High ROI Signup

PORTFOLIO

TESTIMONIAL

"What a great resource! I have received a number of similar mailings over the years, and always ended up unsubscribing — mostly because they were too much text. This was short, sweet — and useful! I can't think of someone better qualified to share this kind of advice!"

Josephine Martell
International Fund for Animal Welfare

Giving Back E-Tips

Twitter — But Don’t Fritter Away Your Revenue-Producing Resources

Karen GedneyDear Visitor:

Twitter, the social networking and micro-blogging service that lets people broadcast short messages to their friends and “followers,” is really taking off — and many nonprofits now run Twitter campaigns.

After surveying the Twitter nonprofit landscape for a client, I can see this service is a great way to create a buzz about your organization, get out important news, and galvanize activism.

I’ve also seen groups generate a small level of donations through Twitter — but so far, the operative word here is “small.” At this point, Twitter should be considered a sideline to fundraising efforts — worth testing, but not your main focus.

In my mind, here’s a rough revenue formula for larger nonprofits:

So, be sure to allocate your staff and creative resources accordingly. (And that being said, I’m working on a Twitter campaign right now!) Meanwhile, I hope you find this week’s e-tip on successful renewal reminders helpful.

Remind Your Donors to Renew — Online

Last year, I got an assignment to create a new campaign to renew a small segment of major donors.

Our first renewal was a gorgeous postal mailing. But since these donors were extremely tech-savvy, we decided to conduct the rest of the renewal cycle by email.

We got high open rates on those emails — but we just met our renewal revenue goals. Afterwards, we heard from someone who works closely with these donors, “Oh, they never open emails from us — only postal mail.” (It would have been nice to get that information a little earlier, but isn’t that the way it always is!?)

Before the next renewal cycle, we sat with an advisory board that represents these donors and came up with a different approach. All renewals are now delivered by postal mail, but we have chapter leaders send email reminders a week after the postal version goes out. I write the main copy of the email reminder that the chapter leader can then personalize with a note.

That seems to have done the trick. We’re near the end of the renewal cycle, and we are on track to meet our budget forecasts — despite the precipitous decline of the economy.

Based on the success of this small campaign, we rolled it out to a different and bigger segment of lapsed major donors. Again, we sent out postal renewals followed a week later by email reminders.

The results were very encouraging. The open rates on the emails ranged between 23% and 28% — and the total online income added another $60,000 on top of the usual postal renewal revenue. So this approach is definitely worth repeating.

I think it’s important to remember that donors tend to fall into two camps. Some like to write checks. Some like to renew online with a credit card. By taking a multichannel approach, you give your major donors the choice to conduct business with you in the way they prefer. And with a postal/email combo, your organization gets a chance to be in front of the donor twice at every touchpoint of the renewal cycle instead of just once.

If you would like to see samples of successful email and postal renewals, contact Karen at 718-680-1627 or at kg@karengedney.com.