The Dotdigital Summit is simply per week away and pleasure is within the air. On this weblog, we’re introducing you to Lily and Emma from the Stroke Affiliation. With their experience in digital advertising for a number one not-for-profit group, they’ll be sharing priceless insights into crafting profitable donor engagement methods.
Learn on to get a sneak peek into their Summit discuss, the place they’ll talk about the Stroke Affiliation’s progressive inventive messaging strategies and the artwork of growing impeccably crafted welcome journeys.
Q: Lily and Emma, might you introduce your self and your roles on the Stroke Affiliation?
Lily: Hey. I’m Lily, one of many Digital Advertising Managers on the Stroke Affiliation. I work as the e-mail and SMS lead for the charity to develop and ship campaigns and on-line journeys. I’m liable for delivering digital advertising exercise to drive digital earnings and make sure the retention of our database.
Emma: And I’m Emma, I’m the Supporter Expertise Supervisor on the Stroke Affiliation. My position is liable for ensuring our donors obtain an important expertise after their first donation. I work actually intently with Lily and her crew to ensure all our exercise is partaking and is working throughout a number of channels.
Q: We’re excited in your discuss at this 12 months’s Dotdigital Summit. What are you trying ahead to sharing most on this session?
Lily: I’m most trying ahead to sharing our testing over time and the way far we’ve come as a company. There’s masses to share, from copy to inventive and viewers segmentation to journey optimizations.
Emma: I joined Stroke Affiliation 4 years in the past and we’ve all labored so onerous to fully rework this system. Earlier than we used to rejoice if we received a handful of presents – now we really feel dissatisfied if we don’t go over our targets. There’s been a whole lot of studying in that point, and it’s been nice to work alongside Lily, means a whole lot of our suggestions from exercise to exercise get applied.
Q: How vital do you suppose buyer journeys are for profitable donor engagement?
Lily: Extremely vital. It’s so essential to thank donors, inform them in regards to the enormous impression they’re making, and convey them in your journey to additional deepen their connection to the charity. Past welcome journeys, it’s important to maintain donors engaged by way of evergreen exercise, for instance, appeals, newsletters, and asking for suggestions, so you possibly can frequently enhance their expertise.
Emma: Ensuring you will have the precise journeys is essential. Folks don’t match within the good little packing containers you may want them to – they take up a number of actions, have a lot of completely different pursuits, and provides to us for all types of causes. Many individuals give as a result of they themselves have wanted our assist previously. That’s why we’re additionally measuring donor engagement additional down the road with our beneficiary viewers after providing stroke assist. We need to see if individuals have interaction additional, for instance, fundraising, volunteering, or serving to us to marketing campaign for change.
Q: Are you able to give us a sneak peek into the progressive messaging techniques that Stroke Affiliation makes use of for deepening donor connections?
Lily: We began just about firstly with growing our e mail channel. Through the years we’ve centered on particular audiences, for instance, money donors, common givers, supporters gifting in reminiscence of somebody, Legacy pledgers, and folks receiving our stroke assist providers, after which tailor-made messaging to these people.
This has been achieved utilizing personalization, segmentation, investigating earlier donor historical past and habits to tailor our copy accordingly, scheduling messages to ship on the proper time, and acknowledging the broader setting we discover ourselves dwelling in at this time.
Emma: I fully agree with Lily, we’ve been studying and constructing on what we had over time. We’ve tried to ensure this system focuses on how superb the donors are (not how nice we’re), make sure that we’re all the time signposting to assist they’ll entry, and being as human as doable in the best way we write to them. I do actually lengthy for the day once we can cease writing ‘It’s been one other troublesome 12 months’ – I believe we’re all simply fairly bored with issues feeling actually heavy. I’m assured that our Christmas communications this 12 months can have extra hope than ever and be one thing uplifting this Christmas.
Q: A key matter of your dialogue is strategic testing. How essential is strategic testing in refining donor engagement techniques?
Lily: Strategic testing is essential. I’m actually fortunate to work with our Supporter Expertise Group who’re all the time supportive of making an attempt one thing new. In the event you don’t check, you’ll by no means know what works, what might be developed, and equally essential, what ought to be left previously.
We’ve A/B examined the whole lot from copy model, copy size, CTA’s, contributor tales, donation button placement, scheduling, donation internet pages, donation block, and onward journey. From FY 21-22 to FY 22-23 testing has helped improve our e mail enchantment earnings by +32%.
