What to do with Digital

10 Sep What to do with Digital

10 September 2024

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

Last week, I reported on a webinar I attended from NextAfter, a digital marketing firm that actively conducts market research related to online giving and generosity. The post ran long, and I let it go without really exploring what you could do with the information. You can read the full post here.

To recap:

• Members of the “Silent” and “Boomer” generations still represent nearly 70% of all donors and giving and they give through the mail. Both groups are influenced by digital media, but both are more likely to be motivated to give from direct mail. (Many Boomers are comfortable giving both online and using checks.) In this sense, thinking “digital first” doesn’t make as much sense as thinking “digital also.”
• By comparison, “GenX,” “Millennials,” and “GenZ” generations almost never write checks, and they don’t give much using the mail. Their bills are paid online and their giving is conducted online. Many (most?) Millennials do not have checkbooks. Overall, giving through the mail is still much more prevalent than giving online, but it’s easy to see from the trend lines that they will be equal soon and online giving will surpass mail in the near future.
• The webinar included a bar chart that showed online giving growing much faster than “offline” giving for 30 organizations that had adopted a “digital first” strategy. If we focus specifically on marketing (solicitation), it’s not completely surprising that organizations that focus marketing efforts on digital first see significant online results. But in my opinion, it does not necessarily follow that direct mail marketing is less effective.
• One advantage that digital marketing has is the speed at which one is able to adaptively manage content. Because you can know the results from an A/B test within several days, and because you can reasonably send email information monthly, you are able to very quickly adjust the content, frequency, and degree of personalization to meet people at the other end where they are – wherever they are.
• My data, which is admittedly getting older every year, supports two basic ideas. The first is that multi-channel marketing is superior to single-channel. This idea was generally supported in the webinar. The second is that people who give in response to direct mail tend to renew more readily in response to direct mail, while people who give in response to email solicitation tend to renew more readily in response to email. And people whose first gift is at an event tend to need another event before giving again.

So, now what? You’ve got people banging the digital marketing drum in one ear and people talking about how direct mail solicitation is dead in the other – even though the data in your own CRM suggests otherwise.

Here are my thoughts:

1. Use digital marketing to support paper communications and mailed information. The webinar detailed an experiment where Facebook ads were used to draw attention to a mailed appeal. The multi-channel approach clearly made a difference there. But expand that thought to include Facebook and Instagram posts, email newsletters, web-site pop-up ads, and paper newsletters. If they are all coordinated in terms of messaging – if they all support the appeal campaign – you will see an uptick in response rates and funds raised.
2. Send the first renewal notice in your renewal solicitation sequence using email. But don’t wait too long. You’ll get what you’re going to get within several days. So, follow up the email with a mailed letter within a week. Make sure you include a QR code directing those interested to your landing page.
3. Avoid confusing online line giving with online solicitation. Millennials and GenZ might not have checkbooks and might prefer to give online, but they might still need a letter to stimulate their giving.
4. As you gradually get more and more traction from those who want to give online, it will be increasingly important to have multiple landing pages instead of creating a single landing page that tries to cover every possibility. For example, one landing page might be specific to your Fall appeal letters. Another might be specific to your giving circle renewals. The landing pages would be accessed by QR codes or hotlinks. This work can and should begin soon.
5. So much of what we decide to do every year is based on what feels right and/or what we did last year. But do we really know? Are we basing our decisions on real data? I have been impressed with the frequency and design of NextAfter’s testing. It’s worth looking at and staying on top of their research. I will keep looking at it as well, and periodically reporting on what I learn.
6. Don’t get fooled into thinking that 50% retention is good. 50% is the national average for all nonprofits. Many nonprofits have gone completely paperless and are getting 20-35% retention, so 50% would look good to them. Meanwhile 70-75% should be the standard. If you aren’t getting more than 70% retention, maybe it’s time to rethink your renewal strategy.

So how will YOU use all this information?

Cheers, and Have a great week!

-da

PS: Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

Photo by Nick the Photographer courtesy of Pixaby.