Getting people to give to charity requires finesse. Getting people to bid at auctions requires savvy. Combining the two creates a significant challenge.
Charitable auction site BiddingForGood.com faces this challenge every day as it assists certified schools and not-for-profit organizations in raising money for their causes. The auction site, launched in November 2006, reached two milestones last month: It surpassed 4,000 auctions and $40 million in funds raised.
It credits the results of an e-mail test it conducted with helping to increase funds raised—a test that involved bringing more savvy and finesse into its communications with bidders.
When registered users place bids on travel, dining, entertainment or other packages or items offered by a charity, they receive e-mail alerts when other users place new bids. For the test, BiddingForGood.com, operated by cMarket, sent out three types of bid alert messages randomly to users.
The auction site classified the first e-mail alert as “bland.” It informed the bidder he had been outbid. The alert then listed the name of the item, the current leading bid, and the name of the leading bidder. The site classified the second e-mail alert as “charitable.” It informed the bidder he had been outbid, asked that he “please bid again” to support the cause and “the important work it does,” then listed the name of the item, the current leading bid and the name of the leading bidder. BiddingForGood.com classified the third e-mail alert as “competitive.” It said the bidder had been outbid and “the competition was heating up—and you are losing,” then listed the name of the item, the current leading bid and the name of the leading bidder.
26.5% of the bland e-mail alerts generated click-throughs and bids, compared with 26.9% for the charitable alerts and 28.5% and for the competitive alerts. BiddingForGood.com then dropped the bland alert and instead first sent bidders the charitable alerts, followed by competitive alerts. 35% of the combined alerts generated click-throughs and bids. Moving forward, the auction site is using the combination.
“The charitable message draws people into the game—the stakes are lower at this point. Bidders here are in a category we call ‘give it a shot,’” says Jon Carson, CEO of cMarket. “As the stakes get higher, the competitive dynamic in people begins to take over. What we learned was the messaging needs to shift to get the best outcome. So now every bidder gets optimized messaging delivery driven by where in the time cycle of an auction they’re at.”
BiddingForGood.com has more than 80,000 bidders. It hopes to increase that number to 150,000 and surpass 7,000 auctions by year’s end.
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