All you have left from Thanksgiving is pants that don’t fit as well as they used to, and the holidays are staring you in the face. If you haven’t hit your nonprofit’s fundraising goals, it’s too late, right? NO!
NextAfter is an organization that helps nonprofits grow their fundraising, so VP Nathan Hill was the perfect choice for our December webinar. Nathan chatted with us about data-driven techniques to amp up your fundraising at the end of the year.
In case you don’t have time to watch the webinar, we’ve got all the tips you need right here. What follows is a recap of NextAfter's presentation.
December is 1/12 of the year. The last week of December is 1/52 of the year. So how can it possibly be so important?
Here are some statistics to put it into perspective.
So you slept on GivingTuesday? It’s okay. Wake up now because you have plenty of time to knock those fundraising goals out of the park.
The risk lies in not really focusing on GivingTuesday, and then not really focusing on the last week of the year, either…especially since the last week of the year brings in 924% more revenue than GivingTuesday.
Let’s look at each one.
What emails can you and should you be sending?
The key concept is to increase urgency without rehashing all the reasons donors should give.
They know, from all your past communications, why your mission matters. Your job now is to compel them to give amidst many competing voices.
There are three categories of emails you can be sending throughout the year-end season:
Closer emails remind your donors there’s a deadline. This can mean using words like “give now!” or a countdown. This email doesn’t offer reasons why they should give, it clearly states that they should give now instead of later.
There are a few communications in closer emails that work:
In a test of a longer email describing why someone should give and a shorter email that reminded them to give, the reminder led to a 30.7% increase in donations.
Another type of closer email is a reminder of the deadline reminder you sent. This is a kind, personal email that’s sent to donors to ensure they didn’t miss your deadline. You can forward your appeal email and ensure they saw the deadline. Data shows that this “forward” email leads to a 73% increase in donations.
At this time of year, your website visitors are motivated to give. How can you ensure your website will make it easy to get them to follow through?
The key concept is to make it easy for people to find where and how to give.
There are design elements you can include to light the path for donors. These can include sticky bars, homepage ads, pop-ups, or slide-outs.
Let’s start with your navigation.
When we look at your navigation, where is your “give” or “donate now” button? Studies showed that even making this button higher contrast – an easy fix – led to a 28% increase in clickthroughs.
In another study, a treatment that increased the contrast of the donate button led to a 190% increase in donations.
When someone new looks at your website, be certain they immediately know how to donate.
What about homepage ads?
You can use lots of the real estate on your homepage for ads, but it’s important to know when they will perform the best.
One example was evaluating the homepage banner on a nonprofit site. It urged donors to “double your gift!” and drew attention to exactly how they could donate.
When the ad ran in the first half of December, the conversion rate was 1.1%.
When the same ad ran in the last week of the year, the conversion rate was 4.6%.
So when you run the ad is almost more important than what the ad says. Your takeaway is that you’ll see results from a homepage ad at any time, but it will be most impactful running at the end of the year.
How about the message? It’s important to be clear about the reasons to give and how that gift will make an impact. In this example, explaining how donors can change a life led to a 35% increase in donations.
How about timed pop-up ads?
These can be a little obnoxious, which you know if you’ve tried to get a recipe you’ve pulled up on your phone.
But used carefully, they’re effective. When someone has been on your website for ten or 15 seconds, it can be a simple and gentle reminder that time is running out to give. Don’t put it on every page of your website, or you’ll veer toward obnoxious! Place it carefully and sparingly.
In this example, a simple, benefit-driven popup resulted in a 56.7% increase in clicks.
An abandoned-cart popup is one you might see after you fill your shopping cart online and then get distracted and forget to check out. In this example, you’re asking the donor to complete their donation with the click of a button. This led to a 41% increase in donations!
Pop-up ads can drive new donation page traffic, capture exiting visitors, and remind donors to complete their gifts.
In-Article Ads
This technique can be effective when a donor is reading your content. It’s an ad that looks like a native piece of content and discusses the opportunity to give. Studies show this can be enormously effective.
And finally, how about a homepage takeover?
This is a little complicated, but it’s basically replacing your homepage with an appeal that links to a donation form. It’s a one-click gift.
You can include a link to bypass the appeal to keep the user experience smooth.
While this example showed an 11% increase in donations, it’s interesting to break those numbers down further.
Use this homepage takeover technique in the last two days of the year for maximum effectiveness.
There are a few essential things you can do on your donation page during the year-end season to increase conversions.
The key concept is to emphasize your incentives and increase urgency throughout.
Regardless of how you’re reaching out to your donors, you’re sending traffic to your donation page. But this can cause whiplash…your campaign materials—whether direct mail, email, ads, or even your website—all talk about why your cause matters and how donors can help.
When they’re spun off to a donation page that doesn’t communicate any value, they can get whiplash. And whiplash, as you’d guess, is a pretty crummy donor experience.
You need a cohesive year-end donation page. This can be as easy as updating your regular donation page with some of the messaging you’ve been using, but you do need to send folks to a dedicated year-end page.
Here are some reminders for the donation form adjustments:
Here’s a thought on progress bars. This study tested a “thermometer” approach versus a “power hour” approach. In the former, they found that people felt as though their donation was ineffective. In the latter, donations rose 25%.
We wouldn’t leave you with all this advice and no idea of how to implement it! Here are some tools to check out:
For sticky bars and popups, check out Unbounce or Sumo.
For countdown clocks, try MotionMailApp or Powr.io.
And for dear-readers ads or customizations on your pages, give Google Optimize a shot.
And its match is you!
So much of the content we share is designed to educate nonprofits on the best way to raise money and make their mission more achievable. Armed with these tips from our friends at NextAfter, you’re already well on your way to making a huge impact in the last week of the year. If you would like to take a look at our platform, trusted by nonprofits like Wounded Warrior Project, just ask us to show you.