People still read their direct mail

I’m in Alabama speaking at the state’s nonprofit association meeting, and so I can’t delve into this study to the depth I’d like.  But it’s too important not to highlight.

On the heels of my post about how lots of folks under age 65 are giving online, comes a study from Vertis that Elaine Fogel called to my attention via an email newsletter.  It says:

85 percent of women ages 25-44 read printed direct mail marketing pieces, despite the influx of electronically generated advertisements throughout the past decade.

Additionally, the study reveals that 53 percent of all women surveyed ages 25-44 who have access to e-mail, read e-mail advertisements, consistent with the 54 percent that did so in 2005.

Consumers of both sexes, not just women, said they loved mailed coupons and discounts (and that’s the direct mail I keep myself, especially if it’s from DSW), and significant percentages of people did the following: went to a store, visited a website or called an 800 number as a result of direct mail.

As much as I’m devoted to online everything, this is a good reminder that you should NOT stop mailing people.  But you should also be emailing them - if they give you permission - and you should integrate the mail and email pieces of what you are doing.  Oh, and you should PERSONALIZE them all. 

57 percent of women ages 35-64 prefer that companies they express interest in, send follow-up communication through direct mail pieces personalized to their needs
45 percent of total adults are open to receiving personalized, follow-up e-mails, younger men and women seem to be more responsive to this medium

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Benchmark data for online giving

There is a great new study out from Target Analysis Group and Donordigital that provides fascinating data on Internet giving, based on research with 12 large nonprofit organizations.  Read it all, but here are the highlights:

1.) Direct mail remains the largest source of revenue, and online donors are still a small portion of overall donor files at most organizations. BUT, median cumulative growth in online donors has been 100% over three years, comparied to 6% for offline (mostly direct mail).  It’s growing, and fast.  I’d add another sign of growth: online giving’s share of overall giving for 9/11 was less than 20%; for Tsunami, it was about one-third; for Katrina, it was about 50%. 

2.) For most of the orgs in the study, more than half of online donors were NEW.  The Internet is serving as an acquisition source for donors.  For half of the organizations, online gifts accounted for 30% of their new revenue in 2006.

3.) Online donors are younger and wealthier than offline donors.  In terms of age, though, it’s important not to jump to the conclusion that they are VERY young - they are pretty spread out by age, while offline donors are all clustered in the 65+ age group. 

4.) Online donors give more than offline donors - $57 vs. $33.  At Network for Good, our average donation is upwards of $100.  This is a generous bunch.

5.) Online donors are slightly less loyal - they renew at lower rates than offline donors.  It could be they are fickle - or it could be that we’re not doing a good job in our sector at online cultivation. I’d argue the problem is the latter - as the next finding suggests.

6.) Online giving at most organizations is not well-integrated with direct marketing efforts—offline donors typically don’t start giving online.  But, the converse is not true.  Many online givers gave through direct mail when they renewed.  The consensus in the study was this was not so much because the donors liked giving through direct mail, but rather that was how they were solicited because the orgs didn’t have an active online renewal strategy.

What does all this mean?  If you want a younger donor file, you must go online.  And you need a very good online cultivation strategy once these folks do give online, so you can keep them.  They are worth it.

Thanks Target and Donordigital for sharing these juicy findings!

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Three predictions for 2007 marketing campaign winners

Here is a prediction from Sean X. Cummings, director of marketing of Ask.com, for iMedia’s 2007 Expert Predictions on what marketing campaigns will work best this year.   I don’t know what the positive resonance thing means, but the rest of it makes a lot of sense to me.

Campaigns that speak to truth, and give us hope. Positive Resonance = Hope. Dove’s Real Beauty campaign was able to expose the unreal body images perpetuated in society by the media. They found a way to tap into a core consumer insight, connect with their audience, and elevate their brand. More brands in 2007 will break the old habit of trying to appeal to everyone, and will seek to stand up for something, because in the end, it’s just good business.

Marissa Gluck answers thusly:

Campaigns that leverage what we’re calling “configurable culture” (i.e., user-generated content, mash-ups, remixing, hacking, et cetera). It’s pretty clear that consumers use digital technologies as a means of self-expression. Companies that are able to not only leverage this desire, but also encourage it, will strike a note with consumers. We hate the term “Web 2.0,” but for lack of a better one, we’ll be seeing a lot more of these types of campaigns in 2007.

