A CASE STUDY SETON HALL UNIVERSITY: IMMACULATE CONCEPTION SEMINARY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

A CASE STUDY SETON HALL UNIVERSITY: IMMACULATE CONCEPTION SEMINARY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

Seton Hall University s Integrated Marketing Case Study Annual Appeal Donation Drive: OVERVIEW: Development Objective: For every college and university, as well as primary and secondary educational institutions, the need to raise money, acquire new donors, and steward its constituent base is critical. Although there are many other factors contributing to a schools ability to thrive, these are the main goals of institutional advancement. Challenge Seton Hall University s Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology has always performed relatively well in the area of fundraising and development. However, their prior campaigns consisted only of a traditional appeal letter. Along with CRWconnect, the School of Theology recognized the need to incorporate a digital strategy that facilitated online donations, gathered critical information and provided qualitative analytics. Solution Building on what has become a familiar and recognizable communication item from The School of Theology, CRWconnect enhanced the full color letter with name and honorific personalization, and included an online response vehicle in the form of a PURL, or personalized landing page. In addition to a traditional letter, a personalized HTML email was also delivered to any constituents who had previously provided their email address. All campaign activity reports were provided, as well as email alerts and access to the campaign dashboard to track responses real time. Campaign Logic: CAMPAIGN MAP: return BRC via mail no response no response no response Appeal Letter w/ PURL & BRC Follow Up Email Terminator visit purl Email click through email submit survey THANK YOU automatic email Donation Page Landing Page

Campaign Design: 1. PERSONALIZED DIRECT MAIL: BENEFACTOR RECOGNITION SOCIETIES YES, I want to support the Seminary s Annual Fund. Stewards of the Seminary Archbishop s Society ($10,000 or more) <Firstname>, your gift of $<gift amount> was made on <giftdate>. Rector s Society ($5,000 - $9,999) q Enclosed is my check for $ (Payable to Immaculate Conception Seminary) Dean s Society ($2,500 - $4,999) Spiritual Director s Society ($1,000 - $2,499) Fellowships of Honor Order of Priests Fellowship ($500 - $999) Order of Deacons Fellowship ($250 - $499) Ministry of Acolyte Fellowship ($100-249) Ministry of Reader Fellowship ($50 - $99) The first wave of communication for the appeal campaign consisted of a personalized letter with Purl from the Dean of the School of Theology, along with a pre-populated reply card and envelope. As a result of the currently existing digital imaging technology, we as marketers have a tremendous opportunity to create targeted, relevant messaging that motivates not only response, but also action. We can segment our messaging according to donor status by including variable information, such as, last gift date and amount. Even a paragraph of text, graphics or photos could be versioned, as long as it is programmed into the database. Most fundraising CRM systems, such as Raiser s Edge or SalesForce Foundation, allow you to export data in ways so that it can be processed to drive the personalization and custom content. = PURL ( see page 5 ) q Give instantly online at giveseminary.shu.edu/henrywolenski q Please charge my gift of $ to my: q Visa q MasterCard q American Express Name as it appears on card: Card #: Exp. Date: Signature: q Double my gift! My employer s matching gift form is enclosed. I am interested in learning more about: q Immaculate Conception Seminary s Gift Annuity Plan q Estate Planning Please provide additional information on back. 13370

PERSONALIZED HTML EMAIL: EMAIL REPORTING: All Dear Henry, It is with great joy that I write to you as Immaculate Conception Seminary s twenty-second rector. I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of prayers and well wishes I have received during since my still recent arrival here to the Seminary. This year we will welcome 328 seminarians and students. We will also continue our diaconate programs in the Archdiocese of Newark and the dioceses of Metuchen and Paterson where we will be a part of the formation of 65 men enrolled in those programs. Your support of the Seminary runs deep. You pray for us and we pray for you. That is a blessing each of us seminarians, student, faculty, administrator and staff feel each day as we embark on our journey towards Christ. As I anticipate the needs of the Seminary I ask that you prayerfully consider financially supporting the Seminary as you have done in the past. Please click on the Give Now button below to make your gift online right now to support the Seminary. Thank you for being a part of Immaculate Conception Seminary. We remember you each day in our prayers. Please remember all of us in your prayers. Gratefully yours in Christ, Reverend Monsignor Joseph Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D. Rector and Dean Sent 475 Delivered 424 89.26% Opens 178 41.98% Click-thrus 35 8.25% Unsubscribes 2 0.47% Donors Sent 293 Delivered 268 91.47% Opens 123 45.90% Click-thrus 24 8.96% Unsubscribes 1 0.45% Non-Donors Immaculate Conception Seminary Seton Hall University 400 South Orange Avenue South Orange, NJ USA 07079 This email was sent to joycelor@shu.edu Add shu@email.shu.edu to your Address Book to ensure that you receive our email in your Inbox. If you are no longer interested in receiving these types of emails from Seton Hall University, please click here to unsubscribe. According to the Aberdeen Group, integrating email into your direct mail campaigns can significantly increase overall response rates. Although only a fraction of the constituent records contained an email address, it was important to maximize the reach of the campaign and reinforce the message through another marketing channel. Name and special salutation customization was used to drive higher response, and the call to action (Give Now button) was prominently displayed to encourage click through to the PURL. Just one email blast was effective in increasing the number of online responses compared to the School of Theology s previous year s campaign. Click-through rates 14% I n c r e a s e Conversion rates 10% I n c r e a s e ( source: aberdeen group ) Sent 182 Delivered 156 85.71% Opens 55 35.25% Click-thrus 11 7.05% Unsubscribes 1 0.71% 500 Donors Non-Donors 400 300 200 100 0 Click-through Open Delivered

