Enjoy this video.

Happy 4th!

Roger & Tom

Her article is sprinkled with links to what Alexandra regards as good examples (and in my opinion, they are) from March of Dimes, Brooklyn Museum, AARP, American Humane Society, KaBOOM!, and the Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue League.

But she also set off a lively debate, with some commenters arguing that her examples are exceptions to the rule … that nonprofits, in their use of social media, are just as faddish, short-sighted and non-strategic as their commercial brethren.

Then along comes commenter Michael Hoffman of see3 Communications with these observations:

"I think the argument here — are nonprofits good or not — isn’t really that useful.

There are nonprofits who are doing the right things, making long-term strategic investments in communications, not taking short-cuts, integrating their social media work with their overall communications and fundraising activities, etc. And there are those who are not.

I think a bigger question is exactly what it means to be successful with social media. Is social media simply another marketing channel for you to push your agenda? Or is the promise of social media a new way of doing business, where your stakeholders are real partners in your work. The latter is much more interesting, but will require serious cultural changes among nonprofits who are often very concerned about brand and control."

Alexandra’s examples might be exceptional. But regardless, I think Michael has nailed the issue. The entire exchange is  well-worth a read.

What’s your opinion?

Tom

Here are the top reasons:

40% — too high shipping costs
37% — they wanted to comparison shop
36% — didn’t have enough money after shipping and handling charges were added to totals
27% — left to search for coupons
26% — wanted to shop offline
24% — couldn’t find preferred pay options
23% — the item was unavailable at checkout
22% — couldn’t find customer support
21% — concerned about the security of credit card data.

What strikes me about this list is that so few of the reasons that afflict online retailers would apply to nonprofits soliciting contributions online.

Maybe the four reasons I’ve bold-faced might apply to nonprofits.

In my judgment, the most important mistake online fundraisers make is to not have a dedicated landing page that reinforces the original ask, instead using a generic Donate page.

This is like using a generic order card in a direct mail package, despite tons of evidence attesting to the critical importance of the order card in closing the sale. Indeed, I’ve heard "extremists" on the matter assert that with a strong order card, you could skip the letter!

Two other most common bits of advice to improve online closes include: 1) keep it simple (don’t clutter the Donate page with extraneous, distracting information or complex asks); and 2) be crystal clear about the security of your transaction system.

Are you satisfied with your "close rate" once prospects get to your online "Donate" page? How carefully have you tested and refined your donation landing pages? Small percentage improvements in your close rate can add up to big dollars.

Tom

1. Ideation — idea generation
2. Integration — cross-pollination of ideas
3. Information — external scanning & sourcing
4. Selection — identifying ideas to take forward
5. Support — develop ideas into offerings
6. Launch — bringing the idea to fruition and setting expections re returns
7. Learning — establishing what can be improved and learned from

34 US charities were included, and their relative strengths were found to be Ideation and Information; their weakness was Launch. And we thought Americans were Do-ers!

Here’s the report. If you would like to "do this at home" for your own organization, check out our earlier post on the Centre’s approach.

Tom

The first deals mainly with the Republican Party’s use of voter registration data to help target GOTV ads into the Yahoo, AOL and MSN ad networks.

The second describes Resonate, an online ad network targeting capability that points messages at netizens based upon their issue preferences. At this report there were about 500 websites in the network, with aspirations for 2,500. This tool, aimed more at legislative advocacy, has backing from both sides of the political aisle.

Ideas here for nonprofit fundraisers and communicators.

Tom

Chuck’s been around awhile, and his firm directed the Obama campaign’s direct mail fundraising efforts. Many of us probably have the impression, from the breathless reporting at the time, that all of Obama’s money was raised online … but A.B Data raised $108 million for Obama throught the mail. I don’t know about you, but that number makes me pay attention!

Chuck argues that direct mail isn’t dead … or even dying. The evidence he presents in his paper here is compelling. In fact, I’d say it’s "must read." But here’s just the intro to give you a taste of Chuck’s take on the matter …

"For as long as I have been involved in the direct response fundraising world – now over two decades – the prediction of the impending demise of direct mail has been a recurring theme.  With the advent of the Internet, this has taken on a new dimension.  For now, according to the “direct mail is dying” chorus, online fundraising will step in and provide the mechanism to raise all the dollars direct mail used to produce and capture a growing share of a younger demographic waiting to give.

What has always mystified me about some (but far from all) of the online marketing community is their insistence that for online fundraising to rise, direct mail fundraising must fall.  And what angers me about “studies” such as those offered by Borrell Associates and given legitimacy by blogs like Frogloop is they camouflage their underlying biases. Borrell Associates is, according to their website “a media research, consulting and project firm specializing in Internet advertising.”  It should come as no surprise that such a firm would be predicting that the demise of direct mail is occurring while, according to Borrell, “email advertising continues to surge and is now the number one online ad category.”  Quite frankly, the Borrell study has about as much credibility to me as the tobacco industry’s studies on the health effects of smoking in the 1960’s and 70’s.

This gets me to my second point.  The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (a client of our firm for many years) was fond of saying, “You are entitled to your opinion.  You are not entitled to your facts.”  So let’s try to elevate the “direct mail is dying and will be replaced by email marketing” debate by looking at a few salient facts.

Fact:  The direct mail donor universe is alive and well and actually shows little signs of rapidly diminishing – at least in the next decade.

Fact:  The growth of online fundraising is happening but it is happening much more slowly than many predicted.

Fact:  There are enormous multi-channel marketing opportunities out there for smart people with open minds."

