Twas the night before direct marketing Christmas
What’s the fun of a normal “best of” blog post?
Twas the night before Christmas and all through HQ
Only one direct marketer made her review
Of whether her plan had enough donor cares
To get gifts from poor up to the millionaires.
Her ED was nestled all snug in her bed
While visions of goal hitting danced in her head
The direct marketer combed her database app
With her brain all a flutter and no chance of a nap.
(Good so far? More’s the pity, this part of the verse
Starts off OK or so, but it gets a lot worse.)
As day eased into night and fog gave way to flurries
The marketer listed and pondered her worries.
What of online? Would her tests give her forms a lift
Above completion benchmarks and their norms for gift?
She had rounded the ask amounts for ammunition
To increase donor’s fluency of their cognition.
And she’d set up opt-ins with behavioral science
With a goal of decreasing that darned noncompliance.
Asks for feedback were set by her touchpoints with care.
In hope that constituents would soon be there.
Her team would make sure no comment went uncollected.
She knew from the for-profit world: people expect it.
And would the donors who came to her events
Become loyal to her org and give them some presents?
Or did they want to sip Corbel on the veranda
And hope to catch sight of that Lin-Manuel Miranda?
Not to throw away shots, she had donor resilience
By focusing on her peer-to-peer experience.
And she would get her long-sought promotion
With her comms that were set up to evoke emotion.
She knew that end of year helps create urgency,
But also a failure would not be an emergency.
She was able to bank end of year support early
By creating a program to get debits quarterly .
And when she needed a communication to put a story in
She wasn’t bound to the calendar Gregorian.
All the tips and the tactics didn’t guarantee victory,
But the odds favor an address valedictory.
So as we bid farewell to twenty-sixteen,
Perhaps it is time to break our old routine.
For year end, let’s do things that will get us applause
And this year, we can be our own Santa Claus.
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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