Lead Generation Campaign for NGO
Notes on my learnings running a lead generation campaign on Meta
Meta (Facebook and Instagram) with all problems still works in terms of providing reach and conversion. According to the latest data provided by We Are Social - Facebook is the most preferred social network for marketing followed by Instagram and WhatsApp. Additionally, Facebook is also the world’s most used social media platform followed by YouTube, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
According to the M+R Benchmarks 2023 study: Facebook and Instagram were the most used social media platforms by NGOs in 2022. The report also highlighted that the largest portion of ad budgets was devoted to direct fundraising.
“Overall, 56% of ad spending went to direct fundraising, and the range by nonprofit size was relatively small.”
Meta and Search shared the maximum budget for direct fundraising.
NGOs should go forth for digital fundraising and Meta still gives you results with all its challenges.
Digital acquisition of new donors primarily happens in two ways:
Lead Generation
Click To Donate (One Off and Regular Giving)
Lead Generation Campaigns are run by NGOs to collect leads and then slowly build a process to convert the leads into donors. The supporter or the targeted audience views the ad on Facebook or Instagram and then on clicking it either leads to a landing page or activates Facebook Lead Forms.
Types of Lead Generation Campaigns
However, the important question that NGOs should brainstorm is why would anyone give personal details for free that too on social media. The answer lies in the different types of Lead Generation Campaigns that one can run.
Value Exchange Campaigns: The most effective lead-generation campaigns that get you quality leads and conversion too. In exchange for personal details, the supporter gets a free gift from the NGO. This gift could be important information such as a guidebook, or gifts related to the campaign being run by the NGO. This works because there is an exchange of value.
Survey-Based Campaigns: Lead Generation campaigns have a problem obtaining a lot of unqualified leads. So NGOs started working with partners who would have questions to understand if the lead is fit for the campaign. The only challenge was that this would happen on a third-party site. While it had its own merits but leaving Meta was a challenge from the point of campaign performance. Now Meta has got the feature inbuild in its lead forms and you can now have questions to segregate leads. So you get more qualified leads for your campaign on Meta and no need to develop a third-party site.
Petition Campaigns: These are effective for NGOs that drive the passion of activism and are known in the target audience for their work. Here the magic lies in the power of communication and convincing the user to sign up for the campaign.
Creatives
Creatives are the soul of any kind of campaign as shared in my previous post - Ad Creatives on Meta.
The same holds true for a Lead Generation campaign. Ideally, have a larger quantity of creatives for testing since Lead Generation campaigns eat up a lot of creatives before they start showing results.
However, at any given point I would test max 5 creatives with a mix of 3 statics and 2 videos.
Facebook Lead Forms
Once the user clicks on the call to action button Facebook fires the Lead Forms. These inbuilt forms that capture leads (Name, Email, and Phone No) have advanced quite a bit in the last year. These forms can be now customised, have filters so that you can collect quality leads, and have a final CTA button after the supporter enters the personal details. Additionally, you can test languages on these forms.
However, once saved you can’t edit but you can duplicate. I am waiting for the day when Meta allows the edit option.
Facebook Lead Forms in the past have been criticised that it collects a lot of spam since it takes the inbuilt personal details entered by the user. Either they might not be correct or not updated. It can be true when it comes to users not updating their personal details on the platform.
In such cases then you drive the supporter to a landing page where you ask her to insert their personal details. In my opinion, moving a user to just enter personal details kills the experience. So I would use the Lead Forms and have filters so that I am collecting quality leads. This way I reduce the spam percentage.
Call Center
If you don’t have a trained call center in place then don’t run a lead generation campaign. Because collecting the leads is just 50% job, the rest is the role of the call center. Where they should be calling the leads in 48 to 72 hrs. Any call after that reduces the chances of the supporters picking up the call or showing interest in the cause or may just forget about it. So the call center and how the agents are communicating plays a very important role.
ROI
One of the ROIs is collecting monthly lead quantity at a decided rate. It can be 1500/month leads for INR 100/lead with a monthly media investment of INR 150,000. This is a very rough calculation because the lead price can change on various things such as testing local languages.
The second one would be the conversion rate obtained by the calling team. Anything between 5-6% is decent for a market in India. Also, the calling team data will give you an understanding of the quality of leads - how many had wrong numbers or inactive ones.
Whoever called the Lead Gen campaigns only digital campaigns are wrong - it is an integrated campaign with online and offline both playing a strong role in its success.