Insights

Fuelled by ambition and drive, Nevil Coleman and Steve Hanna founded Cymba in 2004 with one clear aim: to enter the mobile messaging sector. Having quickly established that short codes - special telephone numbers designed for high-throughput, two-way messaging - had huge marketing potential, the business began generating regular revenue. Both owners suspected this approach would appeal to charities looking to boost donations. However, there was one significant hurdle: major mobile operators wanted to retain the majority of the donation - a decision that priced out charities. This all changed in 2010 when Vodafone announced that they would give 100 per cent of donations to charity, which meant that SMS messaging campaigns became much more accessible to the third sector. Soon after, other mobile operators followed suit. After winning UNICEF as a client - just as it was embarking on the now famous campaign with Ewan McGregor that went on to secure millions of pounds for the charity - Cymba had officially entered the world of charity fundraising. Fast-forward 20 years, and Cymba has raised over £70m - £36m of which comes from regular giving - from a supporter network of 436,000 people. In the last 12 months alone, it has raised almost £6m in regular giving donations. As Cymba turns 20, let's hear from those who have been with the business the longest, including Rich Mullens, Cymba's Product Director.

By Les Beech, Account Manager at Cymba Over the past few decades, regular giving has become increasingly important for charities, which is why so many have adopted Direct Debits. In 2011, Cymba launched Connected , a regular giving SMS platform, to give charities another way to accept regular donations. The system enables charities to take donations from donors' phones on a 30-day cycle, similar to a Direct Debit. However, donors have control over regular gifts, as they can decide whether to give in any given month. The platform meets the Phone-paid Services Authority's (PSA) standards, which state that donors must be reminded every 29 days of who they're giving to, how much they're giving, and how to skip payments. Connected complements our client's efforts to promote regular giving by Direct Debit, which is why it's a valuable platform for anyone looking to recruit regular donors. Let's look at ways you can encourage and secure regular giving platform SMS (RGPSMS) donations. 1. Telephone agency drop ask Initially, this was the primary way for charities to ask donors for a regular donation from their phone bill or RGPSMS. The client promotes a keyword, for example, 'CAT', and a short code, for example, 70007. Cymba then forwards the phone numbers of those who responded - minus any opt-outs - to the clients' telephone fundraising agency, which then calls to ask for a Direct Debit donation. If the member of the public declines to make a Direct Debit donation, then as part of the negotiating cycle, the fundraiser asks if they would like to make a regular donation via their mobile phone bill. If the prospective donor says 'yes,' the fundraiser sends a text message to their phone asking them to reply YES to sign up for an RGPSMS donation. This text message is followed by a message confirming what they have signed up for to comply with PSA regulations. At this point, their phone is charged for the first time. Doing this enables the client to sign up additional donors, which helps to reduce the cost per acquisition and generate a further group of regular giving donors. Cymba's clients typically see a conversion rate of around 5 – 6 per cent of people signing up to an RGPSMS regular gift due to the drop ask, depending on the telephone marketing strategy. 2. Two step With this method, a charity promotes a keyword and short code again. But this time, when the donor texts in, they make a single donation. The bounceback text message from the charity confirms that the donor has been charged £5 and promotes a regular gift. This text message is followed by a second bounceback message that contains instructions on how to set up regular giving. In our experience, the conversion rate for those who make a single donation and then an RGPSMS donation following the second step is around 10 per cent, making it a valuable tool in any regular giving toolbox. 3. Straight to This method is the most frictionless for individual donations. Here, if a public member, after seeing a charity's advert, texts CAT to 70007 to make a £3 a month donation, they will receive a message from the charity asking the individual to reply 'YES' to confirm their decision. Once this commitment is made, the charity will text them explaining how to stop the recurring payment or, should they wish to, at any point in the future, how to skip a payment. Another text—the first text that charges the donor—follows. Straight to campaigns managed by Cymba typically see 70 – 80 per cent of people who text convert to making RGPSMS donations. 4. SMS broadcast SMS broadcasts are similar to sending appeals by mailshot or email, except you're using SMS instead. With this approach, a charity simply needs a list of mobile numbers of potential donors and supporters who haven't opted out of being approached. The prospect is sent an RGPSMS appeal, which uses the short code the donor will be giving on, and asked to reply with the appropriate keyword. Once again, the donor is asked to confirm that they want to sign up for a regular giving donation by replying 'YES'. At this point, the process follows that of a straight to campaign. SMS broadcasts are generally a much cheaper option, as charities typically already have mobile numbers. However, because these mobile numbers probably come from previous campaigns, historical costs should be considered when budgeting. Our experience shows that 20 per cent of people approached upgraded their RGPSMS donation from £3 to £5 per month. This tool can also be used to promote the Cymba Gift Aid form to donors. We've helped many charities establish, maintain and grow their regular giving programmes. To get more tips on recruiting regular donors, join our webinar on April 25 at 11:30 AM, presented by our Account Manager, Les Beech and our Head of Client Services, Steve Mathison.

