I just made my first ever donation to the Hokie Club. For a long time I've been reluctant because I could always justify other causes to give to that matter more than college athletics ... but I've come to think of it not so much as a charitable gift as much as a simple payment for what I love, Hokie sports. It's a way I can support the school and the teams I love.
Anybody else make a gift during the Drive for 25 Blitz? Any other first-timers like myself?
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
I gave for the first time. Only $25, but it's all I could justify at the moment.
Maybe if we win tomorrow night I'll give the the Hokie Club some more.
As someone who has worked in advertising and specifically helped with Wake Forest's Deacs Day of Giving, our Drive for 25 Blitz has been maddeningly frustrating. I'm a former student, former season ticket holder, so they have my information, and yet the first I had ever heard of this was a single text and email the day it began.
There was no buildup, no excitement, no educational period. Simply a text message that said "Hey, we're doing this so donate!"
When the agency I worked for previously did the Deacs Day of Giving, we had a cadence of emails leading up to the event, social media ads targeted to users within the CRM database, and display ads targeted to users who have expressed interest in Wake Forest. Then for the day of, we had different ads going out based on the HOUR ("Day of Giving is here", Mid-day Update, Dinnertime update, and "Last Chance"). It was a coordinated effort with different planned periods that turned ~$2,500 of ad spend across different channels into like $300k worth of new donations.
I understand that we weren't very adept at fundraising before Whit came, but we still have SOOO far to go. There's so much more potential in a campaign like this, and it's just so frustrating to see us making the same relationship management problems we made in the past.
They need to hire someone who understands direct marketing and leverage the fact they can provide exclusive content to keep folks engaged on an email list.
Exactly, there is next to no relationship nurturing from the department other than the times they outreach asking for money.
With an event like this, you need to get people in the mindset to donate. I'm back in school so I'm certainly on a tight budget which means I can't just be asked on a random Tuesday to shell out $25. But maybe if I had been aware the week prior, I might have thought 'hey, I'll grab something cheaper to eat today so I can give a little bit back to my school for next week's campaign.'
I mean, this is just basic marketing 101 stuff that I'm still not seeing much improvement on. It takes 30 minutes to set up a Google display campaign, toss in a couple of banners and whoosh, you can generate a couple hundred thousand impressions for chump change.
I got an email today with this info embedded in it for the drive for 25.
http://athletics.hokiesports.com/nl/jsp/m.jsp?c=%404PznA%2BRKFkKejgc7MIW5iL7UZpprqwqEF5WjjdT1sFs%3D
And while they're at it, they need to hire someone who has designed a website more recently than 1997 to design the Hokie Club donation site.
They have a professor right on the campus that's a genius with that stuff (Donna Wertalik). They need to simply look in their own backyard if they haven't already
One of the best teachers I had when a student, I see her in Roanoke from time to time, she's a ball.
I'm not sure about everyone else but I started receiving emails about this on August 28, also got a text the morning it started
I'm curious, what was the contents of the email? Don't need a copy-paste, just a summary. Was it about the Blitz campaign or ...
Forwarded you one.
Do they have your up to date information? I got at least 5 emails before this campaign started and it popped up several times as an ad on my instagram feed.
Not a current season ticket holder this year but I did buy a football mini plan so they have my up to date info.
Given the past 3 years...unfortunately unable to budget it on the seemingly short notice this year. Didn't know it was coming until earlier this week and my boat fund stole all my money.
Bust out another thousand!
I hate when boat funds do that.
College athletics give a lot of kids an opportunity at getting a degree and living a life a life that more than likely wouldn't have been possible without a scholarship.
I break up my donations over the course of the year and like to do it when they have drives like this.
Wow, a lot of super fan braggarts in this thread
lol. More petty DVing for the sake of DVing.
He's clearly joking bc he got called out yesterday for bragging because he said he donated.
thank you
Yea the downvoting is definitely the petty part of this situation
I donate to the Hokie Club (Athletics Scholarship Fund) already but I'm going to toss another $25 each to various specific programs for ~100 total.
Matching gifts for CMYBALL and football. Last year when I did the same for the first time, I at least got a card from "Buzz" + Staff thanking me for the effort. Then this year I received a postcard from MY and Co. about a season kickoff banquet.
Easy outreach using the existing database of donors. The football team needs to take note.
Wouldn't it make sense to roll this our department wide? Shouldn't all coaches be doing this?
That's even better than the Ut Prosim magnets the Corps of Cadets sells for the memorial scholarships.
So while as always there is clearly room to improve especially at the understaffed and sometimes out of touch Hokie Club. I will say I've seen announcements on every twitter and Facebook account associated with Tech sports and Hokie club. I also got numerous emails prior to this week about save the date.
I donated today.....first time to Hokie Club.
Ehh shoot- I joined in too. I noticed they've got almost 2000 additional members for the event? That has to be pretty significant.
Yep. Gave them another Benjamin.
I donated for the first time and will likely start doing a recurring donation once I figure out what is appropriate for my budget. Beginning to save for a house so need to crunch some numbers.
Really having to cut back on discretionary spending unit we see if we can win a fight with Blue Cross/Shield/Anthem. Hopefully will be in a position to make up for not giving in the near future, but $40,000 in medical bills they say they are not going to pay is a big problem.
Can someone help me understand why they only do a drive for 3 days? I'm genuinely interested why isn't a 24/7 drive.
You can donate on any given day of the year, this is their way of trying to rally people to donate. I do not think they do a good job of this at all though.
This drive also is a big boost to non revenue sports. Many people donate directly to them and there are lots of matching gifts.
There has been some discussion at the top of this thread regarding the poor efforts of the Hokie Club on this effort, with some calling for a more persistent email blast and a digital ad campaign. Just to balance out some of what's been said, I noticed that on a board on 247 some people were giving props to the Hokie Club for some banner ads they saw online, a string of emails they received (and some have mentioned emails in this thread too), and multiple texts and calls.
I don't know all the efforts of the Hokie Club, and I imagine no one here really knows their whole marketing plan for this blitz, but I thought it might be useful to mention what some others have seen. Im sure we can always find some fault in the Hokie Club not doing this perfectly, but personally I have been very pleased with the recent efforts of the Hokie Club to expand membership and giving. And from what I can tell they have been effective in bringing steady change.
I definitely got emails before the thing started. Part of my job is email marketing as well and there is a fine line between sending out too many and just enough. I click unsubscribe daily to a lot of companies and things that I actually follow simply for being bombarded by too many emails. I try to keep that in mind in my current position as well.
Just donated $25, not much but a great way to put my money where my mouth is. Although I am already a Hokie Club member, really glad to see a baseline $25 membership added to get to that 25,000 member mark. Like any good marketing technique, the key is to get folks in the door so they can feel apart of something bigger!
I've been a loyal $10/month, $120/year donor for at least 4 years, but I might be done now
I think that's the opposite of what should happen, we need the $ now more than ever
They swung by my tailgate today and I donated $25. When asked I told them I would like to donate to the football team. Now I wish I said to donate towards Fuente's buyout
So did anybody start the go fund me to buyout Coach Fuente yet?