Organizing a blood donation drive can be a delicate matter. With so much on the line, you want to make sure that this opportunity yields exactly what it aims to – saving lives.
Executed correctly and carefully, your initiative can reach the right audience and get a huge amount of donations for those in need. With world blood donor day around the corner, here are a few pointers to help you cover all your bases!
Make an event out of it
If you want to send people reminders without being too annoying about it, create an event on Facebook and let Facebook do the work for you. Once they decide to ‘attend’, the event will be added to their calendar and they will keep getting follow ups to ensure they don’t forget. Plus, once they see how many people plan on going, they will naturally want to stay included (FOMO is real). If you’re not sure how to create an event then you can check out this simple guide.You can create an event and easily make whatever edits you need to (plans change after all).
At the same time, don’t narrow your approach! Reach out to different people with different streams of communication. Find the right email template and make sure it’s catchy enough to not get thrown into the spam folder. Add a relevant picture, make sure the important information like date and venue are easily visible, don’t make it too wordy, and most importantly, think like your audience! A useful hack is to make different email templates for different segments of your audience. Don’t worry it’s not as difficult as it sounds, PosterMyWall is happy to do all the heavy lifting for you.
Communicate the impact
Donating blood is a praiseworthy action capable of changing lives for the better. It’s important to tell people just how much power they hold to make a positive impact in so many lives.
Add quotes from patients who need donations, narrate their stories and give them a voice. It’s a proven fact that people are more empathetic when they can put a name and face to an unfortunate situation. These are other human beings who are trying their best to live a healthy life, it’s really as simple as that.
Make an Instagram account specifically for your blood donation campaign and make a segment for people in need. Be it reels or just pictures, give a platform to those who are comfortable with coming forward and watch the response increase tenfold.
Another great idea is to figure out a way for donors to track the use of their blood. Once they see for themselves, their satisfaction will make their experience all the more worthwhile. Appeal to their emotions. After all, it is an emotional occasion.
Give a thank you token
Donating blood can be a tiring experience. Such an abrupt decrease in iron levels can leave a person feeling weak and woozy. It’s recommended for donors to take it easy and relax for the rest of the day, eat nourishing foods, and avoid physical exertion.
It is inspiring how these kind people are willingly putting themselves through discomfort to help people they don’t even know! With a deed this pure, they deserve appreciation. And that’s exactly what you should give them. Look into making them a little goodie bag to thank them (why do we only give those to kids?). Add something sweet to help bring up their sugar levels. Cookies and brownies are always a crowd favorite! A cute thank-you note and a blood donor badge or sticker are also lovely additions.
Remember, the details matter! You not only want these people to be happy with their decision, but you also want them to encourage their peers to do the same. A good deed needs to feel like a good deed, so do your best to encourage kindness.
Make your socials interactive!
When you start posting on Instagram you need to remember that consistency is key. Blood drives are events that need maximum traffic around the actual event dates but otherwise engagement is nearly none. So when you get a view on a story, it’s important that you retain that viewer.
Instagram has a lot of interactive story features that encourage viewers to engage with your account. A lot of content creators hold Q and A sessions when their engagement is low for this very reason: people respond better when they feel included.
Keep posting stories in real time. Motivate people to ask questions and then answer those questions. If they are afraid of needles, tell them the steps you have taken to make the process as comfortable for them as possible. Flaunt your thoughtfully curated goodie bags. Collect some reviews from donors and post their stories with their consent. All these little things will add up to make your campaign a very reliable and trusted one. And better yet, your socials will have a reputation to back you up whenever you decide to organize the next blood drive.
Put up blood donation flyers
Unlike an online class, you can’t really attend a blood drive without physically being there. Make sure the people you are targeting are people in your area. This is where flyers come in handy!
You can use some free blood drive flyer templates on PosterMyWall for a quick and aesthetic fix. Choose a design that suits your needs from the hundreds of templates on our website and customize it wherever you feel the need. Once you have the right flyer, start putting up printouts in the busiest places you know (busy and relevant!). Grocery stores, schools, church notice boards, hospitals, or even around the park. Hand them out to people waiting for the subway. Slide it under doors in your college dorm. Put it in mailboxes. The possibilities are quite literally endless.
Once you have made your flyer, you can also circulate the softcopy! Send it to friends and family, ask them to put up Instagram stories and WhatsApp statuses for you. Word of mouth goes a long way.
In a nutshell
Remember, as great as the cause and motivation is, organizing events can be a taxing job. Coordinating vendors, finding volunteers, picking a venue, coming up with a marketing plan, it can become overwhelming at some point and that’s perfectly fine!
What PosterMyWall can do to help is ease your burden when it comes to design and marketing. We are all for supporting great initiatives, especially ones that are backed up with so much generosity.
Working hard is important, but working smart will get the job done sooner!
