2016 End-of-Year Fundraising Playbook

Transcription

1 2016 End-of-Year Fundraising Playbook

2 2016 End-Of-Year Fundraising Playbook For most nonprofits, the end-of-year campaign, which encompasses Giving Tuesday to Dec. 31, is the Super Bowl of fundraising. You need to bring your A game to win the day with new recruits and high response. To help you reach your goal line before the clock runs out on Dec. 31., we ve created this Playbook of digital fundraising tips that you can use to guide your kick off and end zone reaching plays for the last quarter s game. Follow this game plan on the following pages and you ll come out on top with the big win on game day! 2

3 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 1 Start with an Informed End-of-Year Strategy

4 Don t write a brand new playbook at end-of-year. Kick off your strategy with a review of what worked last year at this time. Resist starting the discussion with tactics, including shiny, new things. Review costs, tactics and results from the prior year. Then look at what you ve been doing Jan to date that worked well. Do your donors respond best to personal stories? Matches? Impact statements? Are you seeing great results with new tactics such as retargeting? This is your foundation to build on. While it can be beneficial to do some testing and try a new tactic or two, don t go wild. You won t be able to compare results year-to-year and if you invest in an all-new untested plan that doesn t perform, you ll have a lot of explaining to do to your boss. Remember, your end goal is to maximize fundraising revenue. 4

5 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 2 Use the Power of the Tax-Deductible, Dec. 31 Deadline

6 Most deadlines used by organizations throughout the year are arbitrary, used to create a sense of urgency. But EOY is the real deal. This is your last chance to get your projects funded for next year - your donors last chance to help those in need and get a tax-deductible donation. Don t forget to liberally use the mention of tax-deductible donation in your ads, s, forms and landing pages. And use countdown language and imagery for urgency ( only 1 day until, only hours until ) in s, landing pages, forms, and ads. And test using dynamic countdown timers or clocks on lightboxes, on donation forms, in ads. 6

7 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 3 Blitz All Your Channels

8 When you re tuning in to your favorite team, whether it be on TV, radio, computer, tablet or phone, you expect to see and hear the same game. Same with end-of-year and your channels. Your constituents expect to see consistent and similar messaging across your s, website, ads, telemarketing and mail. This is the one time of year channel staff must work together to present a cohesive, focused call to action. Plan ahead and create a steering committee with your channel partners to plan integrated, user-centric campaigns. One effective, integrated tactic is to target ads to the people on your list. We ve found that when people are seeing retargeting advertisements that refer to s that have hit a user s inbox, revenue increases. See more on retargeting in tip #7. If you already have a telemarketing program, another effective way to drive up revenue is to phone your best or select donors at end-of-year. One large, animal welfare organization phones those prospects who abandon the donation form without giving and sees great results. Of course, you would need to have phone information for your donors in your database. If you aren t currently collecting phone information, you may want to begin making this optional so you can be in a position to include this tactic in the future. 8

9 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 4 Remove All Obstacles to a Donation Touchdown

10 The time for optimizing your online donation process is Jan-Oct. Then, you are primed and ready for that conversion rate to hit the ceiling. If you missed the boat on this, pick one test that you think could have the biggest impact on conversion rate and revenue for end-of-year and get it up and running in Oct-Nov. Even a simple gift ask string test can make a huge difference. Beaconfire RED tested a new gift string on the American Diabetes Association s donation form prior to end-of-year. The control gift string was $50, $75, $100, $200, $250. We removed the $75 and added $125 for a test gift string of $50, $100, $125, $200, $250. We found the increase in gift amount didn t hurt the conversion rate at all, but yielded a 55% higher average gift and 13% more revenue. This set us up for a winning year-end season! Here are other tips to make it easy for your donors and prospects to get across the donation line: 10