Chuck offers ample evidence for each of these fact statements in his paper.

Well argued, Chuck … we’ll give you a raise!

Tom

• An impressive 79% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video;
• That translates to nearly 152 million U.S. Internet users watching an average of 111 videos per viewer;
• The average online video viewer watched 385 minutes of video, or 6.4 hours in the month;
• 107.1 million viewers watched 6.8 billion videos on YouTube.com (63.5 videos per viewer; other video sites in top 3 include MySpace and Hulu); and,
• The duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes.

With four-of-five netizens watching online video, that means your donors almost assuredly are. Are they watching any from you?

comScore notes that the average length of videos watched is increasing. Consumers are getting comfortable with the channel. That means you have 2-3 minutes to tell your story in a compelling fashion in the second highest impact medium yet invented (next to face-to-face recommendation by a trusted friend).

Are you up to the challenge?

Tom

Their key observation is that broadband penetration is increasing most dramatically in population segments that have traditionally lagged — older Americans, lower income households and rural residents. For example, between May 2008 and April 2009:

• Broadband usage among adults ages 65 or older grew from 19% to 30%;
• Among adults ages 50-64, broadband usage increased from 50% to 61%;
• 35% of respondents living homes with annual household incomes of $20,000 or below now have home broadband, compared to 53% of those with HH incomes of $20,000 to $30,000, and 85% penetration for those with household incomes over $75,000;
• Among adults whose highest level of educational attainment is a high school degree, broadband adoption grew from 40% to 52% (compared to broadband penetration of 83% in homes where a college degree or more is highest level of education); and,
• Adults living in rural America had home high-speed usage grow from 38% in 2008 to 46% in 2009

Why is this important to nonprofits?

From a fundraising and issue education standpoint, more and more of the Boomer and older population — the demographic sweet spot for fundraising — now has broadband. And Internet usage studies indicate consistently that access to broadband terrifically increases both the amount of time users spend online and the range of online activities they engage in (e.g., more information searching, watching of videos, purchasing online and using social nets).

It also means that if your target audience is older, lower income or rural people, the online medium is reaching the critical mass to play a more meaningful role in your communications and program delivery strategies.

Pew observes that a majority of home broadband users see a home high-speed connection as “very important” to at least one dimension of their lives and community, such as communicating with health care providers and government officials, or gathering and sharing information about the community.

For example, 68% of home broadband users said such a connection is “very important” (31%) or “somewhat important (37%) for finding out what is going on in their community. And 58% of home broadband users said such a connection is “very important” (23%) or “somewhat important (35%) for sharing their views with others about key issues.

Speed and the "always on" aspect of broadband really count!

Tom

In case you need further convincing, here’s how two of our readers responded:

From Jay Love, eTapestry:

"Tom, your thoughts on usability testing are right on the mark.  So often NPO sites seem to go out of their way to make the key objectives of the site difficult.  Among the common objectives mishandled in some manner is collecting email addresses and more importantly the permission OK to communicate on a regular basis.   Building a relationship will be key, as we all know, to obtaining ONGOING financial support.

We learned even more regarding usability testing through our partnership with PayPal for the creation of BlackbaudNow.  We used PayPal’s usability lab to reveal much more than we imagined with regard to how the average citizen reacts to a web site.   As with so many things in life, the subtle tiny differences add up to huge changes in the successful achievement of objectives.   I highly endorse usability testing.  You never know if the person who opts out before leaving their email address and permission to contact them is you next legacy donor!"

From Steve MacLaughlin, Blackbaud

"Usability testing is one of the more under utilized things you can do to improve your online results. It doesn’t require a lot of resources or costs to do even basic testing. I highly recommend Steve Krug’s book "Don’t Make Me Think" which is written for a non-technical audience.

The Nielsen report covers a lot more than just online donations. It really gives a good breakdown of some nonprofit website design best practices.

Some good nuggets in the report include:

• Fixing a process with even minor usability problems might increase donations by 10%.
• The most frequently mentioned turnoffs was a lack of or unclear description of an organization’s mission, goals, objectives, or work.
• Confirmation pages are critical on both e-commerce and donation sites. However, non-profit and charity sites must include a confirmation page as part of the donation process, which should include a receipt for tax purposes. Additionally, a receipt should be emailed to the address provided during the donation process.
• Some charities, especially those that support medical research, treatment, and support, should allow users to specify an individual to make their donation in honor or memory of.
• On the confirmation page, thank users for their donation. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, but a simple recognition is appreciated. Also, it’s nice to reiterate how the money will be used.

The report should pay for itself if you try just a few of the recommendations."

‘Nuff said?

Tom

Without a very clear understanding of the person, customer, or donor you are trying to reach, speak to and elicit a response from, you’re doomed from the start.

How many times have you begun to prepare a fundraising mailing or e-appeal or persuasion campaign without focusing explicitly on your target respondent? Agencies, arguably, are trained to do this. Certainly they should bring this question to the table. But in-house staff tend to get complacent over time … "we’ve been around for centuries … of course we know our audience." Famous last words!

If there was ever a commercial that targeted a message to its audience with precision, here it is. Somebody thought about the target respondent on this one!

Warning: The cause is Everyman, whose issues are prostate and testicular cancer. And this commercial, dealing with the latter, was prepared for the UK, where edgier advertising is acceptable. It employs sexual content … some tastes might be offended.

Are there other, better, less salacious ways for Everyman to get its message across? For example, here is the more traditional approach one might find online. But what would prompt an individual to undertake the Search in the first place? You tell me.

Tom