What's wrong with our fund raising scheme?

It's a question we've been asking ourselves for quite some time now. Originally, when we came up with the idea of people being able to fund raise for their own causes just by forwarding visitors to our photo gift website and imputing a unique code – we thought we'd answered the prayers of a local family who approached us to do just that – raise funds for their two little boys born with SMA - http://www.twinswithsma.co.uk

At the time, we thought we couldn't just offer this scheme to anybody so we had a 'rule' of a minimum bulk order to then obtain your code, thinking clubs, teams, charities and schools etc would have no problem with this basic requirement.

However, after a lack of interest, we decided to drop the 'qualifying bulk order' requirement and just offered it as another service to our customers, their friends and families and the public in general.

And it really is easy to use.

When placing an order, all the visitor has to do is use your special code (which they'll know as its printed beside the 'click here' button to take them from your site to ours) either before they start shopping and enter the code at the foot of the home page or when they're checking out at PayPal, just include the code in their additional comments. If they forget, they can even email us afterwards and we'll sort it out.

We do all the rest.

What is in it exactly for the participants? Well, basically we donate 10% of every basket total that has their code on it back to themselves or their nominated 'good cause'.

We make a quarterly payment by cheque (monthly for larger amounts) to them and that's it.

There's no joining or membership fee. Obviously the more they promote the 'scheme membership', the more orders we'll receive and the more money they'll make.

And lets be clear – this isn't a one off deal. The 10% applies to every order, every time from whoever uses their code so in the example of a school, long after the kids have left, their families and friends could still be raising money for the school etc.

And because of the year round appeal of personalised photo gifts, we're confident that people using our scheme will be able to raise funds all year round. Apart from Birthdays, Anniversaries and Holidays, there are a number of special celebration days throughout the year – Mother's Day, Christmas etc that make excellent photo gift giving opportunities.

We've also worked very hard to keep adding to the range of gift ideas we offer so there's always new ideas to choose from for returning customers. All prices for all pockets.

So a year later and although we have a few people using the scheme, we've received very few orders bearing the codes.

Is the 'scheme' too simple? We're beginning to wonder. More now so than ever when various good causes are crying out for funds, we feel frustrated more than anything else that nobody is taking us up on our offer of what amounts to 'free money'.

Lets recap the scheme:-

Your website has a link button to Fabulous Photo Gifts (with your code written beside it)
Your visitor/friend/family member/yourself uses the link and the code
You / your visitor orders a personalised photo gift from Fabulous Photo Gifts
They use your code, either in the 'home page' or the checkout comments on PayPal – they can even email us after placing their order if they forgot.
We donate 10% of the basket total back to you.

Can you see a flaw? We're stumped but we'd welcome some input on how we can make this scheme work better for people and increase its usage.

Thanks for your time – It's really appreciated. Leave your suggestions in comments.

Jonathan – Technical Partner – Fabulous Photo Gifts - http://www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk

If you'd like to have your own 'Funds for Life' scheme membership code, just email us with your cause, we'll come back to you with your scheme code and do the registration sheet then (just so we know who to make the cheques payable to!). You can design your own button or we can supply one for you to use along with the html required.

To see an example of our fund raising scheme in action, visit our newest 'member' Steve who's planning to trek Nepal raising money for Unicef – see it by clicking here - http://www.stevestrek.co.uk

*Please note that bulk orders are excluded from the Funds for Life scheme. You do not have to be a registered charity. Please bear in mind our delivery charges for non UK orders which are available upon request and quoted on actual costs per order weight/destination. Sorry, due to Insurance terms and conditions, we cannot deliver to the USA.

Hi Purple and thanks for sharing this,

Thanks for going into this level of detail Purple here at forums (it's exactly what its for - to dig deeper) and we can't see any glaring errors in your logic and execution - s we said at the main blog - maybe cyberspace is simply drowning in banners and the understanding behind them?

Despite your well thought out approach unless the charity in question appeals to person who clicks and buys then the effectivess is limited. Even the charity themselves who click n buy may be spoilt for choice as who benefits from the 10% discount?

Out of interest did you set expectations in terms of acheiving goals with this initiative to come ot the conclusion that ‘ it works’ / ‘it doesn’t work’?