11 Don t make potential donors search your site to donate. Have an EOY donation ask front and center on the homepage (on a lightbox AND on the homepage for an all-out blitz) and a DONATE button on your global navigation is fundamental to victory. You want the donate button to be a esthetically pleasing, but also to stand out enough that a potential donor will easily notice it. (How? Use a high-contrast color for the donation button). Make it easy to donate anywhere on your site The homepage isn t your website s only entry point. Look at your top-trafficked content pages and entry pages in your web analytics and ensure that you have a donation ask on all of them, whether it s a donation bar at the top and bottom of the page or a lightbox. You can contextualize your donation ask based upon the content of the page or website sections. Human Rights Watch redesigned their website and saw a decrease in traffic to donation pages. Beaconfire RED created these new fundraising headers, with imagery at top and a call to give to drive more visitors to the donation pages. In a test, this treatment beat the control by 13%. Human Rights Watch Website Header Human Rights Watch Website Footer 11

12 Use a branded donation page Your donation page should have the same look and feel as the rest of your website regardless of whether the donation form is hosted by your organization. Branding your donation page builds trust and confidence with the donor and increases the chances of a completed donation. The donation page should also be consistent with any campaigns ( , ads) that are running, with the same imagery and donation asks. Limit the donation form to only the fields you need People don t like to give away too much personal information or spend a lot of time filling out a form. If you are able to pre-populate any information on your form using your ecrm data, that makes it easier for a prospect to focus only on selecting an amount and completing their payment information. Also, only ask for information that is absolutely necessary. 12

13 Inspire Trust Give your donors the confidence that their donation is not going to go to waste. Show your ratings from any charity rating orgs to prove that you are responsible and trustworthy (especially important for new donors) on your donation pages and forms. Also be sure to include a line that mentions you are a nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization to allay any concerns of potential new donors. In December, you ll see a lot of media coverage about giving to fraudulent nonprofits, so prospects are on the lookout to make sure you are a legit, tax-deductible nonprofit. Even though you are, show them quickly and easily that you are on the donation form. Pre-select a donation amount Offering giving levels or pre-selecting the amount you would like most donors to choose can increase average gift and is one less click or decision the donor has to make. The goal is to suggest a larger amount than the donor would typically give. Analyze your ecrm transaction reports to look at the distribution and volume of gift amounts on your donation forms to confirm you re not asking too little or too much. This is a good exercise to do annually. You also then have the data you need to create a hypothesis for a gift ask string test. 13

14 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 5 Creative Testing: Bring Your Strongest Game!

15 You want to make sure you are promoting your strongest offer at the end of the year and the only way to do that is to test. Create tests during the rest of the year and continue to optimize until your year-end campaigns go live. Before testing, take a look at your past campaigns to determine which creative assets were the most successful and try to figure out why. Typically, a successful ad has a strong and clear call to action, an image that evokes emotion and minimal but attention grabbing ad copy. What are the similarities and differences between the creatives that drove the most donation and the creatives that drove the least donations? When testing creatives, there are many different aspects of the ad you can test. You can test: Ad image Background color Call to action text in headline and on button Size of call to action button and color Ad copy Ad type (static vs. animated, FB carousel vs. FB ad) 15

16 Testing by channel is also important as your Facebook audience might react differently than your search audience towards an ad. We recommend only testing one ad feature at a time in order to be able to determine a clear winner. Start by creating 3-4 similar ads and evenly rotate them to begin collecting data. After you have collected enough data and start to get significant results, start to optimize each creative that is performing well and keep testing small changes against each other. For example, working with CARE, Beaconfire RED was able to test creative across search and display. The girl holding the cup was the clear winner for both channels. The girl with the cup generated 74% more revenue. 16

17 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 6 Run Your Strongest Matchup Offers

18 People are always looking to get more for their money and donors are no exception. Offering donors and prospective donors the ability to double their impact, by offering a matching gift, is a great step to maximize contributions Matching gifts typically generate a higher response rate than other fundraising campaigns and result in donors increasing their donations and donation amounts. It s powerful to offer the same matching gift across all your channels digital, mail and telemarketing, so think ahead and secure a large enough match for all. Donors will be confused and turned off when they are offered a match in the mail, but it s not offered on your website. Using fuel from the tensions in the 2016 political race, Beaconfire RED created an campaign and homepage lightbox speaking to the bigotry and racism that has entered the political process. Taking advantage of current events and a $10K match, HRW was quickly able to raise $25,

