Cultivation vs solicitation emails
What is your percentage of cultivating vs solicitation emails?
Hello there,
Back to my topic of trust. I love how simple human emotions are the crux of communications with the consumer. Doesn’t matter if you are a for-profit or a non-profit organization.
By the way, hello and it’s Friday the 23rd. Let’s place a flag here. I will come back at a later stage to tell you what is so important about 23/10/2020.
Meanwhile, my morning from my window.
One less thing to complain about 🙊🙊
I am also happy that a nonprofit campaign I reviewed recently created the right noise. No, it didn’t go viral. The nonprofit has silently made the required changes.
Good for them 😜
What irritates you the most when you are listening to a talk or a presentation?
For me there are many. Let’s leave the whole point of communication, knowledge, and how excited the presenter is about sharing her thoughts. Majority of speakers would start by saying: “Let’s make this one-hour an interactive session. Ask me as many questions you want.”
Nothing wrong with it. But it has become a template question.
You are meeting a bunch of people for the first time. Many don’t even know you or what value would you bring to their life in this hour. Not everyone will open up. Many won’t open up thinking what if the question is dumb.
I find this similar to when brand managers say I don’t want to build a page, I want to build a community. I want to make them feel like a family. Such an utopian world we live in.
And the next question that pops up:
“Why are people not talking to us in the community.” “Why are people not buying from us.”
Let me pull out a personal story from my entrepreneurship days.
By 2013 it was pretty clear to me that if I had to survive I will have to make money. And you don’t find customers in an event. At least not for a publication so I had stopped going to events. One it was boring and two I fail to walk up to people, exchange cards, and strike a conversation. I have seen so many people do it with grace.
You can call me arrogant. I tried, failed and eventually gave up.
Anyways during this time, a well-known tech publication had come to Pune to connect with the startup community. These days startup meetups were pretty common. Most of them came to exchange cards, tell how the fuck they are changing the world, and eat free samosas with tea. I was there to say hello to the founders.
During a casual conversation, the founder and editor of the publication told me: “Prasant I can get up at 4 AM and report a story. No big deal.”
But the question that we need to ask or rather I advised her that she needs to ask “Is the reader reading the story on your website or your competitor’s website.”
Rather than asking why the consumer is not participating in my community or page, the question needs to be reversed.
“Why should the consumer participate. Why should she buy from your brand? Why should she give it to you? What problem do you solve in her life.”
These things are so simple that we ignore them.
According to the Deloitte 2021 Marketing trends report: Trust is the promise that we keep or we don’t.
How do you gain trust from someone who has no clue about you? Your action, thoughts, communications will build the foundation.
Similarly, trust is so important in the nonprofit world. Nonprofits are concerned with why people are not giving to them. The bigger challenge is:
How can you motivate the donor to give it again? How can she be your brand advocate?
People often say that starting up is the toughest job. Definitely, it is. But the bigger challenge is how do you survive while growing.
The first 100 meters matter the most but how do you keep running three or four times a week. Eventually making it a habit. Where you no more need a social media quote for motivation. But you do it because it adds value.
Your communication about your work builds trust. How you execute is one of the key differentiating factors.
I have always believed that brands are content creators and not content consumers. This is the reason why I also believe that brands need to think like publishers. “Content creation, consumption, and commerce is the model that brands should invest in if they wish to be thought leaders in their category.”
Something I wrote a year back. The same can be applied to the nonprofit sector.
Cultivation vs solicitation emails
Email as we know plays a significant role in distributing and communicating with your community. Be it donors or subscribers who are interested in your work but yet to become a donor.
In my last few posts, I have tried digging deep into different facets of email marketing for nonprofits. One of the concern areas has been how often do you send a “Cultivating Email” and “Solicitation Email.”
Cultivating emails are the ones that educate your community about your work, how you are making a difference, etc. Solicitation emails are the ones where you are asking the audience for donations.
A simple thank you email could be the start of your cultivating emails. But how often do we do it? In an extensive report “The State of Nonprofit Email Cultivation” NextAfter informs that 52% of nonprofits sent a clear confirmation of email signup or cultivation/welcome email in the first two days.
“Or put another way, 48% of nonprofits did not thank, confirm, or welcome us via email within the first 2 days of signing up.”
The recent study “The State of Multi-Channel Donor Communications” has evolved findings. The report reveals that on March 27, 2020, it made $20 donations both online and offline, to 119 organizations. But in the end, donations were successfully made to 102 organisations both online and offline.
In the end, it received 2297 communications - 1897 emails, 375 mailed messages, 17 voicemails, and 8 text messages.
On further classification, it was found that nonprofit organizations have formed a unique balance for online donors. The organizations have been giving more weightage to “Cultivation Emails” followed by the “Solicitation Emails.”
In other words, the researched nonprofit organizations have been more active in telling about their work and why one should give. Rather than only asking for recurring donations.
The report further breaks down the data in the below graph for an online donor.
Data observation:
The trust in cultivation emails is encouraging. It has a skyrocketing growth.
Solicitation emails grow but gradually. If you see the first few weeks or after a month the solicitation emails gradually grow. Makes perfect sense to educate, build confidence and then ask for a recurring donation.
Finally, the majority of nonprofit organizations have been aggressive with email marketing for online donors. As you can see from the growing graph of every week. One of the reasons could be the pandemic.
However, the case of digital-first fundraising shouldn’t be at the cost of channels that have been working till now. A multi-channel mindset is optimum for nonprofits (Digital and multichannel donors).
The report is a joint effort between Virtuous Software and NextAfter, a study that was carried out over a period of four months.
Ideally, donors get cultivated less.
Donors Get Cultivated Less And Solicited More Than Subscribers.
In other words majority of nonprofits believe that once the donor has given money so let’s just keep blasting her asking for money. The idea of building or cultivating a relationship is not the objective. Because it takes effort.
Courtney Gaines from NextAfter recently gave an insightful presentation on the same. She talks about why it is so important to communicate and build relationships with people who have already invested in your cause.
At the recently concluded virtual conference NioSummit. Her talk focussed on the “New Donor Welcome Series” and why the secret to the second gift is not another crappy email. In fact, there is no secret. You invest time and effort in cultivating a relationship, sooner or later it pays back.
Find out why and how to create a new donor welcome series.
The question that a nonprofit needs to ask:
How many emails are being sent in a month?
What is the percentage of cultivation vs solicitation emails?
And most importantly is there a defined email journey for users such as donors, subscribers, and volunteers.
Or you are happy by sending a monthly newsletter. Wishing the donor to make a recurring donation or a subscriber to become the donor.
If that is the case then no one can help you.
Time to lift the flag.
Today is 23/10/2020 and Mirzapur season 2 is out on Amazon Prime.
🎉🍾🕺
This weekend I would be teleporting to Mirzapur. Need to say hello to Munna Bhaiya, Guddu, and Kalin Bhaiya.
Need to find out who owns the throne of Mirzapur. One throne and too many contenders.
This year Munna bhaiya has a rap song. Jalwa hai 😂
Okay enough I don’t want to sound like a psycho fan.
Have a good weekend 👌🙏😊
Peace be with you,
PN ♥️
P.S. You might be aware that my blog is an effort to simplify the world of digital fundraising for nonprofit organizations. I appreciate that you read my stories and tolerate my random frustrations and cuss words.
Thank You!
Additionally, if you have any suggestions on how I can make this more valuable then I am happy to listen. You can email at prasantnaidu@gmail.com
I am in no hurry. Whenever you are ready and have time.