Background
Omaze, a leading fundraising platform, raises funds and awareness for charities by offering everyone the chance to win once-in-a-lifetime experiences. They democratize the traditional charity auction by bringing it online and opening it up to a massive donor base. This model of incentivized giving translates into significant dollars and support for charities, while driving global awareness for causes.
Traditionally, Omaze uses a mix of conventional digital channels, email, social media, and search engine marketing, to promote campaigns and drive donations. To support Pencils of Promise, a nonprofit that builds schools and creates education programs across the globe, Omaze teamed up with Gary Vaynerchuk, the internet's favorite entrepreneur and one of the earliest users of Community.
Ever since Gary published _Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook_ in 2013, the world has known about his foresight when it comes to marketing. He is always at the forefront of new and innovative tech that drives high value for brand and marketing strategies, which is what excited him about Community, the technology platform that powers direct and instant engagement via text messaging at scale.
Communication through SMS cuts through the noise commonly experienced in other communication channels, and it shows. On Community's platform, the average open rate is 95%, click-through rate is 59%, and engagement rate is 39%. Average CTR is 6.4x greater than email and 78x greater than social media.
Results
Knowing that Gary has been a power user of Community, the team at Omaze suggested sending a text to his Members in the last week of the campaign, which raised an additional $23,000. 66% of the funds raised organically through Gary came from Community.
“This is the most powerful shit I've seen since early email. From somebody who has hundreds of thousands of people on text, I'm getting 98% open and 90% engagement. This was actually higher than I expected.”
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