I think these two people are really smart, and here’s what I think it all means to us.  Three approaches will be winners:

1.) Stopping the conventional “spray and pray,” unfocused marketing and standing for something with a strong, passionate, maybe even small, constituency.  Dove doesn’t sell soap these days, they sell “real beauty” to women who are tired of superficiality.  Kiva doesn’t sell foreign aid, they sell relationships with inspirational people.

2.) Tapping into a core consumer insight—that people want to be treated better.  We are all fatigued with nonstop marketing, appeals for our money, poor customer service.  Make your donors feel important, valued, treasured.  Be the JetBlue of nonprofits (BEFORE the storm!).  Ask supporters how they want to hear from you and tell them about the good they’ve done. 

3.) Giving your passionate constituents a new way to support your cause.  People want to talk in their words about you.  Let them do that.  Encourage “configurable culture.”  Here’s a nice example of it, on MySpace.  They give you cards, banners, you name it - to express the way you feel about them.

Here’s to all of us being winners this year.

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The authentic apology

It was a tough week for JetBlue.  Staking your reputation as an airline on stellar customer service - which is what they’ve done - and then inconveniencing passengers with horrendous delays was bad, bad, bad.  So they’ve been working overtime to make up for it.

Are they doing a good job of it?  Blogger Nancy Schwartz says no in her post “Jet Blues: How Not To Handle Crisis Communications.”  Blogger Mark Rovner says yes in his post “Why I Still Love Jet Blue.” 

Nancy and Mark actually agree more than those headlines would suggest.  They both say the best thing the airline did was to issue a heartfelt, authentic, no-excuses apology, though Nancy says it should have come sooner and in more places (she has a good point-they didn’t even have it on their corporate blog for a week!). 

Sincere apologies almost NEVER happen in the world anymore.  As a resident of the DC area, I can tell you politicians certainly don’t believe in them.  A lot of people and companies can’t do them either.  How many times has someone said to you, “I’m sorry IF you were inconvenienced,” or “I’m sorry IF you were offended by something I said,” rather than “I’m sorry I inconvenienced/offended you.”  We subtly put the blame on the wronged party for their hurt, rather than admitting we caused it.  I plead guilty to pulling this crap myself.  Welcome to the Land of Passive Aggressiva.  I am a part-time resident, though I’m trying to move out permanently.

Here’s the great start to an email I got from JetBlue on February 21:

Dear JetBlue Customers,

We are sorry and embarrassed. But most of all, we are deeply sorry.

Last week was the worst operational week in JetBlue’s seven year history. Following the severe winter ice storm in the Northeast, we subjected our customers to unacceptable delays, flight cancellations, lost baggage, and other major inconveniences. The storm disrupted the movement of aircraft, and, more importantly, disrupted the movement of JetBlue’s pilot and inflight crewmembers who were depending on those planes to get them to the airports where they were scheduled to serve you. With the busy President’s Day weekend upon us, rebooking opportunities were scarce and hold times at 1-800-JETBLUE were unacceptably long or not even available, further hindering our recovery efforts.

Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that we caused. This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week…

Will this authentic, no-holds-barred apology - along with the Passenger Bill of Rights - be enough?  I think it’s way too early to tell, frankly.  But they have done a lot to increase their chances of survival by just saying sorry.  Because no one really does it any more.  Try talking to United on the phone - which I did today.  You never hear them taking responsibility for anything. 

Now, though, actions have to match words at JetBlue and they have to solve their operational problems pronto.  Because in an ideal world, “sorry” is not just an apology - it is the first step toward behaving differently.  JetBlue is promising changes.  Now they have to deliver.  Today was a good first step - as I sit here writing with sleet outside the window, I notice their home page has a weather advisory, and they’re offering free rebooking to people who don’t want to travel on a day like this.

So what does all of this have to do with us?  If you screw up with your donors, supporters, anyone in your life, give a real apology, not the “if” kind.  Then take action immediately to prove you can and will do better.  Sounds ridiculously obvious, but it’s alarmingly rare.  Just ask the people I’ve apologized to. 

Oh, and I’m sorry if you feel I haven’t been blogging enough lately

.  I mean, I’m sorry I have not blogged enough this week.

