Building trust into our work
Let's kick the tires on some ways of working that help trust.
Toxic acquisition is maybe a bad thing.
Building lists to fundraise from is hard. The latest M+R benchmarks report has a lot of data on advertising. Paid search, Google Grants, display ads, radio, connected TV. Then there's social ads on Meta, TikTok and the fiery wasteland once called Twitter. And $$$ going into lead gen for lists and direct donation ads. There's also co-registration services that let you run petitions to other email lists.
All fine and the data available for targeting is brilliant thanks to there being zero rules around digital privacy. (You want to know why WalMart is buying Vizio? To get your data from the TVs you watch, after they sell them to you, so they can make better ads. I digress.)
But we're building crap lists. Odds are high that two-thirds of subscribers haven't clicked a damn thing since subscribing. The solution you'll hear is "send more email."
I mean, if the ship is sinking you need to bail out the water faster. Right?
So we spend a lot to build lists of people that ignore us or get offended when we show up in the inbox. And then we wonder about high churn. Heck, we should celebrate people leaving if we're not going to cut them off. They're doing us a favor.
There's no easy fix. We're going to keep doing what we're doing because we're incredibly risk averse and like big numbers. But, please, dig into your list. Figure out who the strongest (however you define it) subscribers are. Talk to them. Learn from them. Cultivate them. And test test test new and old ways to find people like them.
Put relationships ahead of selling.
Gen Z, digital natives who are highly fluent in a world of creators and influencers, look to other individuals for guidance and insight. And, this should be obvious, so does everyone else. It's just that a generation that grew up holding YouTube and Instagram in their 13 year old hands.
The lesson is critical: people trust people. And that means listening to people, understanding their needs, and delivering value which could mean answering questions, informing them about issues, helping them get smarter or do good work, and showing them the impact of their smart choice to support you.
Too often we go straight for talking about why we matter and why you should buy or donate. Or we don't welcome people in, thank them, and build a culture of appreciation and value.
We can be (much) better with impact data and stories. And their metrics.
I'll tell you right now that I've heard many email and fundraising consultants say "yeah, people say they want to hear about impact but nobody actually clicks or donates on that stuff." Maybe we need new metrics.
Do openers (yeah, opens aren't great data points) give more to follow-up asks after an impact email? Can we use one-question surveys to gauge if/what subscribers have learned from impact stories? (👀 check out Satisfyly for this sort of easy qualitative data gathering) Then see if/how perceptions of impact stories (and different types - data, visualizations, case studies, first-hand narratives, audio and video) track to other engagement later.
We have to talk about SMS.
Want an easy cocktail party conversation starter? Ask someone about their text messages.
Political campaigns, parties and some craptastic grifters have harmed texting for everyone. It's a shame. This rubs off on nonprofits and amplifies the idea that every text is a scam (and every sender a scammer).
The 2024 benchmarks report (M+R again) tells us that mobile message volume is up as is fundraising from mobile (though still just 0.37% of total fundraising volume). Click throughs are down.
You can find evidence that SMS/mobile boosts fundraising. Sometimes these pieces aren't even created by SMS vendors. Done well (i.e. sending high value info that leans into relationship and trust building to people who clearly opted into SMS) it can work. But most folks aren't doing any favors to their list or trust.
