Focus On: Data Mining: Hope is Not A Strategy
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While member attrition can continue to get worse before it gets better, it is imperative that you acquire the tools, infrastructure, partnerships and mindset to begin reclaiming ground lost in recent years. Two simple, yet very effective, solutions include:
- Monitor what you are mailing: Your data must include what you mailed and when you mailed it, from the initial acquisition through the entire giving cycle. With this information, you can understand motivations of giving, response trigger points, ROI and Lifetime Value. You can develop new marketing tactics and messages that personally reach the donor. You also will know when to cut your losses and move on.
- Determine the type of appeal: People give either through their hearts or through their heads. Those who give through their hearts respond to more emotional appeals, and those who give through their heads respond to more intellectual appeals. Your data gives you the opportunity to understand the type of message that would resonate with individual donors so you can more effectively target each one.
If you’re using a stale premium that isn’t presenting your organization’s mission to donors in a clear, compelling way, look into highlighting a specific program or timely topic that is pressing to your giving community.
- Companies:
- Merkle|Domain
Greg Fox is vice president of nonprofit vertical strategy at Merkle. He joined the company in 2000 to establish a data-driven, strategic fundraising agency group. Fox is a 30-year veteran of direct response fundraising, with expertise in developing innovative fundraising marketing strategies and solutions. He has helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for many of the largest and most respected fundraising brands in America, and while he has broad-based fundraising experience, he is highly regarded as a leader in the national health-charity sector. Prior to joining Merkle, Fox was a founding partner in TheraCom, a leading provider of full-service specialty pharmacy solutions and marketing strategies that served the healthcare and charitable industries. He also served as vice president of direct response fundraising at the National Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, where he started his career and created the organization’s first national direct response program. Fox is an industry thought-leader, frequent speaker at industry conferences and an active participant in the DMA nonprofit federation. He graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va.
