This is the third of a three-part blog series which shares a few of the most effective fundraising tips we’ve been using recently.
The first post covers tips related to appeal preparation and ways to attract leads / supporters and the second post focuses on welcoming and converting your leads / supporters. In this final instalment, we’ve shared some thoughts on thanking and donor nurture post-appeal.
Thanking at the end of a donation
Personalise the thank you / confirmation page content with clear recognition of past connections to your cause if they arrived via a PURL. Offer a compelling reason why someone should share their contribution via social or IM, to introduce the appeal to their friends and family. And ensure the thank you email they receive carries the same levels of personalisation and relevant information for tax receipting or tax effective giving.
Regular gift upsell – post donation, there is a useful moment to upsell a regular gift of some type, while being very respectful about the gift you have just received. It might be as low-level as offering to remind the donor to repeat the donation in a year’s time. Or suggesting they might wish to contribute for 3-6 months at a reduced level. Explain the value of a small regular contribution and perhaps offer to use the same card / payment details to set it up right now. Recognise their new or existing heroic supporter status, show how simple it could be to make a huge impact, reduce friction, build on declared intent and leverage the recently supplied data.
Surveys – we’ve seen some really valuable insight and great comments from donors responding to a quick survey after their donation, as part of a well-structured email welcome or nurture journey. It is great to collect real-time feedback which you can use to shape the remainder of the appeal. Talking of which…
Conversion funnel review – review your funnel performance regularly. Use tools such as VWO, Hotjar or Google Analytics alongside either exit surveys or welcome surveys to highlight areas where you can improve conversion or donor appreciation. Are there sticking points or is there evidence of click rage? Test alternative UX elements or narrative to remove issues during the appeal which will help you grow the conversion rate.
Got that all sorted?
If you’ve said “Yep we’re doing all that already!” you deserve a gold star, and we’d love to have a quick look at your journey to challenge ourselves to find any final areas to optimise.
If you recognise some gaps, now is the time to leap into action and sort them. Drop us a line to have a chat! We exist to help our clients across a range of areas, so they can achieve more of their mission when we boost their fundraising.
Our areas of service include:
- Fundraising strategy plus appeal, acquisition and community fundraising strategies
- Acquisition via DM / eDM / social / digital
- Conversion Rate Optimisation for your forms, landing pages and donation experience
- Enhancing the performance of existing donation platforms
- Delivering quick, simple and effective new donation journeys
- Segmenting data and setting-up PURL appeal journeys via DM, eDM and SMS
- Crafting integrated appeal content and promotional materials
- Integrating fundraising systems such as CRM, CDP or marketing automation and payments to make fundraising technology work better
Feel free to contact us to chat more about your appeal. We’d be happy to review it and point you in the right direction to make it as successful as possible!
P.S. Health-check your year-end campaign today by downloading our Festive fundraising framework!