Over the last few years, I’ve volunteered as a presenter to young (and young at heart) fundraisers about data analytics and how it influences nonprofit fundraising through my local Direct Marketing Association’s ‘Direct Marketing 101’ course. The presentation covers the introductory basics and how individuals new to the nonprofit fundraising space—both on the agency and the nonprofit side–can better understand their organizational fundraising trends.
During a recent training, one of the attendees asked the question of “crafting a better appeal to raise more revenue by using analytics.” She was new to her organization and amazed that they were still using the same pillar appeal message for the last 10 years. She felt it needed to be changed, updated, re-written, and cleaned up.
My initial reaction was, “how do you know it needs to be changed?” If you have a message that has worked for 10 years without change and you haven’t seen declines in returns or results, then that is a solid control package! You should be tracking any new ideas against that message to see if you can out perform those results.
But, understanding what “success” looks like is sometimes difficult. What does a “win” for a new package actually mean?
If you’re in a similar situation where you believe your program is ready for a shift, but not sure where to begin — identifying these three key results and outlining how your new idea will beat the current message for these areas is a great start.
1.) Establish a Goal. Before you do any testing or create a new package, write out what the goal of the new effort is and how you will define success. Too many times organizations start creating test packages and don’t have a clear understanding of what a “win” would look like for the effort. Maybe you’re trying to increase average gift, response rate, or capture more $1,000 donors. All would be sound tests, but knowing that before moving into the creation phase is critical.
2.) Response Rate. This is the total count of individuals who responded to the appeal divided by the total number of people you sent the appeal to. Often, I look to response rate first when trying to measure the effectiveness of a mailer, email message, or campaign because it will tell you how well it can activate your audience to take the action.
3.) Average Gift. If your appeal goal is to raise more revenue, then Average Gift will be a key measure of success. This is how much revenue the message raised divided by the total number of gifts the appeal received. Make sure you’re measuring everything equally and not comparing the average gift of one to another message that had a higher or lower ask amount.
Before you scrap an old appeal, make sure you’re clear on why you’re going to dedicate staff and financial resources to perceived necessary improvements.
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