Know Thy Customer (Donor, Member, Activist)
If there's any principle more fundamental to marketing success, The Agitator sure can't think of it. Suggestions welcome!
Knowing your customer means more than operating on gut instinct, wishful thinking or the perhaps dated presumptions of your nonprofit's founding fathers and mothers. It means …
- First, collecting pertinent data on individual customer characteristics and behavior, as well as research data on attitudes and perceptions.
- Second, aggregating all the relevant customer data in one unified database. [Not simple, as blogger & nonprofit marketer Katya Andresen is pointing out here in a useful series of posts on the thankless task!]
- Third, acting on the customer knowledge you develop.
We believe in research. But too many nonprofits sit on piles of data and “insight” they never act upon.
Confess … how many times has your nonprofit gone out and “re-discovered” that you direct mail donors are old, your online donors are young, nobody reads the newsletter, hardly anyone giving you less than a thousand bucks a year can articulate a “brand attribute” of your organization. You probably do this as frequently as you change membership directors, executive directors, and/or direct mail agencies!
And then what?!
One of our favorite direct marketers, Denny Hatch, offers some great advice on figuring out who your customers are, and then acting on that information. Denny believes that catalog marketers are the best in the biz at knowing their customers and optimizing their value … and shows us why. We think he's right.
Roger & Tom
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
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I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
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Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
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Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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