At Fresh Eyes Digital, we know firsthand that digital fundraising isn’t without its frights! Every campaign has its own set of challenges and whether you’ve done this for 20 years or 2 years, we’ve all had our scares and close calls! We all have memories that make us break out in a cold sweat.
In the spirit of Halloween, we thought we’d share some of our spookiest digital marketing moments. Get ready for some spine-tingling tales from the team! And remember: we all survived, learned, and are better for it!
Jenn: My second day on the job way back in 2004, required me to quickly learn some basics in GetActive (RIP to the best there was) and launch an email to a list of over 600,000 people for a leading national LGBTQAI+ rights organization. It was a busy time of year at the agency I’d just started at. And well, no one had a ton of time for training.
I remember sitting at my desk and checking and rechecking EVERYTHING related to the email launch. I was sweating, I desperately wanted to have someone check my work, but that email needed to get out. Finally, I gritted my teeth, hit send and hoped that I hadn’t made a major mistake on my very first full work day. Luckily, the email gods shined down on me that day and everything went okay, but that feeling never leaves! I still am SO THANKFUL that I’m not the one hitting send (usually!) these days.
Erin: I think I’ve deeply repressed my mistakes. I remember sending an email to the wrong address book. Should have been sent to, oh, 1,500 people and instead went to 12K. AHHHHHHH.
Sara: I still get shivers thinking about the time I accidentally linked to an express donate link in an email fundraising ask that was not explicitly marked as a link that would enable the user to give instantly if their payment information was saved — as required by the donation platform. The email was forwarded to a listserv where users called the mistake out, assuming I was trying to deceive supporters who received the email…which definitely was never my intention. Luckily the donation platform was understanding of the human error, but trust me, I’ll never speed through a QC process again!
Ilana: A few Giving Tuesdays ago, I realized about 40 minutes before the most important send of the day (the signer was a celebrity) that the client’s donation page didn’t accept recurring donations. In a panic, I tried to fix it – and in doing so, accidentally broke the feature that accepted one-time donations. I was able to revert it back and make a clone of the page so I could troubleshoot the recurring donations portion and figured it out (and then updated it on the live page) about 5 minutes before the celeb email went out. I still have nightmares about that one.
Jordyn: I think I’ve deeply repressed most horror stories as well… One example I can think of is when we scheduled an email to mid level donors on a Friday to go out over the weekend, and logged back on Monday to check the results and realized it was sent to an audience of 0. The client made a change to the segment after we scheduled it without letting us know, resulting in it mistakenly removing everyone from the list!
Thelma: Despite millions of emails under my belt since accidentally stumbling into digital fundraising in 2018, hitting send is NEVER easy. In fact, I always give myself a few minutes of buffer if I can help it! I would rather hit schedule than send. This has saved me before! A recent year-end snafu has only intensified that send anxiety.
To this day I am not sure if it was human or software error. But in the process of doing a manual import of donors and scheduling an email, my carefully curated and assigned audiences fell off and I ended up emailing an organization’s entire list….TWICE! 👻👻 A few tears were definitely shed over this. In the end, it was all okay. Mistakes happen, the clients were understanding, and it ended up being a very successful email to boot! But catch me triple-checking my audiences every time nowadays! Email nightmare fuel, for sure.
Rachel: Well, I’ll just say, if you’re a new digital marketer trying to make a good impression on your boss. Maybe DON’T misspell his name in the sign-off of the newsletter. It’s fine, it’s fine. After 20 years of therapy and paranoid QCing I am… still not over it!
The moral of the story? We’re all human, and sometimes things don’t go as planned, but that’s how we learn and improve. We’d love to hear your own Halloween digital fundraising horror stories if you dare to share! Wishing you a happy, safe Halloween from all of us at Fresh Eyes Digital.
If you’re looking for a team that understands the highs and the horrors of digital fundraising, reach out to us. We’re here to help make your campaigns a little less scary!