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Listening to the bad, and using it for good

One of the great things about the evolution of the Internet is that anyone can have a platform for promoting their view of the world - via blog, MySpace page, Flickr photos, comments on another person’s blog, etc.  That means that sooner or later, people are going to talk about your organization or cause online. That can be good, if they love you, or it can feel bad, if they say stuff that’s not nice.  But I think the not-nice stuff is even more valuable sometimes, especially when it relates to our communications and customer/donor service.  It’s good to know when people aren’t happy, because it can help us do a better job serving them.

Tactical Philanthropy blog asked me my philosophy on this topic after this, which resulted in an interesting discussion , followed by more discussion, and then this end of the story.  I thought I’d share what I said:

Good marketing is about listening to the audience, acknowledging their perspective and having a conversation based on that perspective.  A good marketing relationship is like any other relationship – it’s based in listening and conversation, and not simply monologue.  This is more true than ever before with the advent of social networks, blogs, etc.  The web 2.0 world gives us everyone – including donors – tools to talk to the world, and that means nonprofits have a new opportunity to listen, and sometimes, to start a conversation.  I consider the Internet one big focus group – a place to see what donors, nonprofits and others are saying and doing, and a means to engage those audiences in conversations about what they care about.  Donors blogs are incredibly useful – they are audience research, a feedback loop, a sounding board and a place to start a relationship – all rolled into one. 

That’s all really easy to say, but hard – even painful - to experience.  Blogs allow people the freedom to talk about your issue or organization in their own words, and that means a loss of message control, which can be difficult to embrace.  Sometimes what people say online is not especially nice or constructive, or it may not be based in a thorough understanding of any issue.  It can be unpleasant – and sometimes, I think it’s best not to respond if what you read is a cheap-shot from someone not very invested in the issue at hand.  I’ve stayed out of some conversations for that reason.  But often, what a comment or post online may lack in warmth, it more than makes up for in authenticity and passion, and, however much it hurts to read it (and it hurts, especially if you believe in what you do), it’s very useful to know what people are honestly thinking.  Those honest thinkers are worth listening to and learning from, and speaking with. 

In the case of GiveWell, it was very important to know people don’t have a good understanding of our fees, and why.  Obviously, we should do a better job explaining them, and we will.  I stand by our fees and believe they are incredibly fair considering all that we offer nonprofits, but if folks think they are not worth it, then I need to listen to that opinion - and learn from it, then do a better job as a communicator going forward.

If I were working in marketing at United, I’d spend more time reading www.untied.com and thinking about how to improve my company than I would on creating new ad campaigns.

We have a serious problem in our sector right now - so bad, we might end up with an untied.com of our own.  Most donors stop giving to charity because of dissatisfaction with how they were treated by the charity rather than personal constraints like financial problems.  Too much mail, no thank-you acknowledgements, and little information on how their money was spent.  If they are that mad, we had better listen—and learn.

 

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Innovative fundraisers aka microphilanthropists

I’m always looking for inspiration, and Peter Deitz of the First-of-its-kind philanthropy network offers a list of amazing group fundraising campaigns.  I highlight it because it illustrates the power of those uber-activists I blogged about in my last post.  Peter calls it “microphilanthropy,” like this knitter without border:

Stephanie Peal-McPhee, a prominent blogger in the world of knitting, has been raising money on behalf of Doctors without Borders ever since the devasting Tsunami hit South East Asia in December 2004. Her micro-philanthropy campaign, which calls on knitters to donate at least $1 to Doctors without Borders, has so far raised a staggering $320,093. Stephanie’s campaign makes no use of social networking or group fundraising tools beyond the original blog format of her website. Instead, she tallies the donations using an excel sheet and relies on donors to email her once they have contributed to Doctors without Borders. Everyone who contributes gets instant membership in Knitters Without Borders, and has the chance to win something knitted by one of her blog readers.

Peter also highlighted the amazing Robin Maxwell, who was diagosed with MS less than a month ago and is already fundraising for her local chapter.

I’d also like to highlight Ali Edwards, whose son has autism, and who has also been a great fundraiser - in her case, for Autism Speaks.  Read the comments on her blog - it shows you just how tight-knit (pun intended) are the uber-activists’ circles.

a comic strip!