19 Another trick is to double and triple your matching gift for a day (such as Giving Tuesday) or limited time to sweeten the offer (promote via , search, social and website). Working with the American Diabetes Association, Beaconfire RED launched a one-day triple match campaign that generated 16 times more revenue for Giving Tuesday than the previous year. You can also divide the match up into different campaigns and run multiple matching gift offers throughout the holiday season. Just make sure to set a deadline for each matching gift campaign to give your donors and potential donors a sense of urgency. Use dynamic or static match goal graphics to track your campaign goals in your creative, along with an end date. You can also create challenge campaigns with specific numbers ( We only need 46 more gifts to meet our goal ) to increase urgency and persuasiveness. This can be especially successful with your most engaged donors. Matching gift offers should be promoted: On donation forms On lightboxes Social Media paid and organic posts In In paid Search 19

20 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 7 Recruit Your Best Players Off the Field

21 We would like to think that everyone that visits a website, and especially the donation page, will actually donate, but sadly, that is not the case. According to AdRoll, only 2% of shoppers convert on their first visit, but retargeting those shoppers on other websites and social platforms with ads allows us to reach and persuade the 98% that didn t convert. If your organization is not currently running retargeting ads, start immediately! It takes at least 30 days to build an audience (also called a cookie pool) that can be retargeted with ads. You will want to start early to get prospects and donors to come back to your site month after month for different offers and information leading up to end-of-year. Retargeting is a great way to keep your organization top of mind, especially during year-end when you are competing with other organizations for your donor s money. There are a few different ways to retarget your various audiences with ads: Page retargeting: Place a retargeting pixel on key web pages to retarget users that you want to complete a desired action. If a user lands on the donation page, but leaves the site without donating, you can retarget them with a donation ask ad. CRM retargeting: Upload your CRM list (donors, lapsed donors or non-donors) and target the list online with display and mobile ads. Those with an address are matched at a much higher rate, as you would expect. Typically, 40-60% of names are matched for retargeting, depending on which retargeting platform you use. Facebook / Twitter retargeting: Place a Facebook and/or Twitter retargeting pixel on your website to retarget users on the social platform with a social ad. 21

22 You want to make sure to be very strategic in whom you retarget. Don t retarget everyone that visits your site. Instead, group people into segments and retarget them based on specific pages they visit or specific offers they may be interested in. For example, if a user reaches a page about local events you may want to start by retargeting them with an ad about the next upcoming, local event. And if a visitor donates a one-time gift, you may want to retarget them with a monthly donation ask after a certain time period For Q4 2015, Special Olympics targeted their direct mail file to drive monthly and one-time donations and achieved a 3:1 return on ad spend (ROAS). We helped the Human Rights Watch achieve a 7:1 return on ad spend (ROAS) using retargeting advertising. We retargeted those who visited the donation form but did not give with ads that gently reminded these people that HRW needed their donation to help refugees in crisis. 22

23 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 8 Draft New Donors

24 End-of-year is a great time to acquire new donors. If you have a well-segmented and active list, this tip is for you. Beaconfire RED has found strong value in using the lookalike functions of ad networks like Facebook to target new audiences for lead generation and donations. If you have a large, up-to-date list of active donors, try building a lookalike audience to target in Facebook and/or Google to target with an EOY donation ask. Your match rate (the people each platform is able to to match to your data and target) will be much higher with an address. Here s how to do it: In Facebook Business Manager or Ads Account: Create a Custom Donors Audience 1. Go to your Audiences (via top-left dropdown menu) 2. Click Create Audience > Custom Audience > Customer List. 3. Choose to create your Custom Audience from a customer list 4. Upload your donor list (direct mail, list, other). Must be a.csv Excel file with a single column of data (e.g. s or phone numbers). 24

