Context and Challenge

From August 2 to 24, 2008, the Beijing Olympic Games were held in China, giving Amnesty International—a long-time client—the perfect opportunity to showcase China’s mistreatment of human-rights protestors, especially in Tibet. A protest was set up to coincide with the Olympic Games in the hopes of pressuring China into radically changing their behaviour.

To encourage Quebec’s Amnesty International supporters to take a stand and support the protest, Tactic Direct launched a multichannel fundraising campaign.

Strategy and Execution

A mailing focusing entirely on China was already scheduled as Amnesty International’s third solicitation to donors in 2008, giving Tactic Direct the perfect opportunity to use the Beijing Games as a catalyst to bring attention to China’s human-rights violations. Given the Games’ dominance in the media, we decided to back up the mailing with an attention-grabbing viral email campaign, plus a microsite detailing China’s human-rights violations.

Taking advantage of the Olympic coverage leading up to the games, both the direct-mail piece and the viral campaign provided a countdown all our own to the start of the Olympic Games—urging donors with increasing insistence to join Amnesty International in the fight against arbitrary detention, harassment, censorship, and the death penalty in China. The direct-mail piece and viral email campaign also took donors’ real-time response into consideration in order to tailor upcoming messages about Amnesty International public protests and the start of the upcoming Games.

Amnesty International’s China campaign began with the direct-mail piece, using a message reading “Just 76 days…” on the envelope to introduce donors to the countdown. Donors were asked to sign and return a petition to Chinese authorities, urging them to explain to the families of those facing the death penalty the charges behind their arrest. A leaflet titled “Human Rights are Not a Game. Four Ways You can Help.” was also enclosed.

Along with the urgent appeal for donors to take action and send a gift, the direct-mail piece directed readers to Amnesty International’s Beijing 2008 microsite where they could view a moving slideshow and play a unique online game that showed a day in the life of a Chinese reporter.

The viral email campaign was also divided into three parts, with the first email sent 14 days after the direct-mail package. The subject of the initial email read “Just 57 days…”, the second read “Just 42 days…” and the third read “Just 30 days…”. The emails outlined the four human-rights violations, accompanied by a photo and a unique call to action. The first two emails also asked donors to take action on two fronts: to sign the petition (linked to one of the chosen themes) and share the campaign with their family and friends. The third email asked the donor to send a gift to the China campaign.

Results

The direct-mail portion of the campaign met predicted results, with a slightly higher average gift than expected, while the average gift collected via email was even higher.

Email metrics were on par with other non-profit organizations committed to defending human rights. Donors and cyber supporters alike performed the same.

In all, 26% of donors signed the China petition by mail, email or online. Moreover, 62.4% of these provided their email address and agreed to receive updates from Amnesty International, either online or by mail. The campaign was also a viral success, with 31% of donors forwarding the campaign to family and friends after the first email, and 18% doing the same after the second email.

Conclusion

The petition-signing, advocacy part of the campaign generated a response rate of 20%—a resounding success in an industry where best indicators predict a rate of 5% or less.

The direct-mail piece enabled active donors to renew their gift, and inactive donors to reactivate their support.

Moreover, many chose to opt-in to receive Amnesty International’s e-newsletter—providing 2,851 new email addresses on file. Finally, Amnesty International’s website also saw a significant increase in traffic during the viral portion of their China campaign.

By taking a multichannel approach to soliciting donors and timing the campaign with the 2008 Beijing Games, Tactic Direct was able to turn a profitable mailing in to a well-received and successful advocacy campaign that—as a welcome bonus—endeared new supporters to Amnesty International’s important cause.