Thanks Micropersuasion for reminding me about comeeko!

 

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Personalizing your fundraising outreach

One of the best bloggers I know, Jeff Brooks of Donor Power, had some interesting data to share about his efforts to personalize newsletters.  I’d proposed that nonprofits write their newsletters specifically for the donor—for example, naming the newsletter “How Katya Has Helped X Organization.”  He hasn’t done the title like that before, but he has personalized by name in a number of ways, including in headlines (two steps ahead of moi, naturally).  Here’s what he says:

*The personalized newsletter didn’t do much for the large nonprofit he tried it with.  Results were slightly elevated over normal results, but not enough to cover the extra cost. 
*The approach seems to work better for smaller and localized organizations. 
*The approach works wonders for urban rescue missions.

Jeff has also experimented with a newsletter for high-dollar donors that not only used the donor name, but also gave different content (stories and photos) based on the donor preferences and giving history.  The impact on revenue was very good, but the costs were high.  The program was very time-consuming to manage, though.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that personalization is important even if you can’t pull off naming the newsletter after the donor.  Think of your donors as people, not ATMs, and write about what THEY care about.  It’s not about your programs, it’s about the difference your donors made.  Remember, they want to feel important.  That’s the kind of personalization we can’t do without.  And if you’re an urban rescue mission, try putting the donor’s name in the e-Newsletter title!

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What are you doing for your uber-activists?

One of my many faults is I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about what I haven’t done perfectly.  I think I’m in good company with this problem.  Do you:

1.) Spend a lot of time worrying about the donors who haven’t given to you lately

2.) Spend a lot of time worrying about how to get all your donors to give more or

2.) Spend a lot of time worrying about how to cultivate the donors and activists who are hard-core supporters

I think a lot of us do too much of #1 and #2 and not enough of #3.  Or we just send #3 people the same stuff we send to everyone else.  I know I get really obsessed with #1. 

That’s missing an opportunity. The third group of people deserve a separate outreach strategy that is well-considered, that is very appreciative and that gives them new and exciting ways to spread the word for you.

Blogger Mark Rovner just posted about a seminar by Seth Godin earlier this week, which we both attended.  It was devoted to “flipping the funnel,” or getting your supporters to spread the word for you.  Mark has a good summary of the concept in the post I highlight here, and he reminded me of #3 in a conversation we had recently.

I think the concept is a great match for the people in group #3.  Here’s what we’re finding with our Six Degrees person-to-person fundraising efforts: about 5% of folks fall into this category.  They are uber-activists.  Lots of people support you, but only a small portion wants to - AND is really good at - spreading the word and fundraising.  Those folks deserve very special treatment, not just lots of fundraising appeals from you.

Do something special for your uber-activists.  Put uber-activists in the spotlight.  Reward them.  Ask them what you can do to help them. 

In addition to saying this, by the way, I’m going to try to get better at it myself.  Just yesterday, we sent an email to people who created Six Degrees badges and gave them tips and resources for using their badges better.  The result?  Very high open rate and a big spike in donations.  Lesson learned.

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More on tagging

Here’s a great overview of tagging from Beth Kanter, including a screencast.  Beth focuses on how tagging and social bookmarking can be useful techniques for smaller nonprofits to easily share their information resources.

She notes,

The social aspect is a very important benefit. If you are skeptical, think about having 24/7 access to your co-workers, bosses or a subject matter expert’s bookmarks. Wouldn’t that be useful?

 

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Web usability tip: write for the audience

If there is one thing I say all the time, it’s that everything we do as marketers must be about our audience.  This extends to our choice of words.

Blogger Craig LeFebvre just alerted me to Alertbox, and after being generally fascinated by many posts there, I happened upon this post on web usability.  It’s a very, very good reference and worth signing up for.  The post says:

Familiar words spring to mind when users create their search queries. If your writing favors made-up terms over legacy words, users won’t find your site.

For example, a headline like the one that appeared in Variety on black Monday—Wall St. lays an egg —is bad in today’s world because people will be searching for things like “Wall Street” and “stocks.” 

That’s why straightforward names, headers and tagging are so important.  I named this blog nonprofitmarketingblog.com not because it was an exciting name but because it gets people here.

If you’re not up on tagging, which I find quite confusing myself, go here.  They helped me figure it out.

