Success

Fundraising is tough! As a non-profit, you have a great cause, and most people generally feel for that cause, but when it comes to collecting donations, it can be as difficult as closing a deal. In some ways, fundraising is very similar to selling, sometimes harder because you are asking for an individual’s money, not their companies.

We all know that if you’re asking someone to part with their hard earned money, face-to-face meetings are best. But in person meetings are difficult to schedule and often times unavailable. And, because asking for donations is undoubtedly intimidating for most, a lot of us don’t mind hiding behind our emails… because it’s easy to type out a template and click send. The problem: no one on the receiving end of that email is going to truly hear your conviction, feel passionate about your cause or care enough to pull out their credit card and donate.

So, how do you engage people without meeting every single one in person? Videos! Correction… personalized, professional, branded and trackable videos. Sure, you may not be able to elicit a large donation with a short video, but letting someone “hear” what you have to say, “showing” your face and “being” authentic and genuine will definitely increase engagement and responses to your outreach, and thereby allowing you to book more meetings or have a more meaningful phone conversation because the potential donor feels they are connecting with a real human vs. a computer.

The OMID Foundation has shown us that it works! Shiela Rahimian, co-chair of the OMID Foundation Bay Area Committee, sent out a mass email to over 200 potential donors, encouraging ticket sales for a recent fundraising event, as well as donations and sponsorships. Engagement and responses were meager, only two! A month later, she decided to use a personal video using OneMob. She recorded an OMID branded video and sent the message to the exact same recipients. The results were incredible! Her OneMob generated a 73% open rate and a 38% email CTRs, and she experienced a 10X increase in responses in the first day alone. The numbers speak for themselves. OMID had an incredible event and they surpassed their $50,000 fundraising goal! Check out Shiela’s video below! Watch Video

We are excited to announce a global deployment and exciting partnership with Cisco. We’ve been working with Cisco to launch a new initiative, “Using Video to Sell Video” with the goal of bringing personalization to their outreach when selling their video collaboration tools. Think about it, if I’m going to sell you a video collaboration suite, wouldn’t it be nice to also outreach with a personal videomail? We thought so, and so did Cisco!

To date, OneMob has been deployed in 36 countries around the globe, allowing their global virtual selling team to send personal, trackable and Cisco-branded video (and voice) messages. Initially, we expected the primary use case to be prospecting, but that quickly grew to account management, event attendance, management updates, and even personalizing their out-of-office/away message.

Leading the charge, Luca Felli (@lucafelli), Practice Lead for Digital Selling Innovation at Cisco, has seen their email CTRs jump to 46% (23X industry average) and their response rates increase to 10% (10X industry average). All of this has increased customer engagement and provided Cisco reps more opportunities to be personal, build trust and generate revenue. Remember, 53% of what drives the purchase is the sales experience (The Challenger Sales) and 36% of what drives customer loyalty is a personal experience (Oracle). So trust in selling is key!

Scott Brown, the SVP of Global Virtual Sales and Customer Success, has transformed their entire digital selling strategy and VIDEO is core to the foundation. “At Cisco, we have found that video communication dramatically changes our engagement with customers. It improves the effectiveness of the interaction and creates a 1-to-1 intimacy with the customer which is what they are looking for. Video also allows me as a leader to communicate with my global team in a way that is personal and engaging,” describes Scott. Contact OneMob to learn how you can help your organization leverage video to transform their selling efforts.

Since 2013 and under Vivek Ranadivé’s leadership, the Kings have been making Sacramento proud and pushing the boundaries between technology and customer service. I’m a little bias when I think about Sacramento, not just because it’s where my wife is from, but they’re the first professional sports team to give OneMob a shot. And we think it’s a marriage made in heaven!

What other industry focuses on fans more than sports? And what better way to connect with those 17,317 fans that visit the Sleep Train Arena every night than a personal video. So when we got the chance to meet with Phil Horn (@PhilKingsTix), VP of Ticket Sales and Service, we were thrilled to show him how the Kings can connect with their amazing customers in a more personal and human way.

One thing Phil and his team are constantly thinking about is how to keep their season ticket holders happy with their investment, so this year the Kings sent a unique and effective message to their key fans to keep their business. Like any good sales rep, they recruited a little help from someone new to the family, their new head coach George Karl.

Not only is George a winner on the courts, he’s a closers best friend. And with the OneMob videomail above, the Sacramento Kings have already grown renewals in season ticket sales. Can’t wait to see OneMobs from Vivek and the players. Making Sacramento proud, go Kings!