed back to the community should they ever become viable.  Personally, I wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole.

Not one of these buildings offers a viable community space.  There are no unstructured meeting spaces in Burngreave whatsoever.  There are rooms for meetings but nowhere where people meet casually.

What Happened?

And now with the cuts, we’re seeing council departments move into Sorby House.  This was inevitable because if the council sold Sorby House, national government would claw back the proceeds of the sale.  The plans are to close Burngreave Library because the council has to make cuts.  If the campaign to save the library succeeds, it is likely to move to Sorby House because the council can sell the library building and retain the proceeds of sale.  Under the circumstances it makes sense to do this but it is hard to see how exactly Burngreave has benefited from the New Deal investment.