Digital and multichannel donors
Online and offline donor experience
My parents always wanted a daughter. My father wanted a daughter rather than two sons.
So they were over the moon when my younger brother became the father of two lovely daughters.
I have a special connection with my nieces. Off late, the elder one has been busy creating weekly videos on YouTube after TikTok got banned. The younger one has been busy creating new dance videos. (Chacha has been requested to get more views.)
Last weekend I was with them goofing around, and learning digital from them. I was curious to understand how they get an idea, do editing, the channels they follow, the content that they love and the apps that you use on mobile. I was ashamed to call myself a digital native.
The behaviour and thinking of a digital-born individual like my nieces are far more superior and we can’t bracket them in a template profile.
By the end of this year, I will complete a decade of observing, reading, and writing about digital marketing. In my initial days, my thoughts were medium-heavy and it changed when I started asking questions - “Why is the business spending money on a specific medium or What is the business objective. Mediums became secondary.”
Today I am a strong advocate for digital-first fundraising for nonprofits. At the same time, I also believe that digital is not the answer always.
How can mediums be the answer to a business problem? It is the strategy. The mediums follow and solve a business problem.
The case for digital-first fundraising
Recently Jeff Giddens, from NextAfter shared something on similar lines. At the recently concluded virtual NioSummit, he presented a case on why digital should be driving the fundraising strategy.
Presenting from the crib area in his home Jeff shares a simple yet thought-provoking case by listing down three vital reasons.
Digital-first gets more multi-channel donors, faster.
Digital-first keeps you from wasting your marketing.
Digital-first mitigates risk through testing and optimization.
I am hooked to conversations or presentations that layout thoughts that could be understood by a layman along with data and relevant examples.
Listen to him if you are remotely close to the nonprofit world. (Login to NioSummit and head over to the auditorium tab. You will have to create an account to watch the free content but it is no brainer.)
Digital gets more multi-channel donor, faster
During his 30 minutes presentation, Jeff starts by telling why having a multichannel mindset is optimum for nonprofits. Talking more about multichannel fundraising, Jeff outlays the major four categories that donors fall into. It is classifying donors on their medium preference.
Only gives offline (no email subscription).
Only gives offline (but subscribe to emails).
Only gives online (subscribe to emails).
Make gifts both online and offline during the same fiscal year or your multi-channel donors.
If you go by trends then the pundits have gone by and sworn that multichannel works. Jeff sticks to data and through multiple examples shows why nonprofits should focus on multichannel donors.
The below screengrab from his presentation shows a 3-year data for a large broadcast ministry that has 8000 multichannel donors worth of $810. It is the only segment that has shown encouraging growth when compared to the other donor data sets coming from different sources.
Data does prove that multichannel donors are valuable and retention rates are higher. So it is not just a commonly repeated best practice.
But the bigger question that Jeff asks - Where should we acquire these multichannel donors from? Should it be offline or online first?
Once again he relies on data from multiple nonprofits to make his point.
Here is one of the examples that show a 1.18% chance for a Broadcast ministry - it acquires donors from offline and there is approximately a 4% chance if it is online only.
While Jeff builds a case that digital is the way forward for multichannel donors. Does it mean that you ignore the offline mediums and focus on digital?
No.
Online and offline donor experience
According to the latest study: “When it came to communicating to the online and offline donors in multiple channels, 55% of organisations did so to the online donor but only 7% did so with the offline donors.”
Additionally, only 3 out of the 102 organizations sent multi-channel communications to both the online and offline donors.
The above findings are from a recent study “The State of Multi-Channel Donor Communications.” Created jointly by Virtuous Software and NextAfter, the study is based on the donations made to 102 organisations online and offline. The insights have been prepared after reviewing 2,297 communications over a period of four months.
One of the striking revelations of the report is that “Offline donors are getting lost.”
The report states: “This is partly because of just 14% of organisations sent at least 1 email to the offline donor but even for those that did send email to the offline donor, on average they sent 11.5 emails in the 4 months compared to 18.1 that was sent to the online donor.”
This is crucial because, online donors who simply receive an email, are more likely to give again and give more online when they receive an email. And receiving emails also makes them more likely to give online as well and becoming that incredibly valuable multichannel donor.
The report also finds that nonprofits have focussed solely on online when it comes to multichannel donor communications. “55% of organisations communicated to the online donor both through the mail and email compared to just 14% for the online donor.”
This means that the majority of organisations are not communicating offline to their online donors in a more ongoing way and potentially losing out on the high-value multichannel donor.
The insight that nonprofits should take from Jeff’s talk and the findings from the report is that digital should be the tip of your spear for acquisition strategy.
But that does not mean we ignore the mediums or channels that have been working. Integrating a new medium is great but not at the cost of letting go of something that has been working.
Obviously, I would love to have a “Thank You” personalised card from my nonprofit that I have been giving. Even if it is not via a direct mail, maybe via online will help.
Nonetheless, as a nonprofit just remember what you want to do and what you can do. Don’t madly rush behind mediums just because somebody has said so.
Not even me.