So did Ike of the Red Cross who says:

There are a number of ways you can post your del.icio.us links to your blog, providing an extra value for the sidebar.  But you don’t have to go with every single link you save.  You can use your tags to determine which will be displayed.  For instance, on my personal blog Occam’s RazR there is a list in the sidebar called “del.icio.us coolness”, which is simply the roll of links I think fit the theme of my site.  When I bookmark my links, I just add the tag “occam” if I want it to show in the blog, and my list is configured to filter my links for that keyword.  If you were to add a “Non-profit news headline” list to your page, you could do the same thing.  Tag the clippings with an appropriate category, and let the programming do the work for you.  You could even run several categories at a time, and tag them separately as “Fundraising”, “Scandals”, “Cool Ideas”, or whatever strikes your fancy.

I’m going to try it.

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More great info on nonprofit newsletters

The best thing about having a blog is all the brilliant people who read it.  The newsletter posts on this blog of recent days have generated a stream of really smart emails to both me and guest blogger Carey.  I’ve learned a lot from you, namely:

Ike Pigott, Communications & Gov’t Relations Director of the Southeast Service Area of the American Red Cross writes to point out:

Microsoft has made some severe changes in the Office 2007 package, which means that formatted e-mails like newsletters will be rendered in Microsoft Word instead of Internet Explorer.  This threatens to set back e-mail marketing by several years, as companies and NPOs will have to go back to clunky coding and ditch the pretty HTML layouts—which, by the way, made it far easier to personalize those newsletters as you had suggested in your recent post.

He points us to this, this and this for reference.  Thanks Ike!

Carey writes and says he got lots of visits and emails from you folks since he posted here and adds:

1) The lifetime value of an email address is 3-4 years. Think about it. Did you have the same email today that you did 4 years ago? Probably not.

2) Most people have between 3-4 email addresses. We have a work email. We have a home email. Others have a school email, a subscription email and others.

3) On average we obtain 1 new email address per year. It could be from starting a class, starting a new job, starting a new website or changing email providers.

4) CNN reports that 9 / 10 emails are now spam. So if you are toggling between 3 email accounts and deleting 90% of your email - you, and others, aren’t just inundated with spam we are flat out existed and frustrated by it.

He then advises:

YOU MUST DEVELOP A GAME PLAN STARTING RIGHT NOW ON HOW TO DEAL WITH THE CONFLICT OF DELIVERABLE ISSUES.

1) Follow my lead generation system. If you are not doing an OPT IN list you are going to be in a lot of trouble. I promise you. On the next page after sign up WALK THEM THROUGH how to white list your website. Finally, direct them to a thank you page after the opt in to keep them engaged.

2) YOU MUST start considering how to integrate audio and video into your email campaigns. Mark my words - if you delay too long on developing a well thought out and budgeted game plan your email list will be unresponsive because of the industry change that will be happening soon. Some are converting to video newsletters, or video lead generation sys ems that are small infomercial type news settings.

3) Start to keep an archive of your newsletters. If your viewers are not receiving your email you better give them a place to find your news. Also give them an easy contact box on that page that asks them if they are having problems receiving your newsletter so you can resolve it.

4) Focus on your Evangelical customers. The 20% that bring in 80% of your foundations revenue. These are your family members. These are your mavens. Love them!

5) The more you ask for interactivity on your website or newsletters the more responsive your viewer will be. Become the master of surveys. Engage your viewer or loose them forever.

6) Get everyone in your foundation involved. If you have a message board or a chatroom, dedicate time in there to answer questions or just to say hello. Let them know your position. “Hi this is Carey, the online marketing director, I just wanted to drop in to say hello. Are there any questions I can answer for you today?” They will start to become a novice of your site and start to act as moderators with out even knowing it.

7) Get out of the habit of only sending HTML emails. They are getting harder and harder to make it through the spam filter and there is an annoyance factor going with some who don’t know how to right click and view the image. Refer back to my notes above with exploring with audio and video.

8) You have to start focusing on the educated consumer. Email marketing is becoming very transparent. It is still early in the game. Create shock and surprise in your industry. I have some tricks up my sleeve that I will send you when testing is done.

