Using 4 Online Tools to Inspire Volunteers and Donors, Part 3
Online surveys
Online surveys help fundraisers learn more about their donors and supporters, which in turn can lead to ways to better communicate with them. Online surveys collect feedback about your organization from an interested audience to improve your product and services, Mintz said. The benefits on online survey tools include:
- Providing easy-to-use templates.
- Reinforcing brand identity.
- Managing lists.
- Reporting and results.
Ask questions such as: How can I serve you better? How can I make you more comfortable? And then share that information back to people. Other best practices for online surveys Mintz offered include:
- Keep surveys short. Response rate decreases as the length increases. Try to keep it to 10 minutes or less.
- Segment your lists to avoid burnout. This helps achieve a better response.
- Good questions help meet the objective. Ask what you need to know, not what you want to know. Resist the temptation of “just one more question.” Every question should support your objective.
The key to online surveys is not the responses themselves, however. The true key is what you do with those responses. Effective fundraisers use the information provided in surveys to improve communications and deepen the relationship with donors, which is what all four of these major online communications tools — event marketing, social-media marketing, e-mail marketing and online surveys — allow fundraisers to do.
