Save the Children Denmark’s budget in 2013 has nearly halved compared to earlier years. We used new media platforms to reach to same result in 2013 as in 2012. The media budget was in 2013 only €69,841.

In 2011 it was a combination of TV and cinema, in 2012 it was TV and in 2013 we used social media and online display.

Facebook gave e.g. an increase of 745% in generated leads from 2012 to 2013.

Despite of the budget the development in sign-ups were in 2013 the same as in 2012, namely 7,100 sign-ups. In 2011 11,900 people signed up.

This gave us a ROMI on 11.48 in 2013 compared to 8.58 the year before.

The price per collector was the lowest ever in 2013, €9.83 against a price per collector in 2012 of €15.75. In 2011 the price was €10.68.

So clearly with the lowest budget (€69,841) in 2013, we reached a ROMI of 11.48 with smart use of the media groups; social media and online display. Moreover we reached the same amount of sign-ups as the year before (7,100) and the lowest price per collector ever (€9.83).

12% of all collectors were recruited through paid and organic activities on Facebook while we achieved the lowest price per recruitment ever. Our efforts also led to an 23.2 % increase in likers and an immensely high engagement rate of 2% (benchmark 0.52%). The Facebook team-competition resulted in 801 sign-ups and the 79 members of the winning team witnessed a 2 hour private concert with Mr Langer, including a Q&A session. The activity spurred on social media during and after the concert left no doubt that Save the Children had just given these youngsters the experience of a lifetime.

We knew that the main reason for volunteering was the sociality and togetherness that comes from spending 2 hours with friends and family doing something good. Also, Facebook is the perfect place to talk / brag about your good doings before, during and after doing them.

In engaging younger women, we created a ‘social’ Facebook app that allowed users to start a collectors-team, invite friends to join and compete against other teams. The team with most collectors on the campaign day won a private concert with pop star Mads Langer.

To gain a maximum reach for a minimum budget, an army of pop stars, politicians, comedians, actors and athletes, yes, even a children’s cartoon character, was assembled to take part in sharing a ‘selfie’ photo with a red Save the Children balloon, encouraging people to sign up for the big annual collection day.

How do you use Facebook to recruit door-to-door collectors with a minimum budget? And how do you encourage adolescent females to take interest in raising money for children through social media? The answer lies in between a huge supply of red balloons, an army of celebrity do-gooders taking ‘selfies’ and the Danish pop star Mads Langer.

While women aged 25-55 are generally overrepresented in Save the Children’s corps of door-to-door collectors, insights pointed out a gap towards adolescent women aged 16-25. We saw a great growth potential in expanding our “normal” female target group towards these youngsters, getting them involved in our campaigns earlier.

We also needed to get the message about the campaign out there. With only a small budget, we turned to Facebook as our main media platform, combining something very efficient, celebrity endorsements with something very simple: Red balloons and ‘selfies’!