Wordle will tell me how many consecutive days I’ve played, my streak.  Same for Peloton and the activity app on my watch and phone.  Streaks, we love to maintain em’.  It becomes a goal unto itself.

And if that goal is tied to an Identity – as runner or biker or puzzle person – then the goal is more internal, the streak reminder serving only to reinforce it.

Maintaining the streak provides a sense of accomplishment but also goal alignment with a part of who I am.  That’s powerful stuff.

Research from Silverman and Barasch in the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) shows the breakdown of people doing a task (e.g. puzzle or language learning app) the 4th time based on whether their streak was maintained or interrupted on prior attempts.

It further breaks down whether the person attributed the broken streak to themselves or to something beyond their control.

In other experiment versions they explicitly messaged about the streak or didn’t.  The message caused more people to maintain the streak if their streak was intact.  It greatly decreased the chance the person would participate the next time if the streak was broken.

How many charities remind people they missed a sustainer payment or send a “you haven’t given this year” message at end of year (streak broken)?

On the flip side, how many showcase ‘years of being a donor’ (streak maintained)?

Here are a few considerations to test when messaging on streaks or lack thereof,

• Your donors who are personally connected to the mission won’t be phased in either direction with streak messaging.  You either know of their personal connection because you’ve collected Identity data (e.g. cancer survivor, activist, dog lover, parent) or indirectly with 3rd party data or you infer it via a pattern of “good” donor behavior.  Leave these people alone, no need to add streak incentive.
• Don’t message sustainers who missed a payment and suggest or imply it was their choice.  You’ll likely decrease the chance they re-up.  Instead, use humor and maybe something on brand to suggest something other than them is to blame – e.g. WWF suggesting an ant eater or panda bear must have hoovered up their missing payment.
• Do message new sustainers who are at-risk of quitting (not all) at Month 3 (we have a model we use, you may have some proxy for it) that they’ve maintained their commitment to help Cause X with two consecutive payments and joined others in this committed club and that their Impact Streak continues.
• Don’t do end of year messaging to donors who haven’t given yet and frame as a negative (e.g. haven’t given yet, missing your annual donation) nor make it worse by inferring it was their choice.  Use positive messaging about their streak being intact – e.g. been a donor last two years and look forward to you choosing to maintain that streak of positive impact on Cause X.

Kevin