digital 201: online acquisition

Nonprofit Digital Day

Online Acquisition: Strategies to Acquire and Upgrade Donors & Supporters


Before we start, tell me why you’re

here…


Today, we’ll talk about…

Acquiring new donors, emails, advocates, others Upgrading donors, emails, advocates, others Retaining donors, emails, advocates, other

And the strategies that will help you make it happen.


Knock, Knock, Who’s There?

Imagine if new donors were actively knocking on your door to give!


The Reality


Acquisition Goals

New donors to file (sustainers or 1x or both?) New buyers or members New advocates New email addresses New mobile #s New social followers Others?


Upgrade Goals

Advocate, email sub, social follower >> donor 1x to sustainer Increased gift frequency Action frequency Increased average gift (giving tiers) LTV Others?


Your Value Proposition

What are your engagement triggers?

Mine your analytics and other channels• Top issues/topics• Content path to

donation• What’s working in

social, direct mail, telemarketing, TV?

• Donor research


4-Second Rule

Is it compelling visually?

Simple to understand and do?


4-Second Rule

**Will the completed action make “ME the donor” feel good? The headline should communicate the value proposition for the

donor• Do not talk about what your organization does! • They’ll share more if you make them feel good about their

action

Litmus Test: How often do you use your org name as a noun compared to the word “you” in copy?


Goodwill.org


www.humanesociety.org

TIP: Rewrite your headlines with a benefit to the donor!


4-Second Rule

Do you offer tangible results of their gift/action? $49 will send three girls to school for one year

Can they trust you?

Remove any obstacles to not trusting Add “Learn More” links, FAQs, trust symbols, mission info,

testimonials, reviews, ratings

Why you and not your competitor? What is unique about your org, approach or solution?


A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words


Is Your Offer Appropriate?

Think Context: New visitor vs. not

Big brand vs. not

Big $ ask vs. small $ ask vs. engagement ask

Relevance and timeliness

Easy Ask

Bigger Ask

Biggest Ask


Don’t Forget to Test and Segment

Images, content, call to action Segmented messaging if you have multiple

audiences • Issue-based• Age or gender-based • Proprietary info (pet type, disease, other)• Geography

Check out whichtestwon.com and marketingsherpa.com


Nature.org


Your Acquisition Model

Does your acquisition model look like this?


Your Acquisition Model

Or this?


Use the Full Arsenal of Media Tactics


Acquisition Model #1

Capture + Cultivate + Convert • Use Advocacy, Issue-based campaigns, Evergreen themes as

the carrot • Use Web optimization, SEO, SEM, Advertising, Social and Email

to drive traffic to optimized pages for capture• Create personalized communications stream – email, phone,

DM -- for categories/sources/groups of prospectsCultivate and Convert


STRONG Email Value Proposition


Lots of Ways to Cultivate An Email


Taking the Wonk Out of Advocacy

This quiz connects the dots (educates and moves them to action)

Great way to make a complex issue seem simple


Capture Your Most Qualified Audience

Your own visitors!

Use lightboxes on select pages (can be customized per page category)

“Evergreen” pledges of support or campaign specific asks


Why Not?

Do you have a new report, project you are working on? Even a new website design – ask if they want to be part of a beta group.


Advocacy Petitions On and Off Your Site

Use petitions to get them onto your mailing list, etc.—into “top of funnel

Use visuals and videos

Sign PetitionReceive Series of Emails

Telemarketing Call Direct Mail


Mission-Driven Engagement Campaigns

Org-Created Campaigns Tied to Mission• Contests, Sweeps,

Quizzes • Use existing content

on your site and repurpose

• Leverage Celebrities and Corporate Partners to Increase media coverage and reach


Use Your Assets!

Use SEM and Grants to get in front of people who might not otherwise see your content (already existing)

Retarget visitors after they leave your site


Acquisition Model #2

1-step from prospect to donor

Use lightboxes, email, SEM, SEO, targeted advertising and DM to acquire

Typically requires strong brand recognition Bolstered by DRTV, media coverage, celebrity

endorsements

Cultivate and Convert


Use PPC/SEM Advertising to Acquire

Use paid and Google Grants advertising to get visibility on a mission topic and drive qualified new prospects down the conversion funnel


SEO Optimization Drives Them Home

Use SEO to optimize specific pages and forms to attract qualified prospects.

For email acquisition, optimize topic-centered pages with an embedded email signup or contextual donation ask


Site Optimization: Incentives and Urgency

Tangible Goal, Push Date + Premium

Brought in 42% of EOY donations

Lifted avg gift by 50% for ALL donors


Personalize, Talk to ME, not everyone!


Provide Tangible Ways Your $ Will Help


KISS (Keep It Simple and Strong)

Charity Water: Donation form teaser is the key feature on their donate landing page above other ways to give


Use Events Even If You Don’t Have Any

Org-created “events” or leverage another planned or unplanned event not your own

• Special Giving Occasions – Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, Super Bowl, International Women’s Day

• Emergencies, Reports• Legislative events/crises• Branded org sports or other events (Anniversaries,

Auctions, etc.)

