Background
CLIC Sargent is the UK's leading cancer charity for children, young people and their families. CLIC Sargent offer a wide range of support individually, locally and nationally. They also take their messages to government, highlighting the effect cancer has on young lives. CLIC Sargent’s fundraising activity utilised a range of channels such as direct mail, telemarketing, sms and email – which all required effective analysis and reporting systems to ensure success and to drive strategic development. This was proving challenging for the charity’s data team.
CLIC Sargent had made a number of improvements to the internal systems and analysis strategies, but the fundraising team still faced major obstacles in acquiring the insights they needed from their supporter data. With a significant increase in the number and sophistication of campaigns and decision making across the fundraising team being driven by insight - such as regular giver retention rates, supporter journey mapping and geo-demographic data - internal systems were being tested beyond the limit, causing frequent system freezes and requiring complex workarounds. Analysis projects took significantly longer than they should, seriously compromising and delaying the decision-making process.
The Apteco Solution
CLIC Sargent’s data team researched software solutions that could deliver improvements to database functionality. They identified Apteco FastStats as the most likely package to improve return on investment, inform strategy and planning and provide a supporter centric marketing model.
CLIC Sargent’s FastStats build was completed within the required timeframe, with Wood for Trees meeting the full build specification. Wood for Trees also provided critical on-site training and continued to support throughout the project and beyond the live launch. CLIC Sargent’s partner Wood for Trees has a strong track record and reputation with FastStats – which was further complimented by a solid existing working relationship through other data projects.
In short, FastStats is a brilliant tool which is intuitive and has been transformative in the way we work. Wood for Trees are an excellent supplier who were incredibly supportive during the implementation and user acceptance testing phases and continue to be so as we get more confident with the tool.
Stacey Wood, Fundraising Data Analyst, CLIC Sargent
Stacey Wood, Fundraising Data Analyst, CLIC Sargent
The impact on the business
Since the introduction of FastStats the data team was able to centralise campaign data selections for the fundraising team. This has massively improved the consistency and frequency of supporter communications, quadrupling the number of campaigns that the team can output and enabling them to split and test segmentations across the board, resulting in improved ROI. CLIC Sargent used the FastStats geo functionality to create specifically targeted marketing around trading activity and event promotion, so expenditure is more efficient, effective, and focused. In terms of analysis the team has produced multiple reports showing key performance indicators. These KPIs can be viewed at the click of a button, saving considerable time and effort. This has contributed to increased ROI by identifying certain ineffective segments or key supporter types that were previously invisible to the data team.
CLIC Sargent was able to quadruple the number of campaigns that the team were able to output.
More targeted marketing around specific activity and event promotion, resulted in more efficient expenditure.
By identifying ineffective segments and key supporter types that weren’t previously visible and split testing CLIC Sargent was able to improve ROI.
KPIs can be viewed at the click of a button, saving considerable time and effort.
Apteco FastStats has, in this short period of time, dramatically changed how we handle and understand our data, massively improving the consistency and frequency of supporter communications, quadrupling the number of campaigns that the team can output.