Convio Report: Four Trends You Must Know

To keep it this way, the whitepaper suggests organizations use e-mail appeals to make constituent communications more personal and engaging and drive visitors to their sites.

• Know the value of your e-mail file. What percentage of your e-mail file actually donates to your organization? Knowing this will help you predict the total value of your e-mail file and the incremental value of adding an online constituent. The report suggests measuring this throughout the course of a campaign and throughout the year.*Create multiphased e-mail appeals. After sending the first message, send a second message to those who didn't respond to the first reminding them about the campaign and encouraging them to respond, and then a third message to those who still haven't replied updating them on the progression of the campaign and encouraging them again to support you. These repeat e-mails are a good way to reach donors who may never have opened the original e-mail due to busy schedules or travel.
• Have dedicated landing pages/Web pages for each campaign. The whitepaper recommends "creating a dynamic personal campaign page where each existing donor is individually recognized, thanked for his last donation, shown the results of all of his past donations and offered the opportunity to donate again."
• Create successful e-appeals. Personalize the "from" field in e-mails (e.g., using the name of an organizational executive or well-known spokesperson), followed by the organization's name; personalizing the subject line to something that interests the recipient; keeping the voice of communications consistent and trying humor or controversy to grab attention in the subject line; keeping body copy shorter than a direct-mail letter (only three to four paragraphs, with bulleted, short sentences); linking only a few, very meaningful phrases, avoiding use of "click here"; having a prominent "donate now" button above the fold; and, when possible, aligning gift levels with donor history.

To download the report in full, click here.