Tighten Your Web
My suspicion is that many new, prospective donors are knocking at the door of your nonprofit website, but ‘escaping’ because your ‘web’ isn’t sticky enough to catch them.
Perhaps they were driven there by some communication from you, or by some event that brought your ‘category’ or maybe even your specific organization to their attention. Or maybe you got really lucky when they searched. [For this discussion, let’s set aside the existing donors responding to your house email appeals.]
But however it happened, they were qualified leads … certainly more qualified than those people who happened to be on that mail list you just rented. You’d probably be thrilled to get a 1% response from those cold prospects.
Shouldn’t you expect to do better with those folks who came knocking expectantly at your front door? How many knock and leave disappointed?
So how much attention are you paying to your website’s welcoming experience and conversion rate? And what are you doing to improve it?
Here, from an outfit called aFFiLoRaMa (it must make them happy!), are some good suggestions from the commercial marketing space — 7 FREE Ways to Increase Conversion Rates on Your Site.
1. Get Emotional (or why bother?)
2. Use Videos (right on!)
3. Send Follow-Up Emails (of course, this assumes you’ve got a nibble)
4. Leverage Social Proof (at last, something to do with those Friend messages and Tweets)
5. Simplify the Choices (just like a good direct mail order card)
6. Experiment With Colors (yes, like just about every choice you make about your online presence, it is worth testing — see below)
7. Write Great Copy (easier said than done, especially for the untrained)
Each suggestion is amplified a bit and illustrated with an example. Worth a gander.
Tom
P.S. And speaking of very relevant testing, take a look at 7 Dead-Simple A/B Tests You Should Run on Your Homepage, from Hubspot.
One response to “Tighten Your Web”
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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Another article discussing commercial space tactics from Digital Marketer, “43 Split Tests That (Almost) Always Boost Conversions”: http://www.digitalmarketer.com/split-tests-that-boost-conversions/
Not all of them will be directly applicable to your nonprofit website, but they will very likely generate ideas for A/B tests!