Digital Marketing For Nonprofits — A Funnel Marketing Review for Starlight Children’s Foundation Australia
In this post, I will provide a comprehensive Funnel Marketing Review for Starlight Children’s Foundation Australia (SCFA). This example is extremely detailed, and it covers a wide range of digital marketing concepts. Before we I start with the marketing stuff, let’s cover the basics…
Table of Contents
- Who is Starlight Children’s Foundation Australia?
- Why Review SCFA?
- Disclaimer
- Martech Stack
- Audience
- Acquisition
- Activation
- Retention
- Revenue
- Recommendation
- Referral
- Conclusion
- Call To Action
Who is Starlight Children’s Foundation Australia?
Starlight Children’s Foundation is a nonprofit organisation supporting hospitalised children and their families. They offer entertainment, education and technology programs to critically, chronically and terminally ill children.
Why Review SCFA?
The purpose of this review is to give an outsider’s view to a great company. My goal of this review is to help SCFA. The aim is never to critique in a negative, harmful way, but to help promote through inbound marketing by giving them the perspective of an objective third party.
If you have any questions contact me on Linkedin
Disclaimer
- I have no affiliation with SCFA and currently, I’m not a user of any of their services
- I don’t have access to primary data (Their Web Analytics, CMS, CRM, etc)
- Inaccurate observations are caused by inaccurate data provided by 3rd party tools
Let's dig in and see what SCFA is doing from a Digital Marketing perspective
I will review your site through the following areas:
Martech Stack
Your Marketing Stack is the set of technologies you’re currently using to build relationships with your users across multiple channels (CMS, CRM, Web Analytics, Advertising Platforms, etc)
Tag Management
According to Wikipedia a tag management system
“Is designed to manage e-marketing tags, which are used to integrate third-party software into digital properties”
Currently, SCFA is using 2 different Tag Management Systems
Web Analytics
Web analytics tools handle the data collection process for users and their behaviour on your website or app
At the moment SCFA is using multiple Tools/tags to track users acquisition and behaviour — CrazyEgg and Hotjar have similar features and functionality
Advertising & Conversion Tracking
An Ad Tag is a piece of code that is inserted into your site’s source code which is then placed into an ad inventory space on a website or app to display ad creatives that were uploaded on the ad server (Google, Facebook, etc)
Conversion tags allow you to see what happens after a user interacts with your ads
SCFA is using multiple paid channels to acquire, activate and retain users — It seems like they are focusing their efforts on FB and Google
CMS & Landing Page Creation
It looks like SCFA is using Drupal as their main CMS and Unbounce for optimised landing pages.
SCFA is using Mandrill as their email marketing platform and Securence for email security purposes
E-commerce
Additionally, the site has a subdomain dedicated to selling products online with Shopify as its E-commerce Platform
The whole point about their Martech stack is that it is quite complicated and has opportunities to be optimised and simplified by clearly defining their needs and goals in terms of Data Collection and Analysis.
Audience
A signification portion (74%) of your audience interacts with your site through mobile devices
71 % of your audience is women between 25 to 44 years old
90% of your users are based in Australia
So, we got a website used mostly by Australian women between their late 20’s and early 40’s using their mobile devices
Acquisition
Organic Search is currently the most important acquisition channel for Starlight children’s foundation Australia (SCFA) followed by Direct (Branded).
Roughly 40% of the organic keywords attracting users are “banded” — which means most of your users aren’t new to the brand which means Organic Search is not acquiring new users.
SEO
From the top 10 pages generating traffic to the site organically only, 2 are service pages.
From the top 10 Keywords generating traffic to the site organically just 1 on them is a related service page.
Recommendation
Set up a referral program and get your current users to promote your products to their network and offer them an incentive in exchange — Check out Viral Loops or Referral Candy
Activation
SCFA has a subdomain for active users https://my.starlight.org.au/ they are decommissioning this domain and are going to manage active users through 2 different Facebook groups
Starlight Events Volunteers (Public Group)
There’s not enough activity on this public group. 7 post in the last 30 days isn’t enough to keep users active and engaged with a brand. Their users growth rate isn’t bad but it can be improved
Starlight Programs Volunteers (Closed Group)
This closed group has a bit more activity (13 post in the last 30 days) but it has serious problem in terms of users growth (0 over the last 30 days)
Current Activation efforts are working in isolation and it looks like they are not part of a holistic marketing strategy trying to nurture new users into their activation platforms.
Recommendation
Email Marketing — Create a drip camping using your current Mar Tech Stack (Mandrill, Ads Infrastructure and Web Analytics) to convert non-users into active users that can eventually generate some revenue
Retention
I have signed up to SCFA newsletter (it is quite hard to find an opt-in form on their current website) to see if they have any sort of retention system using email.
It’s been 4 days since I signed up and I haven’t got an email from SCFA, not even a welcome email — There’s a huge opportunity here to retain more users and interact with them so they can better understand new users and improve their experience.
I have been also playing around with the site for more than a week now and haven’t seen any remarketing ads yet — this isn’t necessarily bad because their remarketing audience might have some sort of specific criteria, but I’m pointing this out because I haven’t seen any sort of incentive to return to their website.
Recommendation
Welcome Email — Create a a welcome email triggering as soon as you get a new subscriber as this is the first impression your company makes with a new user and it is a great way to better understand your new users
Revenue
SCFA is generating revenue by using 2 main sources :
https://starlight.org.au/donate/
Both sources are linked to each other with is a great to diversify their revenue sources and provide options for users
SCFA is using Shopify as their ecommerce platform without any sort of plugin to help them improve conversion rates (Social Proof, Countdown cart etc)
Overall Revenue sources are clearly defined and are somehow connected to each other., however their E-commerce Platform’s visibility can be improved.
Recommendation
UX Optimisation — Improve Usability on their revenue sources by simplifying checkout process and adding sources that improve users engagement. Check out tools like Beeketing for Shopify
Referral
There are currently 3 ways SCFA is using to get referrals:
- Place Their Logo On Users Sites
- Add a banner to their email signatures
- Submit a form telling their Experience with SCFA
In theory, there’s nothing bad whit these 3 tactics however the main problem I can see on their site is EXECUTION
- There are not Clear Call To Actions showing users what to do
- There are not detailed instructions to reduce friction — Most people don’t know how to use HTML or create an email signature
- There are no clear incentives for users to share their stories with others
Recommendation
Set up a referral program and make visible across all digital platforms — Check out Viral Loops or Referral Candy
Conclusion
SCFA has a current digital marketing that is defined but needs improvements on pretty much every single stage of the funnel.
Here my main recommendations for SCFA:
- Simplify current Martech Stack
- Set up a referral program and get your current users to promote your products to their network and offer them an incentive in exchange
- Email Marketing — Drip camping to convert non-users into active users that
- Welcome Email — Create a a welcome email triggering as soon as you get a new subscriber
- UX Optimisation — Improve Usability on their revenue sources by simplifying checkout process and adding sources that improve users engagement.
Call To Action
Would you like me to review your site’s growth marketing strategy and let you know what’s working and what might need improvement? Contact me on Linkedin
