In my opinion “I Love You” is the world’s easiest statement. But becomes difficult when you really have to work on it and not just say.
John Mayer said it well:
Love is a verb
It ain't a thing
It's not something you own
It's not something you scream
Okay! I should be the last person on this planet speaking about Love. Love is grinding, it is painful, and needs a lot of commitment. In short, it is hard work.
Just like Email Marketing.
One of the reasons why I think most nonprofits treat email marketing as a stepchild because it is hard work. The benefits of email marketing were evident before the advent of social media. Marketers misused email marketing the moment they thought that they had the power of owning the inbox.
John Walsh breathes and lives email marketing every day at a large nonprofit. He thinks that since we do email marketing every day so it is a very easy job. “Well, that is where the problem lies. Email marketing is hard work and very strategic. When you are talking to thousands of people you still have to be conversational but also be careful. The public may not forget you for your mistakes like your best friend will.”
“Welcome Series” emails
In my long conversation with John about everything email marketing(almost) he talks about his latest experiment with “Welcome Series” emails. As the name suggests it is welcoming or onboarding a new user and making him aware of the cause, the work the nonprofit is driving, and the organization.
John’s experiment involved the users who were acquired by lead generation. These users had a very basic idea about the nonprofit.
“The welcome email series is a five-part journey with an objective to tell the people about the organization, the impact, and how she can contribute. If these people don’t donate then they become the part of the mass segment who receive occasional communication.”
In the 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 data was surprising for NextAfter. “When we asked 260 fundraisers and digital marketers if they had an automated welcome series, 74% said they didn’t have one or didn’t know. This means they rely on manual processes to communicate in the first few days which can be difficult.”
Another interesting data point that the report states: 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 refers to this data in her virtual presentation. She talks about why it is so important to communicate and build relationships with people who have already invested with your cause.
New Donor Welcome Series
Courtney was one of the speakers on day two 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.
“You’ve worked really hard to get a prospect to not only come onto your email file but also give. Congrats! So now what? This is where the real opportunity begins: getting them to stay engaged and potentially make a second gift. But how do you do this?
Through a new donor welcome series.”
Before she talks about the nitty-gritty of the donor welcome series she talks about the basic email and how it should be formulated, she also talks about why it is important to thank donors along with relevant examples.
Here is one such example where she highlights the importance of what one should do once the donation process is over:
She is calm and deals with the topic comprehensively, without making it boring. (You can check out her talk which is available on the NioSummit website(second tab - Auditorium all the way down on day two). All the content is free but you will have to log in to access the content.)
She also shares a simple welcome series donor journey which is omnichannel(email, phone call, and direct mail).
Types of users - donor, subscriber, and volunteer
I love to create journeys. For once I feel that I am Byomkesh Bakshi but the sad part is that predicting the consumer is such a demanding task. Present now at so many touchpoints. But before you jump into creating donor journeys or welcome series for your nonprofit organization.
Define the different users you might have. Ideally, it would be three ( there can be more):
Donor - who has donated money. You need to create a relationship and look forward to converting him into a recurring donor. A nonprofit should also think of creating a small set of donors into brand advocates who when required can run fundraising campaigns and raise awareness and money for the cause.
Subscriber - who has landed on your website via search/social media and is interested in your organization. She likes the work you do as she goes through the content and subscribes to your blog. Now you need to cultivate a bond, showcase your impactful work, and motivate her to donate. One more reason why the blog makes email complete.
Volunteer - this is the final set of users that care about the cause and are taking your cause forward online and offline. These are your brand advocates and you need to cultivate them.
Creating user journeys
Now based on the users you can create different journeys to structure your online fundraising. For example:
User journey from search to the donation page: My niece Suhana wants to adopt a dog. She searches for pet adoption centers in Bangalore. What can be the journey for my niece and a nonprofit organization CUPA? I have created a simple journey below:
Similarly, you can have endless journeys: from digital advertising to the donation page, from social media to blog to the donation page, from website to donor, etc. The more journeys you can chalk out the better for your organization’s online fundraising.
My simple donor “Welcome Series” with an objective to cultivate relationships and motivating her to be a recurring donor. This is only a 6-week welcome series but can be easily developed as an 8-week journey.
Earlier this year I did a small exercise of donating money to 4 Indian nonprofit organizations. Forget donor welcome series, most of them never said hello once they received the money. They did give me the tax certificate and We/Can sends a monthly newsletter. “We/Can” can do more in nurturing donors but it won’t. It’s not that they are not aware, they don’t find it worth investing time and effort.
Besides Indian nonprofits have always survived on international funding, HNIs, and CSR for funds. That’s why you will see heavy pdf versions of fancy newsletters. The general belief is that investors love fancy looking pdf version of newsletters.
Individual giving was never in the picture.
But times have changed. The pandemic has made the traditional funding a challenge and the present government is asking the tough questions on funding sources.
Nonetheless.
Cultivating relationships takes time, patience, and a lot of hard work. The same applies to cultivating donor relationships or convincing a subscriber to a donor.
Simply sending campaign emails with donation links won’t work. They end up becoming spam, eventually.