6 ways to make your  telefundraising  campaign a  successful part of your  overall fundraising  strategy.

By Ken Dawson

In the old days of fundraising, one central channel was primarily used for both communication and fundraising. For good or bad, those days are long gone. New communication channels emerge at warp speed and are positioned side by side to increase donor touchpoints.

Today more than ever, telephone marketing is still the purest form of marketing. Although some consider it "old-school," it's the only channel that allows you to get real-time feedback from donors and a yes/no answer after each call. At its best, telefundraising is a priceless tool that brings in more than donations — it brings you loyal donors with immeasurable lifetime value.

Today everything is all about personal contact, which is the driving force behind successful fundraising campaigns. The phone is still the preferred way people choose to communicate — the one-to-one personal touch of speaking to a live person remains strong even with the advent of new technologies. However, coupling the phone with other channels is  necessary to stay competitive. More channels mean more ways to reach more people.

The phone offers personalized and high-impact interactions not offered by any other fundraising tool. So how do you integrate it into your multichannel marketing mix? Remember these six tips, and your donors will be happy and your organization financially strong.

1. Take advantage  of timing and frequency  to drive success.

Regardless of their success with telefundraising, many organizations only utilize the phone for one or two appeals a year because they have self-imposed "too much" limits or refuse to shift budgets from other tactics. This is a critical error. If you have momentum with a phone campaign, you should build on that excitement.

Donors don't stop giving because you ask too many times — if you've built a strong relationship. Your donors want to support you and will as often as they can, so don't be afraid to ask.

Take full advantage of the potential of the telephone to test and measure the impact of different appeals and tactics on the lifetime value of your donors. Experiment with adding the phone onto various campaigns, including acquisition, reactivation and monthly giving. Try integrating the phone into your year-end appeal, the most productive time of the year for many nonprofits. You won't be sorry. You can even test reminder and thank-you calls. Although it might feel like a risk to invest in a strategy you've never tried before, a high-quality teleservices provider will ensure that you don't regret the decision.

Contrary to popular belief, telefundraising and direct mail do not cannibalize each other. Rather, the two methods can be integrated to form a highly effective campaign. Study after study has shown that the telephone and mail complement each other and actually increase the overall value of a donor when used appropriately. One integrated campaign my company did for a national religious charity increased its response rate by 101 percent for people who received a pre-call to announce a mailing. For those who received an answering machine message about the mailing, the response rate increased by 28 percent.

2. Integrate to complement other appeals and channels.

Every program and campaign must be approached from a strategic standpoint when you integrate multiple marketing tools. You need to define channel-specific strategies for reaching the right people, at the right time, with the right message, using the right tool — whether you combine mail, phone, online and/or e-mail.

When integrating the phone into a campaign, a relevant and  engaging telephone appeal that complements your other marketing campaigns is essential to the success of the program. Make sure your message is consistent across all channels. Your phone campaign message shouldn't be different than your mail campaign, e-mail  campaign, etc. Coordinate your campaign so you create a seamless donor experience that engages your donors on their own terms. By making sure all channels reinforce one another, you have a robust campaign that engages your donors and builds lifetime donor value.

3. Be open to innovation.

All too often, organizations don't realize the full potential of telefundraising. The telephone is the perfect tool for testing new marketing tactics. Don't be afraid to test script changes, more assumptive appeals, new types of programs and different offers, because the phone is truly dynamic. You can instantly gauge the results of a test and adapt your strategy in real time.

If you are accustomed to a direct-mail-only strategy, it can be difficult to break free of an overly cautious mentality. You may have had a bad experience with sinking your whole budget into a single direct-mail piece, only to be disappointed with weak results. Just keep in mind that with the phone you really have nothing to lose by testing, because ineffective aspects of a program can be identified and changed immediately with the help of a call-center partner that employs state-of-the-art technology.

4. Use analytics to enhance the donor experience.

Today's fundraising environment is highly competitive with more organizations going after the same donors and shrinking wallets. If you are going to initiate a multichannel campaign, you need to leverage the data you have collected over the years. Have your contact-center partner do a deep dive into your donor files. There have been great advances in how this information is used, especially in the contact- center environment. Pre-built models or donor scoring allow changes to scripts, for example, to be made on the fly. Best-time-to-call technology can ensure that donors pick up the phone when you call.

Tests have proven that predictive modeling can have a positive impact on acquisition calls by improving file performance and driving down costs. On one 95,000-call test we conducted, the response rate increased by more than 21 percent and the revenue per call increased by more than 17 percent (compared to the control). These results were well above the goals for the program and allowed further penetration into lower-performing records to acquire more new donors for the organization.

This information also was used to develop dynamic request strategies utilizing real-time variable scripting technology. Key donor attributes can be fed to agent screens, behind the scenes, to drive scripts — gender-specific scripting or scripting for families with children, for example.

5. Keep up with  current trends and  advances in marketing.

Gone are the days when a fundraising campaign consists of phone calls alone. Today's high-quality contact-center companies can provide a wide array of services related to your campaign that take your organization to places you never imagined. For example, the phone, e-mail, Web and direct mail can be integrated in a personal URL campaign in which the donor receives a postcard and e-mail directing her to visit a personalized website, which is followed up by a phone call. These multitouch strategies are extremely effective.

The phone is a great way to follow up on warm prospects that visit your website, make online donations, sign a petition or participate in a walk, for example. They have demonstrated a level of interest in your organization or mission that should be followed up on with the personal contact the phone provides. If you're worried about cost, don't be; the results generated from calling cover the cost of the call. Plus, a phone follow-up call costs much less than a direct-mail prospecting campaign and produces superior results.

6. Choose the right contact-center partner.

Look for a partner that can provide multichannel options and not just a vendor with the lowest cost. A partner is a true extension of the organization it serves. Here are a few points that can help you identify a high-quality teleservices partner:

Experience. Look for a history of success. Ask for whitepapers and case studies that prove the company's results.
Professionalism. Choose a company with agents who have extensive training working with nonprofit organizations.
Compliance. Be sure to choose a call center that has the necessary systems in place to stay current with state and federal compliance, oral and written disclosures, caller ID requirements, and the multitude of other regulations.
Technology. Look for a company that offers technological advantages such as Business Intelligence, real-time analytics and reporting, variable script-on-screen, targeted routing, online fundraising services, variable data printing and e-mail.

Choose wisely because the company you go with will represent your organization over the phone to your most valuable assets — your donors. In fact, the donors will assume that the agent is one of your employees.

More importantly — don't base your decision on price alone. The old adage "you get what you pay for" rings true, and the actual cost per call should come second to the quality. Furthermore, high quality always translates into a higher ROI and increased long-term donor value. It's an investment you won't regret.

These days, marketing success requires giving your audience as many choices as possible. It's not about phone, mail or Web individually. The key is to make phone, print and Web interaction seamless, to use technology to integrate — not isolate — these channels. By tying relevant communications together in a meaningful way you can reach more people, drive better results and maximize ROI. That's why, now more than ever, it's so important for organizations to stay ahead of the technology curve and provide donors as many options as possible. FS

Ken Dawson is chief marketing office at InfoCision Management Corp. Reach him at ken.dawson@infocision.com