9) Be bold. Implement my 5 minute rule. Start calling your donor right after they donate. If you could hear how excited they are to hear from us, you would have started yesterday. If you would like the script of the call we make, just email me, I will send it to you.

So there you have it.  Smart people.  If you have something smart to add, please comment or better yet, be a guest star with your own blog entry here.  I am always happy to turn the spotlight on you.

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3 ways to a better newsletter (or none at all)

I get about a dozen nonprofit newsletters a week, either via email or in snail-mail.  Most are so poor they aren’t worth reading, and for that reason, they weren’t worth writing.  There are notable exceptions, thanks to people like Kivi, who is hosting a carnival on the topic this week, but in general,  I feel about newsletters the same way I feel about most mission statements—nonprofits spend a whole lot of time on them, but no one much cares.  Newsletters?  Not so much.  So how do you become the dazzling exception?  Here are three suggestions.

1. Don’t do a newsletter, do something different.

People are inundated with newsletters, just like they are with wristbands and appeals with address labels.  Yawn.  So why not put your time and energy into something more unique and personalized?  Like a phone call from your staff five minutes after someone gives (see yesterday’s post), or journal entries from program beneficiaries? 

2. If you do a newsletter, write to the medium.

If you do a newsletter through the mail, fine, if it follows #3 on this list.  But if you are doing an electronic newsletter, you CANNOT simply take the format you would use in the mail and throw it into an email!  Write to the medium.  Online communications need to be shorter and formatted for the web.  You should not have to download a PDF and turn pages on your computer.  Grab attention with photos, short text, good stories. 

3. Make it about the donors and what they did—or whoever is your target audience.

The newsletter should not be about how great you are, it should make your donor feel important.  It should be about how great your donor (or audience member) is.  And it should do something for that audience - make them feel good about themselves, or, if you’re a membership organization, make their life easier.  Giving out information about your charity is not the same thing as making someone feel good!  I like what CARE does - they always start newsletters with a thank-you, although the last one I got was a little cold—“In fiscal year 2006, our generous and committed donors enabled CARE to reach 55 million people in 66 countries. The following are just a few glimpses of the difference your support has made over the past year.”  “Fiscal year” is not a warm and fuzzy word. 

I’m waiting for someone to make the newsletter so much about the donor that they use technology to insert the name of the donor in the newsletter title.  I’d be blown away with a newsletter called “How Katya has helped CARE,” for example, instead of being part of a good fiscal year.  Even if you don’t go that far, do everything you can to write to the audience and their interests.  That’s the key to a good newsletter, and the key to all marketing, always.  Consumers expect us to talk to them personally, and we have to deliver.

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Guest star blogger Carey Paris on how to double response rates

I was reading an email bulletin from nonprofit marketer Carey Paris saying some changes he’d made to a nonprofit web site increased donations by 62% and doubled the opt-in list.  So I thought I’d invite him to tell us how.  And he said yes.  Lucky for us.  Really lucky - this is a goldmine of good practices.  I especially like the five-minute rule at the end.  Read on!

careycliffhead

It is so important for non profit websites to focus on lead generation. As The Gilbert E-mail Manifesto states, “A website built around an email strategy is more valuable than a website built around itself.” I couldn’t agree more. It is the only true opportunity we have to build a stronger relationship with our viewers.  Here’s what we did for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation:

1) Placed live animation from LiveFaceOnWeb.com on our newsletter sign up page located here:
Click here to view

2) Reduced the number of form fields to sign up for our newsletter to lessen anxiety. Create a mini sales letter for newsletter sign up.

3) Bullet pointed the highlights of our newsletter.

4) After they submitted their information I added audio and text to make sure they checked their spam folder and looked for our confirmation link, and walked them through how to confirm their email. Click here to view

5) My favorite is the page after they click the confirmation page. I continue to build our relationship with them and thank them for signing up. Click here to view

6) To top it off I set up several autoresponders that welcome them to our website and ask them what we can do to help improve their experience on our website.

Our opt in list more than doubled!! Awesome!!

Opt In List Updates

Never forget that “QUALITY” is always better than “QUANTITY” in your list. If you do not have opt in or double opt in implemented, your open rate is suffering, and you could be violating spam laws.

1) I spent the past month mentioning in our newsletter that we were “scrubbing” our newsletter list for new CAN SPAM ACT laws, and asking our members to verify their email address to meet these standards. (What I was really doing was building a double opt in list of our members)

Our open rate increased by over 60%!