Hi Jim and Em - I did quite a bit of soul-searching before posting this in forums. My concern was it was a bit 'self-promoting' and marketing but in a spirit of community help, I thought GSTF was the best place to start.

I've replied over on the main page.

I personally think there is good mileage in the idea and we worked hard to make it as user friendly as possible - simple being the key word.

The few friends etc that have taken us up on the scheme - perhaps we should encourage them to 'push' it more but we don't like to interfere.

Knowing that I am not sure of your "advertising," it seems that usually the problem is exposure, where and how much competition. If using the Internet. You might try joining a few of the "social" networking places and also look to see who there might be willing to advertise you for free. Entrecard was a help for me in gaining exposure for another blog (shh...it is a secret...not anymore). I would be willing to add you to my permanent list on my sidebars of my other site. Okay, I will reveal it, but people on the other site know me on a personal face-to-face level and Clinically Clueless needs to be private, so please keep that in mind. My blog is "under construction," but should be up and running at the end of this month again. Take a look and see if you like it. I don't have much readership right now, but I am going to start the social networking after I complete my changes which could include adding you. It is http://SomethingJustToStart.blogspot.com. It also helped me to find new sources of information.

Also, take a look at your wording. It works best if you have a quick few words or so to say what you are offering. Then, an explanation.

Ah I see the problem

You are recruiting affiliates, not paying them for referring buyers, and paying the money to charity instead.

This is the flaw. Give them the option to keep the money or donate it.

Most companies who have banners like this on their sites pay the people for referring sales. They are called affiliates. I for example have affiliate banners but I would not have yours. The reason being if I am working for you, then I deserve some reward for sales you make as a result. It is my choice to donate or keep the funds.

Hope this helps.

ps. All the exposure in the world won't change this situation as people will resent you profiting from their efforts. They can after all have the space your ad occupies for some other income generating Ad. They can still donate the money they make to charity they just do it after funds rec'd into their own bank account.

Sorry if this is blunt, but I guarantee this is the problem. You can turn it around but you need to acknowledge you are not the one doing the charities or the referrer the favor. The referrer is doing you a favor by generating your site exposure and sales.

Hi Creative - no that's not how it works.

What we're offering is the chance for groups, charities, individuals etc to raise money for their own causes just by spreading the word about our business.

We figure that everyone has a gift giving situation at least once a year so why not encourage your fans/followers/people involved in your cause to buy that gift via us. At least they get something extra back as opposed to just walking in a shop, buying something and that's that.

Thanks for the input though - it is appreciated.

Yes but you are still getting people to generate sales for you.

If you remarket the process to recognise the business you are generating for yourself then you may get more banners on sites.

I really think this is the problem here. Bloggers now know they can earn money from placing banners on their sites. Thus the charitable incentive isn't really enough as all that is happening is that their commission is being redirected.

Do you see?

It all boils down to the ' what's in it for me?' like most things in life!

What's in it for me is the whole point. Sorry I'm not being very clear.

Lets use the example of a local playgroup - always needing money for new equipment or outings etc. They normally hold a cake stand at the local village fete and do a sponsored teddy bears picnic.

What we're saying is if they tell their parents of toddlers attending that by ordering a photo gift from us, if they use the playgroups special code, 10% of their orders will be given back to that playgroup.

So the parents and their families and friends etc - every time they order a photo gift from us and use their code, they'll be raising funds for their playgroup (in fact anyone that uses their code will raise funds for them).

The 'for life' bit comes in because even after their toddlers have left that playgroup, they can still raise money for it if they order from us using the playgroups code.

We're not asking joe public to order by clicking on a banner - although that would be nice, it would be great if they clicked on the banner (assuming the playgroup has a website - they may just do it through their parent newsletter) and used that playgroups code.

Of course we're getting more orders and part of the process is being able to offer the 10% back to the individual groups every time somebody orders - i suppose almost on their behalf.

Does that clarify?

I see, so we're not talking about site banners, but we are still talking about other people promoting your goods. This is kind of like party planning but without the profit.

I once tried to sell an item from a nursery to parents and the nursery would have rec'd 33% profit.

