Page 244 - Electronic Commerce

Marketing on the Web

international confederation devoted to ending poverty and injustice with operations in 94 coun-
tries and annual program expenditures of more than 600 million euros. Oxfam often deals with
humanitarian disasters that are beyond the scope of its resources. In these cases, the organi-
zation provides aid by mobilizing an international lobbying staff that has contacts with key aid
agencies based in other countries, governments in the affected area, and the United Nations.
In 1996, Oxfam opened a Web site to provide information about its efforts to supporters and 219
potential donors. The Web site included detailed reports on Oxfam’s work, past and present,
and allows site visitors to make donations to the organization. Although Oxfam gladly accepts
any donations, it encourages supporters to commit to a continuing relationship by making regu-
lar donations. In exchange, it provides regular updates about its activities on the Web site and
through an e-mailed monthly newsletter. The Web site includes a sign-up page for the e-mail
newsletter, which goes out to several hundred thousand supporters. When supporters sign up
for the newsletter, they can choose to receive other e-mails from Oxfam. The supporters who
have opted in constitute the Oxfam opt-in e-mail list.
Oxfam has been involved in relief work in Sudan since the 1970s, when it provided help to
Ugandan refugees in the southern part of the country. In its recent work there, it has set up
sanitary facilities and provided clean drinking water in camps that house thousands of displaced
people fleeing pro-government Arab militias. The need in Sudan rapidly exceeded Oxfam’s
capacity and it decided to use e-mail to mobilize support for the project.
Oxfam planned an e-mail campaign that would send three e-mails in HTML format to sup-
porters on its existing opt-in e-mail list over a six-week period. The first e-mail included a photo
of children in one of the camps. The text of the e-mail message described Oxfam’s efforts to
provide clean water to the displaced people living in the Sudanese camps. The e-mail included
links in two places that took recipients to a Web page that had been created specifically to
receive visitors responding to that e-mail message. The Web page allowed visitors to make a
donation and asked them to provide their e-mail addresses, which would be used to send
updates on the Sudan project. A second e-mail was sent two weeks later to addresses on the
list that had not yet responded. This second e-mail included a video file that played automati-
cally when the e-mail was opened. The video conveyed the message that Oxfam had delivered
$300,000 in aid to the camps but that more help was urgently needed in the region. This second
e-mail included three links that led to the Web page created for the first e-mail. Two weeks later,
a final e-mail was sent to addresses on the list that had not responded to either of the first two
e-mails. This third e-mail included an audio recording in which Oxfam’s executive director made
a plea for the cause. The e-mail also included text that provided examples of which aid items
could be provided for specific donation amounts.
Oxfam’s three-part e-mail campaign was considered a success by direct marketing stan-
dards. The first e-mail was opened by 32 percent of recipients and had a click-through rate of
8 percent. The second e-mail had similar, but somewhat higher, results (33 percent opened,
10 percent clicked through). Ninety percent of those who opened the e-mail watched the video.
The third e-mail continued the slightly increasing trends for opening and attention (34 percent
opened, and 94 percent listened to the audio), but the click-through rate was much higher than
the previous two e-mails (14 percent). Also, the dollar amount of donations increased with each
subsequent e-mailing. The e-mail campaign raised more than $450,000 in its six-week period.

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