LANDING PAGE ( PURL ) CRWconnect developed a personalized landing page, or PURL (personalized URL) to help drive online donations while adding a layer of engagement and analytics that was not previously being employed. The constituent base was directed to make their donation online by visiting their PURL, answering a few questions about their relationship to the School of Theology and updating their contact information if necessary. This also presented an opportunity to acquire new opt-in email addresses. In figure 1, you can see the PURL string that was used for this campaign. It has three distinct components, each described below. Subdomain: These are extensions of your domain name that can be used to host special content in a memorable way. Although these web pages or sets of pages may be hosted externally, they can be pointed to your DNS so that your domain name can be used in the PURL string. In this case, Seton Hall s objective was to get people to give to the Seminary. Domain Name: This is the main address for your website. It s important to utilize your website domain, since it is familiar to your audience and adds credibility to the PURL. However, new domain names can be purchased if necessary. A PURL, Personalized uniform resource locator, is techie talk for a web page that has the ability to display customized content to the visitor. It is database-driven and allows for a higher degree of web-based campaign analytics. Path: This is the personalization of the URL, which essentially allows you to create a unique web page with customized content for each recipient in the campaign. When responders visit the PURL, they are addressed by name, and can also deliver other variable data messaging. Furthermore, PURLs allow for the contact survey form to be pre-populated with the visitor s basic contact information, which increases the probability of answering additional questions; also creating a better overall experience for the visitor. PURL - figure 1 giveseminary.shu.edu/henrywolenski Subdomain Domain name Path

Results: ONLINE DONATIONS: Online Donors Online Donations 153% Increase FY 12-13 FY 11-12 198% Increase FY 12-13 FY 11-12 Average Online Donors 17% Increase FY 12-13 FY 11-12 250 200

ANALYTICS: 4. ANALYTICS Several key metrics were tracked and measured to judge the success of the campaign. The number of donations and yield were tracked internally by Seton Hall. CRWconnect, through the marketing dashboard, tracked PURL visits, survey responders and answers, as well as standard email metrics. What we learned is that integrating an email component and online interaction into the campaign significantly drove online donations compared to the previous year, where only direct mail was used. Even with just a 15% increase in list size, the number of online donors increased 198%. This resulted in an increase in the amount of online donations by 153%. Interestingly, the average online gift increased from $200 to $235, or 17.5%. Of the 31 online survey responders, 28 donated (23 donated online and 5 mailed in checks) We can interpret that of the 28 donations associated with survey responses: 9 responded to the direct mail 18 were a result of clicking through the email A total of 7 new email addresses were captured (6 donor; 1 non donor), and one was updated by a previous donor TESTIMONIAL: Prior to working with CRWconnect, donors were only encouraged to donate via check mailed back in a reply envelope. Giving our donors the option to donate online really made a difference. Furthermore, gathering additional information about our donors has made our follow-up interactions more personalized and meaningful. -Lorraine A. Joyce Associate Director of Publications Seton Hall University

About CRWconnect CRWconnect helps organizations stay relevant to their target audiences through cost-effective, personalized multichannel marketing campaigns. We integrate traditional and digital marketing, such as high-quality variable data printing, direct mail, email, PURLS, QR codes, social media, and mobile messaging to drive customer response and convert prospects into customers. Together with our parent company, CRW Graphics, CRWconnect provides our clients with the ability to take advantage of best practices in marketing innovation today. We look forward to hearing from you. Please contact us at:.com 9100 Pennsauken Highway, Pennsauken, NJ 08110 USA: 800.820.3000 NJ: 856.662.9111 Email: info@crwconnect.com www.crwconnect.com A division of CRW Graphics