The following is a narrative version of my 15 minute speech at the 2012 Innogive Conference today.
Last Spring those of us at Razoo began analyzing mobile web solutions. There was a big debate because traffic was in the low single digits, but partly as a result of reading Chuck Martin’s Third Screen, we decided to offer a web based mobile version of the web site and donation platform, and an iPhone app for fundraisers.
The Third Screen showed that almost every company or organization that goes mobile sees a surge in mobile traffic usually above 10%. This 10% rule was illustrated over and over again with case studies. We launched mobile at the end of 3Q, 2011, and just as the book indicated, the results have been amazing:
- 15% of traffic is mobile since January
- Up from 8.97% over the whole of 2011
- 2% of 2012 donations are from the mobile web
- More than 70% of mobile traffic is from iOS (iPhone/iPad)
Even more incredible have been the case studies. During Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington, PostSecret Blogger Frank Warren spoke as a keynote during DCWEEK, and made a direct appeal to the audience of more than 1000 social media wonks for his Kristin Brooks Hope Center Fundraiser. Smartphones lit up across the Warner Theater, and scores of donations came in. In addition, Frank fundraised afterwards signing books for donations, which Razoo helped manage using the Square mobile transaction app and iPad tablets. The effort won the Kristin Brooks Hope Center an hourly $1000 Golden Ticket for 11 p.m.
In all the Warren/KBHC team effort garnered 462 donors and $11,427 on Give to the Max Day: Greater Washington, and won four awards:
- First Place in the Care2 Individual Fundraiser Award ($10,000)
- Third place for Most Donors overall ($5,000)
- Third place in the Entrepreneurial Nonprofits contest for 501(c)(3)s grossing less than $1,000,000 in annual revenue ($3,000)
“Give to the Max Day had an energy we hadn’t seen before,” said Reese Butler, founder of the Kristin Brooks Hope Center (full case study here). “We hadn’t seen that kind of concentrated giving focused on a singular event before. It was an awesome signature event that we can plan for next year.”
Another case study came from Loretto Thompson’s My MS Camino fundraiser. She took her iPhone with her to Spain, and during a dinner, her friends suggested that she check in on her fundraiser. When she got back to her hotel, she found her friends had made a combined donation to reach the $10,000 fundraiser goal. Thompson said it was a powerful moment that she would not have found out about so quickly without the iPhone app.
So, as you can see the “10% rule” has come into play, and Razoo is experiencing a dynamic new web channel. Have you gone mobile yet?