By James Briggs, Account Executive at Cymba. As someone who’s spent a considerable amount of their career charity side, I’ve had the freedom to try new fundraising approaches and get a sense for what works, and what doesn’t. Now, having recently joined Cymba, I’m in the privileged position of being able to consolidate what I’ve learnt along the way in order to help multiple charities leverage their fundraising campaigns when it comes to that all important thing – boosting fundraising revenue. Whilst RCS as a tool for fundraising is still in its infancy, my charity was an early adopter and I worked with Cymba to test RCS across several campaigns. Here are the five things that I learned. 1. The devil is in the detail It’s often the subtle things that make the big difference – particularly when it comes to building credibility. RCS is no different. For instance, the verified badge, as well as your charity’s logo, at the top of a piece of RCS communication speaks volumes. During our standard PSMS campaigns, we’d often get calls from potential donors asking if the text we sent was legitimate and not a scam, or concerned that the short code link was potentially harmful. With RCS and a fully setup profile, which is visual and verified, this concern simply falls away. So, make sure that your RCS profile is correctly setup, and that the logo is clear and concise. 2. Stick to the story The biggest restriction to PSMS is the 160-character limit. After all, trying to convey a message or tell a story that resonates at an emotional level and make an ask within these parameters is incredibly difficult (and that’s before you’ve factored in copy around compliance). The way to get around this to some degree is to abbreviate everything, which can kill the mood and the message. With RCS, characters aren’t limited, which means that you can be much more detailed when it comes to storytelling. RCS’s ability to support storytelling allows your charity to be much more emotive – and when it comes to fundraising, emotional connection is critical. 3. A picture is worth a thousand words Use imagery wherever and whenever possible. Any visual cues that support the story you’re telling makes the message so much more powerful. Just like text characters are unlimited with RCS, so too are images. And they’re free to add, too. More to the point, images enrich the content and make the user – or recipient – experience that much more compelling. So, why wouldn’t you use them. 4. Button it Another beauty of RCS is the ability to embed buttons into a piece of communication. Not only does this enhance the user experience (who doesn’t prefer buttons to links) but it makes it more appealing – and arguably more likely – for people to take positive action and donate. Furthermore, buttons yield metrics that can be tracked, which means that messages received and open rates can be evaluated. This also provides invaluable feedback and insights that can be used to improve future campaigns. 5. Novelty factor This is less of a technical point, but it’s true nonetheless. RCS in all its visual glory is new and interesting. As a result, we saw fewer unsubscribes from those who received the RCS campaign compared with the PSMS variant. PSMS has been around for years, so people are seemingly more inclined to default so unsubscribe. With RCS – the new kid on the block – people are seemingly more inclined to engage. My view is that whilst it’s so new, charities should adopt it now before the novelty factor wears off (although that’s likely to be many years from now). As with all campaigns, charities should give RCS time and split test. However, there’s no doubt that RCS is the future. It just depends on when individual charities decide to adopt it. In my view, the sooner they do the better. Interested in finding out how we can make RCS work for your fundraising campaigns? If so, call us on +44 (0)845 0829622 or email enquiries@cymba.co.uk .

