Red Cross•

With CM.com's Mobile Marketing Cloud, the Red Cross is making its fundraisers more successful.

Maaike den Besten is Head of Collections at the Netherlands Red Cross, "The fundraising is organised by individual Red Cross districts and the National Office supports them with distribution, so the proceeds benefit local communities. If you donate to the collection, the money is spent in your neighbourhood."

Until 2019, the Red Cross organised a single door-to-door collection week every year. In 2020, COVID-19 restrictions meant a shift to digital fundraising was necessary. The initial offering worked well enough, but the customer journey wasn’t particularly sophisticated.

Digicollect by Kentaa with Mobile Marketing Cloud by CM.com

In 2021, with some COVID-19 restrictions removed, the Red Cross organised both digital and door-to-door fundraising for the first time. Unique to the new door-to-door fundraising effort was the ability for people to donate via iDEAL QR – by scanning a QR code with their phone. Thanks to the partnership between CM.com and Collecteweb, the Red Cross was able to see exactly how much each fundraiser had raised via iDEAL QR. Those who donated via iDEAL QR were then offered the chance to receive a free first aid mini guide in exchange for leaving their email address.

Keen to create a more sophisticated customer journey, the Red Cross began looking for partners. "We wanted a fundraising system where the fundraisers’ collection platform was ready to go so that all they had to do was fill in a photo and add some motivational text. We also wanted new fundraisers to be able to create their collection account. We also wanted to be able to set up a customer journey, so that we could quickly respond to developments and adjust the fundraising where necessary."

Kentaa and CM.com joined forces and were able to offer a solution: Kentaa's Digicollect fundraising system backed by CM.com's Mobile Marketing Cloud to document the customer journey.

All Digicollect data from Kentaa, such as fundraiser profiles and donations, are automatically stored in CM.com’s Customer Data Platform (CDP), part of Mobile Marketing Cloud. “With Mobile Marketing Cloud, we can build personal customer journeys for fundraisers to motivate them even more,” says Maike, “Being able to do this with Mobile Marketing Cloud means more high-quality contact moments with our fundraisers.”

Being in control and working together

"The functional side of choosing CM.com lies in the clever integration with the Kentaa platform,” Maike continues, “We know from our own experience that CM.com is an excellent partner. The team at CM.com always try to understand your business. It's not like: ‘here’s your password and good luck!’ The training we received ensured we could set everything up ourselves and I could always call if I had a question. That flexibility on the part of CM.com was incredibly nice."

The ability to enjoy personalised contact with fundraisers is a key part of the partnership. "We’ve received very positive feedback about the text messages and emails that we sent our volunteers during the Digital Collection Week. People found it increased their motivation, especially the trigger-based messages that can be sent when, for example, 100 euros is collected in the collection platform. Halfway through Collection week, we also sent out a video of the most successful fundraiser. That was well-received and we plan to continue to do that."

Maaike is happy with his experience of working with CM.com and is thinking about using Mobile Marketing Cloud in the same way next year. "I find the combination of Kentaa and CM.com very powerful." Maaike is already feeling confident about the next collection week, and is looking forward to improving customer journey mapping still further.