25 Create Lookalike Audience 1. Go to your Audiences (via top-left dropdown menu) 2. Click Create Audiences in the top left and then select Create a Lookalike Audience from the dropdown 3. Choose your source (any Custom Audience - including those based on an app, conversion pixel or Facebook Page). 4. Choose the country where you d like to find a similar set of people 5. Choose your desired audience size with the slider (smaller audiences = more highly targeted/similar to selected list) 6. Click Create Audience When targeting a campaign to this lookalike audience, you can further narrow your target with these steps: Exclude current CRM list from campaign targeting (to target new-to-file donors only) Layer other Facebook targeting over your lookalike audience to refine targeted group (e.g. charity/donation interests or minimum household income) Google AdWords Create Customer Audience from s 1. Click Shared library (left-hand rail) 2. Click Audiences 3. Select Customer s 4. Upload CSV file Target Lookalike Audience: 1. Under the Campaigns tab, click the Display Network tab. 2. Below, click the + Targeting button. 3. Select ad group, click the Add targeting drop-down menu and select Interests & remarketing. 4. Select Similar to customer lists from the drop-down menu, and choose the relevant list. (Not all lists will be eligible for similar audiences functionality.) 25

26 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 9 Mobilize Your Forms for Conversions

27 In 2015, 18% of donors gave a gift to a nonprofit using a mobile device. Expect more this year! Make sure your forms are thoroughly optimized for an easy, mobile donor journey. Your forms should employ mobile friendly big buttons, scrolling menus and more. Be sure to look at your forms on various devices, especially phones, to shorten headlines or copy on a form, for example, when viewed on a mobile device. Don t make them scroll too much before they can start completing their gift. Another tip: If you re using a lightbox during end-of-year, make sure your lightbox is mobile optimized or consider taking out of the mobile experience. 27

28 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 10 Reactivate Your Fans

29 End-of-year may be the one time you get a gift from those who haven t given at all or in a while. Segment your file to identify those who gave a small gift, have not given ever and haven t given in the last year. For those who gave a small gift or haven t given at all, createa dynamic and donation form with a different and lower gift string. Also, consider adding a premium into the mix. For the American Diabetes Association, we tested a variety of premiums to reactivate or activate donors. The fleece blanket (already in inventory for their online store) won big in getting lapsed donors and some inactives to give a gift of $60 or more. The lower ask string and the fleece premium brought in 58% more revenue and a 20% increase in number of gifts vs. the control. 29

30 EOY PLAYBOOK TIP # 11 Game Stats Reporting

31 If we leave you with one thought, it s this: Think and do ahead! There are always moving targets with end-of-year fundraising. Christmas is on a different day of the week or Giving Tuesday is in an entirely different month depending on the year. These change the way people read and respond to , ads, etc. And you need to factor these differences into your planning and note them in your reports. For example, this year Giving Tuesday is in November vs. December last year. If you compared your revenue to date in November 2016 to last year, you d be way ahead (assuming a bang-up Giving Tuesday this year) and you d look great! But, your early December revenue may go down. Think about that as you set up your reports. Advance report planning can save the day. There are standard metrics and data sources and there are possibly new ones to factor in, whether it s progress year-to-date or measuring key dates against one another. If you take the time to model your report deliverables in October and run it by your stakeholders, then you ve made it through half the game. No one wants to waste time arguing about how to display metrics or a dashboard when that isn t the key takeaway you need from them as a stakeholder. Document data sources and the optimal reporting cadence from different systems ahead of time, especially if certain types of reports have to be handled manually versus scheduled or automated. Test out your end-of-year reports early to work out any kinks. You might have a formatting issue between your donation systems vs a data point that can come in via API. Also, annotate daily efforts like s sent, social posts or display ad campaigns in your analytics platform and in your overall game plan. This will help you assess progress and performance in the years to come. 31

32 How can we help you get over the goal line? Shoot an or phone Rosa at the contact info below: Rosa Del Angel VP, Digital Marketing Get more great tips with our free Webinars on Demand at beaconfire-red.com/webinars and on our blog at beaconfire-red.com/blog. 32