Are You Losing Donors From Your Appeal?
I want to talk about how sending appeals can actually cause you to lose donors. What on earth am I talking about? Well, I'm talking about not segmenting your donor database properly. This came up because just recently I got an appeal in the mail from an organization that I haven't supported in quite a while. When I opened up the appeal, it had this post it on top:
Now what might be wrong with this post it? Well, the problem is in the first few words: “Your recent kind gift.” I actually haven't given to this organization in over three years!
Of course, when I saw that my first thought was: “Oh no, they don't realize that I'm not a recent donor.” Things like this may seem simple and they may be easy to send to your entire donor database, but what you're actually doing is causing people to question if you know them on an individual basis.
The reality is, as a nonprofit we can't know every single donor who has ever given to us, but we certainly have the ability to customize our messages through our donor database.
Here are 3 ways that you can improve your chances of connecting with your donors on a one-on-one basis.
1) (You guessed it!) Sort your donor database by the most recent gift date. If they haven't given within the past six months to a year, be careful with the language that you choose.
Segment your database and send one mailing out to the people who gave recently (and include a post it - it's actually pretty cool). Then for the other folks, make sure you put a note in there that says: “Hey, we haven't seen you in a while and we'd love for you to come back and support this important cause.”
2) Talk to your donors about programs that are important to them. It will resonate and take them way further on their donor journey with your organization. Do they care about children's causes or women's initiatives? What type of programs do you have at your organization that you know they like to give to? Talk about that impact in your letter and your donor will feel like you care about the causes important to them as an individual.
(If you’re not sure how to track this information, click here to schedule a 30 minute discovery session to talk solutions.)
3) Talk to your donors in a way that they like to be communicated with. How do you like to donate when you support different organizations? Personally, I prefer to give online. So if you mail me a robust package in the mail it may not resonate with me, but if you send me an email or a really heartfelt video, you're going to get my attention a lot easier. Now don't get me wrong - there's plenty of donors out there that love those robust packages. I've had plenty of phone calls in my day for people asking about calendars, labels - all sorts of different things. Keep doing those programs - just make sure you're sending them to the people that will read and enjoy your materials.
Bottom line: Find out how they like to give and try to communicate with them in that way. You can certainly experiment, try different things, try new things, but keep it limited so you're not wasting valuable resources.
On average, a good response to a direct mail appeal letter varies from 5 – 20%. Be sure to compare your response rates every time you send an appeal to see if your rate is staying flat, increasing or decreasing and also check your average gift size. This data can drive decisions on the development of your next appeal.
Hopefully these tips on segmenting your donor database helped!
If you’re interested in tracking and analyzing this information, but you’re not sure where to start, let’s talk. We would love to help you on the path to getting to know your donors on an individual basis and show them the love.
I want to learn how to segment my database to improve retention rates.
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Meet Stephanie:
Stephanie brings a passion for partnering with nonprofit leaders to adapt, create, and engage with their supporters. Her work focuses on bringing creative and synergistic solutions to her clients so they attract and retain life-long, passionate donors. With over 15 years in the industry, Stephanie specializes in the nitty-gritty details of donor database solutions, big picture fundraising strategies and board engagement campaigns.