The nursery never informed anyone and thus no one bought anything.

I was very clear in my mind though sales were to my benefit and I was not doing them a favor they were doing me one, hence I offered them as much as I could afford for the privilage.

People don't like pushing products on others even it they benefit unless they directly requested those products.

There's no real way around this except to pop along to events yourself with the hosts permission and do your own promotions.

Meanwhile look into affiliate schemes as banners on sites with 10% commission would do your business wonders I am sure!

Hi Creative - we did also look at affiliate scheme proper in addition to funds for life fund raising scheme. They want too much money to start one up - thousands in fact - and I don't have the web building skills to create a affiliate order tracking system myself. boo hoo.

Take your point about the nursery - i was once chair' of the local school pta - one year a parent suggested xmas puddings with the schools logo and name on the label etc - as you had to order a min of 100, i said get me promises of advanced orders and if there's enough we'll try it.

She did, we ordered and guess what - we sold about 30 of them! boo hoo 2

It doesn't cost thousands to create an affiliate facility

check out this site here:

http://www.affiliatefuture.co.uk/how/default.asp

This one is specific to the UK

The site says this:

How does the affiliate scheme work?
The AffiliateFuture system works in this way:

* A Merchant (someone who wants visitors to come to their site to increase sales, leads etc.) registers with AffiliateFuture and adds a programme to the site. A programme is a combination of a banner or text, an offer of commission, and a link to the Merchant’s site.

* An Affiliate (someone who wants to add adverts to their site to generate revenue) also registers with AffiliateFuture, and subscribes to the programme offered by the Merchant.

* This generates code which the Affiliate adds to their site.

* Using this code, AffiliateFuture tracks visitors to the Affiliate’s site and tracks visits from this site to the Merchant’s site. It also records whether the offer conditions are met.

* AffiliateFuture processes all the data and credits the Affiliate with the relevant amount of commission."

This company do the coding for you, and it will not you cost much at all.

Take a peep.

I have just now emailed them to ask what their merchant terms are and how much this costs. I'll let you know the details when they reply. But you may find you are in affiliate business if the terms suit very soon! If you are, I'll be your first affiliate.

Wow Creative' you're really keen! Thanks!

I'd be interested to know if its just clicks you pay an affiliate for or just purchases or both. I could probably amend the code to carry the url ref number through to the basket etc.

Keep in touch.

You only pay the affiliate commission on sales.

Now hear this as this is important!!

When I select products to go on my site, I pick products that relate to my site what I rarely do is check how much I actually make from sales. In other words, if this system means paying commission to the site host you may find 10% too much but it doesn't have to be 10% that you pay affiliates. If your product suits their site that is the motivating force behind the choice.

Now, before setting a %, check out related merchants on that site. See what spiel they use to draw the affiliate in as you will be competing with them in the 'gift' section. See how much they pay out. Make a point in your spiel of saying you pay more than others (no names mentioned) assuming you do that is.

The only site I have that your product would sit well is a teaching site I have but as it is a generic product I would be happy to place it on others to see how it fared, though my sites mainly draw an audience from just about everywhere but the UK! So I don't expect mega bucks for you or me! But I am happy to help out of you go that route.

If you go this route I would further suggest that you then do a blog search for 'parenting' blogs and then leave appropriate friendly not too spammy comments to ask them if they would like to earn a passive income by displaying your banner. This way you get a target audience for you product and it will work well for you and the affiliate.

Good luck!

Hi Creative.

That all sounds really interesting and something we should perhaps explore more. I understood that the chance of signing up any affiliates was practically zero if the couldn't 'log on' and see how much they'd earned in commissions.

I'll look into the unique 'tracking url' idea some more - see what's possible with the present shopping basket and see if we can attach the url all the way through the order so that at least tracking what orders from where is automated.

Thanks again ands thank you for your support and interest in Fabulous Photo Gifts, where, as we remind people, every order is processed by hand. That bit we won't be automating!!

Jonathan.

The affiliate site listed sends you a program that deals with the tracking, does all the work for you. Whatever you decide to do though, I wish you well. It's hard work making a bean on the Internet!!

I'm giving stuff away and still don't have them breaking down my door!!

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