Fortune favours the bold according to Cymba, the mobile payments and messaging solutions specialist, following the launch its latest eBook entitled Fundraising in 2024 and beyond. The eBook, which offers Cymba’s top 10 tools to help charities boost their fundraising revenue, features contributions from DTV Group , the film fundraising agency, conversational commerce experts CM.com , and senior figures from within Cymba including its CEO, Rich Mullens. Whilst the eBook covers some of fundraising’s traditional tools such as direct mail and email marketing, it also explores the potential of emerging technologies such as Rich Communication Services and illustrates how charities can harness it to boost revenue. On launching Fundraising in 2024 and beyond, Rich Mullens comments: “We’ve produced this guide in order to inform, educate and empower in equal measure. Charities of all sizes will be able to discover our favourite tools, gain insights from our highly experienced team and hear first-hand customer accounts of how many of the featured platforms are irrevocably changing their approach to fundraising. This collaboration with some of the UK’s highly respected charity partners is a must-read for those wishing to stay ahead of the curve in 2024.” Readers will discover from Spike Bowen, Head of Account Management UK & Ireland at CM.com, how its omnichannel approach is helping to make donating fast and simple. Similarly, Chris Clark, Head of Media at DTV Group, also highlights some of the key trends for 2024 and outlines his top two recommendations for the year ahead. 2024 will be a year of opportunity for charities and Cymba believes that this guide will provide a head start.

We are delighted to announce the launch of our new informative lunch and learn sessions aimed at ensuring you get the most out of your Cymba products by demonstrating new features and functionality. Our first session will take place on the 28 February at 11:30am – 12:30pm and will be hosted by Steve Mathieson, Head of Client Services at Cymba. Our series will be touching on recent enhancements to our platform one of which is ‘Broadcast Personalisation’ where we will be focusing on the following: Introductions SMS broadcast “The Basics” Engaging & Stewardship with Personalisation Advanced Examples – Direct Debit and Regular Text Giving upgrades Futures update There will also be the opportunity to ask any questions in an interactive Q&A session at the end. We hope you can make it, however, if not please register and we'll send you the recording following the event.

As a business immersed in creating innovative mobile payment opportunities and developing messaging solutions for charities and brands, our answer to this question is ‘yes, absolutely!’. Our recent event with Charity Digital – an organisation which, similar to us, exists to help charities get the most from their digital toolboxes – reinforced this, too, when we jointly explored how to optimise supporter engagement using WhatsApp alone. ‘But why?’, you’re probably asking. If so, read on.

Every day, Cymba’s Product Director Rich Mullens is driven by one thing: leaving a legacy. And, it’s a passion that comes from deep within. “When I was a young teenager, my dad passed away, and that experience changed me,” Rich says. “It really drove me to want to connect with people – it’s not just about living a life, it’s about leaving a legacy. My dad left an incredible legacy and impression on my life, and every day since then, whatever I did, whatever I do, I want to leave people feeling good about any interaction I have with them – and I want to help make the world a better place with every interaction.” Positive communication and building relationships with people are fundamental to Rich’s every day, and as a young professional he was driven to put that approach to life to use by helping others. After beginning working life as a graphic designer, and then using his communication and relationship-building skills professionally by training Yellow Pages sales teams, UK-born Rich – who spent his formative years living in Zimbabwe before moving back to the UK in his late teens – focused on using his skills to make a global impact. “At Yellow Pages, we developed what we called the 21st Century Sales Method, which changed the paradigm of selling. It wasn’t about pushing features and benefits of a product or service, it was about connecting with people, building rapport, understanding their pain points and their needs. “The biggest satisfaction for me was when people had that ‘aha!’ moment – when they realised that, actually, all they were doing was connecting with people. “As human beings, we thrive on connection, and it’s one of the most wonderful experiences when you can connect with someone, build a rapport and develop the kind of relationship that leaves a lasting impression.” Rich believed that approach could be key to helping charities raise significant amounts of donations – which, over the following decades, he’s done to tremendous effect.