Emma: Testing is vastly essential throughout all our channels. Usually if the crew is undecided about one thing or there’s a cut up within the vote, we attempt to check it. We’ve examined our outer inventive, ask matrix, completely different pack inclusions, and even examined an aphasia-friendly abstract in packs. I like this type of stuff although, It’s so enjoyable studying the outcomes, and seeing which approach it went – and also you don’t all the time get it proper both (therefore why it’s so essential to check and problem your considering).
Q: May you stroll us by way of the weather that made the Christmas marketing campaign your best-performing marketing campaign and its impression?
Lily: Over the previous three years we’ve been frequently growing and optimizing every enchantment within the lead-up to our huge Christmas enchantment. We’ve applied customized messaging for our completely different viewers segments, interrogated our information to ship tailor-made present asks dependant on earlier donor historical past, examined copywriting kinds, ensured our emails are visually partaking and aligned with our postal mailing inventive, optimized journeys, and reviewed scheduling so all these parts work collectively to attain desired outcomes. Evaluating Christmas 202 to Christmas 2021 most important targets elevated by way of donations (+13%), income (+19%), and common present (+5%).
Emma: One other key factor for us has been securing compelling tales to inform. We’re lucky that the Stroke Affiliation has invested on this space, and we now have an exquisite Storytelling Supervisor. They’ve discovered us an important story this Christmas, a younger household whose father had a stroke final 12 months. They overcame a whole lot of obstacles throughout restoration, not least being overseas when it occurred, however they’re so obsessed with sharing their story and the assistance they obtained.
Q: Crafting welcome journeys is an artwork. May you spotlight a couple of enhancements you’ve made to those journeys which have considerably improved their effectiveness?
Lily: Our Money Welcome journey was applied again in January 2021 to thank supporters, introduce them to the charity’s work and its impression, safe a second money present, and convert to common giving.
A cut up was added to this journey design, which tailor-made the e-mail content material and CTA relying on whether or not the recipient had already given an additional money present earlier than the second present CTA inside the e mail welcome journey. Delivering customized messaging for individuals who already gifted (extra thanks and impression) versus those that we hoped would present once more (donation ask and impression) improved the effectiveness of this e mail journey, as we delivered tailor-made messaging primarily based on donor habits.
Emma: It sounds easy however once we overhauled this system again in 2021, we very a lot thought in regards to the fundamentals; what have been we making an attempt to attain? For our money program, we needed to thank and get individuals to offer once more. For our common giving program, we needed to maintain individuals engaged and giving. For in reminiscence, we needed individuals to really feel related with us within the hope they may fundraise on our behalf. Preserving these objectives in thoughts meant that each one our postal and e mail communications had these concepts on the core. We weren’t simply sending out communications for the sake of doing it or ‘as a result of we must always’.
Q: May you talk about the Stroke Affiliation’s strategy to cross channel touchpoints for driving donor engagement?
Lily: The postal mailing and emails work in tandem to drive efficient donor engagement. The mailing not solely consists of postal donations but in addition signposts recipients to our on-line donation pages and the power to donate by way of QR codes. The emails make the most of the mailing content material and discover extra contributor (e.g. stroke survivor, researcher) tales additional, compelling audiences to assist the charity.
Emma: The postal mailing, donation internet pages, emails, donation funnel, and transactional emails work in unison to offer a clean and built-in expertise. Its important supporters have a seamless journey, with our content material being related and provoking them to take motion and donate, thus constructing a deeper relationship with the charity and cementing donor retention.
Q: What priceless insights do you hope to realize from different attendees on the Dotdigital Summit this 12 months?
Lily: I’m actually trying ahead to discussions round information and automation to drive engagement and profitable cross-channel advertising. That is one thing we’re starting to discover additional as a company, so these talks can be helpful. I’m additionally trying ahead to Tim Peake’s keynote session, as this ought to be fairly inspirational.
Emma: I’m actually all for discussions round reactive and triggered journeys – we’re nonetheless very a lot firstly of our organizational journeys. With a few of our journeys additional alongside than others, I’m eager to listen to how different organizations make sense of the spider’s internet and make it really feel seamless to the client. I’m excited full cease at having the ability to go to a convention in particular person, as I’ve not been to at least one since early 2020.
In the event you’ve not received your tickets for this 12 months’s Summit but, seize them right here.
