Donor transactional data tells you zero about “Why” something happened.  Maybe the sector doesn’t care…

All the quantitative data from your website, email marketing tools, direct mail response data….opens, clicks, visits, time on site, response rate, conversion rate, social media shares and on and on and on.

Al those reports slicing and dicing and creating metrics because it if it is easy to count it must be good….All critical data to get more efficient at analyzing the world we elected to “cook up and serve”, which likely has very little resemblance to the “meal” and diet the donors want.

All critical data to watch and observe our supporters and then guess at root cause.

However, all this transactional data cannot, no matter how much you torture it, tell you Why something happened.  Nor can it listen to your supporters and answer questions like this.

• Why do people click on one thing and not another, is it location, lack of interest, lack of understanding?
• Why do those who don’t click on anything behave that way?  Did they still get value from it?
• Why do visitors spend x amount of time on our site? Are they really engaged or does our navigation suck?
• Why is it that we only have one percent conversion rate?
• Why did 99% of people take no action?

So how do these seemingly critical questions get answered now?

Typically the response is: “I think this is happening…” or “The last client we worked on did it this way” or “The red button got a .02% better click through rate so it is the best choice …” or “When I was the ruler of the world this is why people did this. . . . (that’s the Highest Paid Person’s opinion, HiPPO speaking…)”.

We overlay our own opinions and experiences and preferences.

Unfortunately we are not our supporters.

In fact being as close to our organization and our marketing activity as we are, it is quite likely that we are the worst possible people to understand our supporters.

So why not ask them? You know, the donors.   Yes, a survey.  One that is short, purposeful and tied to a specific interaction or experience and served up at the point and time of that interaction (e.g. exiting your website, having a donor service interaction, reading a content page on your website).

This kind of listening is continuous, not discreet.  It is also ubiquitous in the commercial sector. Think about the last time you bought something, had a meal, traveled or shopped online… anywhere.  Chances are the company was asking you for feedback about that experience.  Heck, lots of them even provide incentives for that feedback.

They measure and managed and spend against what they assign value too.   So does the non-profit sector…

Getting into the listening and acting is simple, low cost and scalable.   You can find out more about how here and here.

Even if weren’t low cost and simple (it is), how do we continue to ignore the “must-know-but-rarely-do-we-with-the-way-we-currently-operate” answer to the Why question?