EVENT: Data protection seminar

The words data protection can scare people who don’t really understand what it means, what it allows you to do and the implications.  This seminar aims to demystify data protection and help you to feel confident in your communications. 

Data Protection and Communications for the Voluntary Sector (24 September 2009, London)

“Is your organisation Data Protection compliant in its fundraising and marketing activity? Not understanding this legislation can put your organisation at reputational and financial risk. You will learn about all the rules that apply to your emails, direct marketing, telemarketing, websites and more.”

For more and to book visit www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/dataprotectionsep09 or call Matt on 020 7520 3160.

EVENT: Marketing conference

Sharpen your marketing theory and practice – NCVO Summer Marketing Conference (7 July 2009, London)

“Get the tools you need to ensure that your organisation stands out in a crowded marketplace and that you are engaging with a range of audiences. One of the worlds most recognised and highly respected marketers Drayton Bird will give the keynote address and show you how direct marketing can make a real difference to your organisation.”

The conference also includes a session on how to make the most of new media:

New media can be used as more than just an extension of your fundraising and awareness raising activities. By using their website as a service delivery tool, Breast Cancer Care, have put the supporter back at the centre of their activities. Find out how you can use new media techniques such as online discussion forums to keep your stakeholders at the heart of your work.

For more and to book visit www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/marketingjuly09 or call Matt on 020 7520 3160.

Creating viral video

I’m at NCVO’s Multimedia Explained event today and this morning we had a really interesting session with Julie Dodd from Public Zone looking about how organisations can create viral videos.

Julie’s 5 top tips for creating viral videos:

• Keep them short (1-2 minutes maximum). 

One of the other workshops from the day said that when a video gets to around 52 seconds most people switch off or fast forward to the end to see what happens, so make sure that by the time yours hits 52 seconds something interesting has happened.

• Make sure it’s well edited

This doesn’t mean that it needs to be high quality but it does need to be edited well.  Free tools are available such as Windows Movie Maker on PCs, iMovie on Macs and others at http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=256.

• Is it surprising or exciting? 

If not, then are people really going to want to look at it and share it?

• Make it shareable   

Host your video on a site like You Tube, Facebook or Vimeo so that’s it easy for people to link to it, embed in their own sites/blogs and share with friends.

• Part of a wider strategy 

Your video won’t go viral if you haven’t thought through what you’re going to do with it after it’s made.  Think through the marketing strategy as a whole before you even get to the stage of making your video.

Good luck!

Innovation in Service Delivery

It was the annual NCVO ICT conference last week and for some reason I took it upon myself to run a workshop on innovation to about 80 delegates from frontline and infrastructure organisations.

Despite being exteremly nervous the session seemed to go really well.  I’ve posted the slides here: