Drive Donations by Maximizing Your Marketing Strategy

Drive Donations by Maximizing Your Marketing Strategy

By Sara Perry
Published On Mar 16, 2021

Donations are vital to delivering your mission. But growing and engaging your donor base can be a challenge. That’s why we hosted a webinar dedicated to helping you reach your fundraising goals this year. On March 11, Daxko’s Director of Marketing, Christy Brown, and Product Consultant, Erica Roberts, shared some tips, tricks, and insights for successful digital marketing campaigns. In case you missed it, watch the recording or read the summary below.  

People Want to Be Involved, Especially this Year

Data trends show us that people are connecting with your mission and want to get involved. Donation revenue from June, November, and December 2020 rose well above numbers from 2019. These three months coincided with strategic social media campaigns, including #staywithus. What’s more, January 2021 saw a 46.6% increase in donations compared to January of 2020. This large bump in donations indicates an important message from communities; they are seeing the work you do and responding with support. Now is the time to channel their support!  

It’s a Journey

Each donor goes through a 3-step journey on their path to supporting your mission:

  • Awareness: create buzz around your organization with a multichannel approach on social media, email, SMS; the sky’s the limit.
  • Consideration: once you have their attention, show them the depth of your impact and  how you fulfill community needs.
  • Decision: further engage people with personalized messages from important names and faces in your organization, outlining the impact of their contribution.  

These stages are important to remember because people will have different needs depending on where they are in their donor journey. For example, someone in the Awareness or Consideration stage may not respond well to, “please donate here.” But that doesn’t mean they won’t donate at all; they simply need help getting to the Decision stage of their journey. Understanding what stage they’re in helps you segment your audience and tailor your messaging.

Everyone is a Donor

Are you tapping your largest well? Data shows only 6% of households are donors and only 3% of those members are repeat donors. If you only focus on repeat donors, you could be missing out. To build awareness and drive greater consideration, think of reaching out based on what you know might appeal to a member or program participant. Maybe that group of regulars at every spin class would be interested in donating to your community bike program. Expand beyond repeat donors and engage everyone in your community as if they are a potential donor will help you grow your donor base.  

Nail Your Message

You have an engaging mission with amazing content. It’s time to use this material to create digital marketing campaigns to drive potential donors further in their decision journey. Christy recommends starting each campaign with two simple questions:  

  1. Who are you targeting?
  1. What are they trying to accomplish?  

“Often people want to arrive at the content right away, but answering these two questions for every campaign will help find more donors. Knowing your audience will help narrow your communication, and understanding what they need will help target their interest. It will help you know what type of content to create that reaches them wherever they are.”  

Touchpoints

Touchpoints are any contact potential donors have with your organization. This can be email, SMS, social media posts/ads, a phone call, you name it. It can take up to 8 touchpoints before a donor is converted. This is where the 3-step donor journey is important to keep in mind. One outreach attempt may not lead to a donation, but it could lead someone to the consideration or decision stage of their journey. Because consistent communication is a vital part of engaging donors, Erica recommends relying on marketing automation tools and a virtual assistant to help scale conversions and track connections.  

Build the Message

Finally, it’s important to build the message, and send everything out. Emails should have catchy subject lines, 150-250 characters in the body, and end with a clear and concise call-to-action. 1/3 of online gifts are made from email marketing, and about 60% of users arrive at your website via mobile device. The last piece of advice from Erica is to set aside 15 minutes a day to update your social media. New posts keep donors aware of your organization, and help bring them through that 3-step journey to supporting your mission.  

At the end of the webinar, attendees asked Erica and Christy to share example donor journey initiatives from Daxko Engage. These marketing automation tools help you target specific people with the messaging they need to donate to your organization. If you’re interested in seeing it for yourself, check out the last 15 minutes of the video recording or connect with a specialist for a personalized demo.

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