• BONUS – Celebrities or Partners, always!


Be Opportunistic

Malala shooting


Stories and Examples Make It Real


Welcome/Conversion Series

Sooner is better. 30-90 days is your window Triggered email series w/ content customization

by source, issue they came in on mentioned in first email.

Some elements to include:• If they came in on an action, send them another• Surveys are good introducers. You get great info on prospects

and people want to be asked their opinions!• Video about your work with free app or social invitation• Quizzes, voting contests, Petitions • Monthly ask • Include a fallback 1x ask


Upgrade Strategies

Converting a 1x client to a monthly client Increasing number of gifts/year or average gift

Triggered emails once you meet certain criteria (e.g., give up to 3 gifts per year of $00 or less)

Targeted display ads based on email address or name and address integrated with phone and mail


Optimize Your Donation Forms

Test a Monthly Upsell Target Window at Point of Giving Asking for a Monthly Gift Instead


Catch Them at the Perfect Time!

Upgrade those EOY donors!

Email, Retargeting advertising, dynamic form levels


Make it easy for a donor to give monthly Don’t leave it to a default checkbox


Create & test a partial donation box in sidebar

Incorporate Giving on Every Page


Remove Obstacles to Giving with FAQs


Test Monthly Push Select Times A Year

Homepage, Ways to Give page, other site pages

Social media integration (posts)

Experiment with “00 cents a day” and “Only $0.00 a month”


Add a monthly offer to your SEM Adwords sitelinks

Test SEM ad copy and landing pages with monthly offers

Carve out part of your monthly media budget for monthly

Persistent and Prominent


Retargeting Ads Based on Website Behavior

Display web ads to those who landed on your monthly form or pages but didn’t complete a gift

Are there other good prospects?


CRM Advertising to Reach Specific Folks

Web and Social CRM - Integrated Email, DM & Digital Ads

Household Targeted Online Display Advertising to known prospects (Warm monthly donors, lapsed donors, warm prospects, etc.)


Facebook CRM Offerings

Custom Audiences

• Audiences can be defined by either user email address, Facebook UIDs, user phone numbers, app user IDs, or Apple's IDFA

• Use Partnerships to leverage 3rd party cookie data

Lookalike

• Using Custom Audiences, you can create an audience that targets people who are similar to your custom audience list.

• Lookalike audiences help you reach people who are similar to your current supporters


Facebook Retargeting: Segmentation

Segmentation & Bidding Strategy

• Determine your audience pools based upon the following factors• Top visited

pages• # of pageviews• e-commerce

Landing pages• Identify your

conversion funnel

Homepage

Pledges and Email Sign ups

Donation Forms


Campaign Examples

Fundraising

Redengine’s paid Facebook campaign

for Matching Gift with CARE resulted in:

Decreased CPA by 100% from beginning of campaign to end

While maintaining an ROA over 300%




• Only visited homepage

• Bid less: $0.69-$0.75

Bob

• Signs a pledge

• Bid more: $0.75-$1.00

Sally

• Visits a donation form

• Bid more aggressively: $1.00-$1.50

Debbie


Prospective Advertising for New Donors

Online Prospective Advertising (Look-Alike Modeling and Targeting) and Retargeting• Display, video, mobile, social advertising• Creates a model based on your current donors. • Provides demographic, geographic and lifestyle insights on

those engaging with you. • Leverages real time buying to get you the impressions • Excludes current donors

Rocketfuel, Quantcast, Amazon


Retention: The Most Important Part

How do we fight 30-40% renewal rates?

Communicate and engage!

Create opportunities for them


Segment and Test Based on Behavior

Non-donor action takers vs. major donor


Thanks and Join Us Goes A Long Way


Educate with Videos

Show AND tell always better

Educate donors about your work and the problems you are solving


Don’t Forget to Keep Asking


Be Personal and Continue the Love


Engage in All Channels


How Will You Measure Success?

Set up your tracking and metrics before you start• How will you measure success? • What tools and tracking strategies

will you use to track and measure? • Donation ID capture• Database matchback? • Google Analytics?• CRM?• Combo and manual matchback?

TIP: Always use at least 2 sources for tracking


It Takes A Village…

Digital as an acquisition channel depends on the support of other departments:• Communications to generate news (and traffic to your site) and

engage and motivate social followers • Advocacy to create online action opportunities for prospects to

quickly engage with your cause• Development to integrate your acquisition with the efforts of

direct mail, DRTV, and other offline efforts• IT/Database management to capture and “tag” new

leads/donors by origin source to lead them thru the appropriate conversion funnel and to calculate long-term value (LTV) over time


Questions?

Liz Murphy, [email protected], 703-556-6951,

@lizred, @redengine

mailto:[email protected]

digital 201: online acquisition

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nonprofit digital day

nonprofit digital day

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new buyers

new visitor

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