Database Marketing Reality Check

June 26, 2008

Nick Rongione of Kintera recently wrote this article in Fundraising Success extolling the virtues of truly integrating — and then actually using — all the data your organization captures, or could capture, about your supporters.

His point: the more complete behavioral profile you can build of each supporter, the better you can target and customize your communications (of whatever kind … fundraising, action alerts, programmatic updates) to them, and therefore — given the greater relevance of the communication to that individual — the more likely they will respond as desired.

Sounds terrific in theory. But is it only theory?

Is the picture Nick paints Nirvana … beyond the resources and marketing sophistication of 99.9% of nonprofits (believe me, the biggest corporate marketers struggle with this). Even if you were determined to capture the data, would you subequently choke on it?

Alternatively, have nonprofit marketers found that less ambitious uses of data on individual supporters yields plenty of additional response, whereas going the "last mile" toward microtargeting just doesn’t yield sufficient incremental bang for the buck?

How many organizations, for example, peg a renewal ask to the individual donor’s previous year’s giving history? How many recite that history back to the donor, as a way of showing recognition? That’s a pretty straightforward — and evidence indicates, rewarding — use of individual donor data. But even this fairly elementary example assumes that donor data from all channels has been collated into individual donors profiles to drive the asks … and even the choice of re-solicitation channel(s).

Nick wants you to go even further … he wants that renewal notice, for example, to also thank the donor for responding to eleven action alerts, riding in the bike-a-thon, and placing your organization’s fundraising widget on his/her favorite social network page.

I’d really like to know … how many of you are proceeding down that path? And if you are, what are you reaping as the incremental benefits?

Is fully integrated database marketing a consultant’s fantasy? Or does it actually happen somewhere in real life?!

Tom

 

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, database marketing, direct marketing, marketing metrics | Leave a Comment 

Online Targeting — Too Precise For Comfort?

November 5, 2007

Every fundraiser, every issue advocate reading this post targets his or her audience.

At least you should. But how far are you prepared to go?

The targeting tools available for getting a precise message to a precise prospect in the online medium are truly awesome … and commensurately frightening and increasingly controversial.

Your online behaviors and preferences are constantly recorded and monitored, whether you're filling out order forms, signing petitions, making donations, conducting searches, filling out profiles on social networking sites, or just browsing the web. Any and all of this personal data can be used to drive targeted messaging (e.g., advertising, calls-to-action, fundraising). More on the process from this previous Agitator post, Emitting Digital Residue.

Try these articles, in order, to see where online targeting is headed and the issues involved.

1. From Behavioral Insider, here's an interview with Axciom's chief strategist that reminds us that direct mail marketers have always targeted … from choosing mailing lists to making data appends and selects. Their techniques are being “re-discovered” and embellished by online marketers.

2. From Search Insider, a description of how you can target users of Facebook, the fastest growing site on the internet, based on their volunteered profile information … looking for political liberals in Austin, TX who are college-educated and are David Letterman fans?

3. Are you worried yet? Some consumer advocates say you should be. As reported in this NY Times article, they are calling for the government to set-up a mandatory do-not-track list for the internet. As the article notes, such a list gives the consumer a choice — receive relevant ads, or irrelevant ones! But make no mistakes, the ads are here to stay.

Over a year ago, in our first Agitator reader survey, respondents didn't express much concern about online privacy issues. Roger and I debated the issue a bit. You can track our food fight from this post (Roger was Mr. ACLU Privacy Advocate; I was Mr. Prying Eyes).

Might be time for a re-read … we'd love to hear your views.

Tom

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Know Thy Customer (Donor, Member, Activist)

March 12, 2007

If there's any principle more fundamental to marketing success, The Agitator sure can't think of it. Suggestions welcome!

Knowing your customer means more than operating on gut instinct, wishful thinking or the perhaps dated presumptions of your nonprofit's founding fathers and mothers. It means …

  • First, collecting pertinent data on individual customer characteristics and behavior, as well as research data on attitudes and perceptions.
  • Second, aggregating all the relevant customer data in one unified database. [Not simple, as blogger & nonprofit marketer Katya Andresen is pointing out here in a useful series of posts on the thankless task!]
  • Third, acting on the customer knowledge you develop.

We believe in research. But too many nonprofits sit on piles of data and “insight” they never act upon.

Confess … how many times has your nonprofit gone out and “re-discovered” that you direct mail donors are old, your online donors are young, nobody reads the newsletter, hardly anyone giving you less than a thousand bucks a year can articulate a “brand attribute” of your organization. You probably do this as frequently as you change membership directors, executive directors, and/or direct mail agencies!

And then what?!

One of our favorite direct marketers, Denny Hatch, offers some great advice on figuring out who your customers are, and then acting on that information. Denny believes that catalog marketers are the best in the biz at knowing their customers and optimizing their value … and shows us why. We think he's right.

Roger & Tom

Posted by admin | Filed Under Denny Hatch, General Post, database marketing, direct marketing | Leave a Comment