Here is a link to see the difference focusing on “QUALITY” rather than “Quantity”:

PROOF: Click here for results

Donation Page

The most important pages to all of us are the pages leading to the actual donation form. Are you taking advantage of these pages? You should! When they click that donate link you have 3 seconds to sell your foundation. What makes you different? Does your donation form cause anxiety? Do you take that final breath of air, that final approach to really reach out? How well do you say “Thank You” after the donation?

1) After a donation is made I recorded our COO giving a personal thank you for their donation.
Click here to view (Video of her speaking is coming up soon)

2) I created a unique value proposition on our website. We are different from other Alzheimer’s websites, but did our viewers know we were different? I created our UVP as: “The Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation Gives More of Your Dollar to Alzheimer’s Research.” and placed it directly above the donate link.
Click here to view

3) Our top awards are located directly next to a visual pie graph that shows the donor where their money is going and to instill confidence that the donation is making a difference.

4) Anyone who donates, randomly, I send them an automatic email that gives them a %50 OFF coupon to several of our affiliate partners. So we have seen some wonderful numbers on the back end from processing the donation and then the follow up affiliate commission sale.

5) There is now an exit traffic pop up on our donation page. If a viewer is on that page and decides to leave they will get a simple pop up that asks them to reconsider leaving with out donating. Some pop up blockers to block this… but it doesn’t bother me, yet. I have seen about 20 extra donations come from this exit pop up. Here is an example. Click this link, after the page loads, close the page and you “should” notice the pop up.
Click here to view

PROOF: Click here for results

Here is our biggest “secret” yet. We implemented a 5 minute rule with our donation department. We call every donor and tell them thank you within 5 minutes or less of their donation. We obtained 3 monthly donations this week alone from just a thank you call. That’s all we say. We didn’t ask for it. We said thank you and told them exactly where their money was going.

Was testing worth our time? You bet.

Above are examples of some of the small changes you might test on your own site. Don’t stop there!

Be Your Mission.

  • Comment: (4)

Your donor wants to feel important

Here’s the most interesting (yet unsurprising) thing about our Six Degrees site:  people love it, and keep coming back to it, to see their own pictures and stories online.  Celebs might be the hook, but the audience’s own role is the sticky part.  People like to feel important.  They want to feel powerful.  They need to know they made a difference.

This is such an important perspective to keep in mind when you’re marketing to your supporters.

Here’s a really good comment to that effect from Tom Ahern in On Philanthropy today:

Donors aren’t ATM machines. I don’t think successful fundraising is about keeping the staff paid and the lights burning. It’s far more about giving your donors a vivid sense that they’re changing the world. It’s about recognizing that people want to feel important—something Carnegie learned from Sigmund Freud and philosopher John Dewey. And one way we feel important is when we feel we’ve made a difference, by making a gift to a terrific organization. I think fundraising’s real job is to give donors a powerful sense of accomplishment.

Yes, yes, yes.

 

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Hands up if you’re thinking of a new logo

  • Wed, February 07 2007
  • Filed under: Branding

A lot of energy goes into “rebranding” efforts, and not all that energy is going into the right place.  Before you “rebrand,” make sure you have identified the right problem to solve, and if rebranding is the solution to that problem, then do true “rebranding,” rather than simply changing your look with a new logo, organization name or website.  If you have an aging or dwindling donor base, problems articulating your unique value proposition or lackluster campaign results, you need more than cosmetics to change those facts.  As they say where I grew up, you can put lipstick on a pig, but that’s not going to make you want to kiss it.

As my branding friends say,

Most people see communications as the sun and branding as an outlying planet, but branding should be the center of the marketing solar system.  Your brand is about how you stand out, build relationships, win loyalty and inspire action.

That stand-out part has to be about more than color schemes.  Your organization’s whole programmatic approach - not just marketing - should reflect what your audience wants, what you’re good at, and what you do better than anyone else.  That’s what makes your nonprofit strong - and your brand a standout.

PS if you are redoing your logo - which is something you should only do if it’s in conflict with the essence of your brand, as far as I’m concerned—don’t choose clasped hands.  It’s been done already!

handscollage

 

  • Comment: (1)
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