When it comes to donor communication, one of the most common methods to segment lists is donor level. While that may seem intuitive, you’re almost certainly leaving money on the table.
As an alternative, Ceci Dadisman published an article at ArtsHacker this week that provides four key aspects of moving your donor communication to the next level.
- Identify your most highly engaged donors, no matter their “level”.
- Create messaging that will be compelling to each segment.
- Don’t include an ask in every communication.
- Use all of your communications channels.
At the heart of this guide is the notion that donors should be segmented on engagement levels. After reading her outline, I could think of dozens of instances where I’ve seen development communication produce counterproductive results for no other reason than they weren’t connecting with donors in a way that accurately mirrored their engagement.
Each of the four points above includes expanded content with examples.
Another good element of this approach is it helps break down the devo/marketing silos that are still far too common inside most nonprofit performing arts orgs. If nothing else, this approach is a great use of your time as an exercise in pushing back against those self-imposed performance limitations.
Related Posts
-
In the wake of the economic downturn, we’ve heard a lot about large donor burnout. The large donor well running dry is a frequent…
-
Last week's post about limitations in many of the box office and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms that specialize in the performing arts field…
-
As if he wasn't already bringing his A-Game on a regular basis, Joe Patti recently published an article at Butts In The Seats that…
