All fundraisers know that prospective donors respond differently to
each type of ask depending on the delivery vehicle, whether it is
email, direct mail, or phone banking. To be crudely general, fundraisers use direct mail and phone banking for older populations, email for everyone, and Facebook for the “kids.”
Most organizations try a little of each solicitation delivery vehicle
(based on the demographics of their supporters) and then place most of
their chips behind the tool that showed the best performance.
Sounds easy, right?
First the bad news, YES, picking the best mechanism for the delivery
of your fundraising message from a group is easy but not all that
affective.
What’s the good news? If you do not limit yourself to a single
solicitation delivery mechanism for each donor, you can increase your
annual donations per individual by 700%… Did you read that number right?
I put it in the headline so you wouldn’t miss it. By applying multiple
touch methods to a donor you can multiply their value by seven.
PROOF:
One of our large political organization clients has quantitative analysis built into their DNA. During the 2010 political campaign season, they ran a huge verity of fundraising experiments and implemented A/B tests at every opportunity.
One of our large political organization clients has quantitative analysis built into their DNA. During the 2010 political campaign season, they ran a huge verity of fundraising experiments and implemented A/B tests at every opportunity.
What they found is that if they take a past donor and hit them with a
well-written direct mail campaign, they could increase the annual value
of that donor by 2X. Note that the average donor’s age for this
organization is in the mid 60s range.
If they take that same donor and hit them with a combined direct mail
and telemarketing campaign, they could bring the yield up to 7X on
average.
Wow, I bet that if you try this and don’t even execute all that well,
you’ve got a chance at doubling the yield on your past donors.
There you go. You now have the secret sauce to hit your 2011 budget
and build your rock star reputation among your board members.
DISCLAIMER:I am counting on your already having an excellent story or message for your supporters.
By Erik Nilsson, President & Founder
No comments:
Post a Comment