These days, there’s too much information out there to spend time on the irrelevant. Especially during the end of the year. People have evolved their abilities to quickly scan through direct mail, email, or websites and decide nearly instantaneously whether it’s relevant to them.
For nonprofits, that means your fundraising has to be specific to the individual. If you want to be heard in an increasingly noisy world, you need to engage donors in a way that resonates with them and provide calls-to-action that compel them in a personal way.
What Every Fundraiser Should Know About Segmentation
A recent MailChimp study of segmented email campaigns found that open rates were 13.46 percent higher with segmented campaigns than non-segmented campaigns. Click rates were a whopping 53.05 percent higher with segmented vs. non-segmented campaigns.
Meanwhile, this post from the Marketing Action Blog tell us: “87 percent of top-performing marketers say targeting campaigns to audience segments and individual consumers is the largest value driver, with 78 percent listing segmentation as the #1 marketing-automation capability they can’t live without.”
4 Ways to Segment Donor Communication (and Improve Year-End Results)
Wondering how your nonprofit can use segmentation to better speak to donors during this year’s campaign? Here are four practical ways:
- Giving level. Group individuals by how they support your organization: non-donors, volunteers, general fund, mid-level, major donors, etc. Cater your message to their unique contributions.
- Interests within your organization
- Frequency of giving. One-time donors, annual givers, and recurring givers all have very different relationships with your organization. Customize your communication to speak to (and potentially upgrade) their giving frequency.
- Communication preferences. Do your donors prefer online communication or direct mail? Do they like to hear from you weekly, monthly, or quarterly? Find out and segment your communications accordingly.
All these methods of segmentation work to provide your donors a more personalized experience that shows them you’re listening and you value their contributions.
As an organization, you should continually be asking yourself: How can we provide a more specific and valuable experience for our donors?
Learn More about Year-End Fundraising & Segmentation
You can download this infographic to learn more about using segmentation and marketing automation to improve donor engagement to your donors.