Tag Archive for: nonprofit communications

Data Management: Empowering Communications

That’s a bold statement: “empower your communications through data management.”

After all, data management is the process of organizing and structuring data in a way that it is easily searchable and useable.

While it isn’t always the most interesting task of an individual’s job, it is very important to format your data so that you have easy access to it. Although you use data management for any type of data, it’s mostly used for structured data.

One example of structured data would be donor information, such as names, addresses, and emails, as well as giving history. You can also use data management for unstructured data like videos or photos. But what does managing your data have to do with your communications?

Data Management Graph

In a 2019 survey, Everyaction and Nonprofit Hub found that 90% of their respondents collect data. However, only 5% said they are using the data. So you’re collecting all this data. What can you do with it?

How to Affect Fundraising Communications with Data Management

How you manage your data affects your fundraising in a variety of ways. The data you collect helps to design strategies and, ultimately, communications.

Your data management strategy is the key to a successful nonprofit communications strategy. Each nonprofit should have a data strategy in place to make sure that they are collecting the right data and using it effectively to reach their goals. In order to reach your goals, you need to manage all the aspects of your data.

More and more nonprofit organizations recognize the importance of managing their data. They realize this critical information provides an opportunity for them to innovate and improve upon their communications. In addition, nonprofits can use data to create a better donor experience, potentially increasing donations.

This isn’t just about keeping track of the data, it also includes knowing how to use it.

What data do you need to collect in order to be successful?

There are many ways to collect, analyze and act on data that are relevant for your communications.

Before you can manage your data, you need to collect it. Using social media, direct mail, or landing pages is a great start.

What Types of Data Should You Collect?

Data collection is the first step in any data management process. To collect data, you need to know what information you want, where to find it and how to organize it. Once you collect that information, you can use it to track trends and, of course, for your communications.

Some data that you should collect and manage for your nonprofit communications are:

    • Demographic data (gender, age, ethnicity)

    • Geographic data (state, region)

    • Behavioral data (online behavior, engagement with social media)

    • Transaction data (donations, memberships)

    • Interest data (clubs, sports teams, participation at events)

How To Use Your Collected Data

Now you can use your data for a variety of purposes. Data is the one asset that you can use to maximize your marketing efforts. To put your data into action, you can use it for direct mail, email, digital ads, or web design.

Direct mail: Direct mail takes your provided data using variable printing. It goes way beyond personalization. All of that demographic, geographic, behavioural, transactional, and interest data can now intertwine throughout the copy and imagery.

Email: You can send trigger emails based on behavioural data. This is an efficient way to reach out to your donors while you are top of mind. Tease your donors with a story via email and drive your donors to your donation page or your website.

Digital ads: Digital ads are an excellent way of reaching out to people who are on the go and have their attention focused on their phones or tablets. You can use them to target previous visitors from your website or your social media. You can even serve up ads to your direct mail list!

Website: You can personalize your website based on the data you collect from your donors and the content they are interested in. This will help make sure that your website stays relevant to them and that you continue to engage them with the content they want.

Conclusion: Time to Power Up Your Communications

The data that you collect from your donors is critical to the growth of your organization. You can increase donations, manage the donor relationship, and create a more personalized experience for them. Developing a strategy around your data management only enhances your communications.

At BCG Connect, we protect your data and use it to provide more effective marketing campaigns. We have several ways to use your data into the creative, copy, and visual elements. If you’d like to know more about how we can help turn your data into powerful communications, get in touch with us.

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5 Statistics to guide your direct marketing planning

Maybe a list of direct mail statistics is all you’re looking for. But wouldn’t it help to have the reasoning behind the statistics, too?

First, direct mail marketing is an old school marketing technique that has been around for decades and it is still one of the most effective ways to reach out to your donors.

So why are you still having to defend the use of direct mail to your director or board? Below, we’ve listed the top 5 direct mail statistics that will support your direct marketing strategy for your nonprofit.

Direct Mail Statistics InfographicStatistics That Defend The Need For Direct Mail

1. 42.2% of direct mail recipients either read or scan the mail they get.

The primary goal of direct mail is to get the recipient’s attention and convince them they are the hero of the story – impacting your organization with their gift. This type of communication is simply too powerful to ignore. How you approach the content depends on telling a compelling story through pictures and words.

2. Direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to process than email.

As a physical object, direct mail allows the person to interact with the mail in order to read the message. It elicits a 20% motivation to respond. Our attention is far more in tune with direct mail than an email.

3. Donors are 3X more likely to give online in response to a direct mail appeal than an email, according to MobileCause.

While email is a viable communication tactic for nonprofits, it’s the mighty direct mail piece that enables action. Research shows that when you combine direct mail with email communications, the response rate is 25% higher.

4. 73% of American consumers say they prefer being contacted by brands via direct mail because they can read it whenever they want.

The way you communicate with your donors has changed, and so has the way they want to be communicated with. This is because donors have more demands on them and are busy than ever before. A direct mail piece provides a break from the digital world that inundates them.

5. Up to 90% of direct mail gets opened, compared to only 20-30% of emails.

Direct mail is an effective marketing channel that has a higher response rate than email.

A study by the Direct Marketing Association found that the average response rate for direct mail is around 3.35%, whereas email’s average response rate is only 0.1%.

Here To Stay

There are many people in the US who enjoy checking the mailbox. In fact, four in ten Americans of all 20 and over enjoy this activity. Not only do we look forward to receiving a piece of mail, but we hold on to it for a long time. In an average household, we usually discard mail after 17 days.

Therefore, direct mail marketing is alive and well! With so many digital channels competing for attention, direct mail is a smart way to get your message across.  We live in a digital world, but that doesn’t mean there is any less demand for physical products. As the amount of spam mail and junk posts has increased, we have encountered a huge rise in paper mail!

A Greater Sense of Urgency

Donors prefer reading direct mail because it’s more personal and supports the relationship between you and the donor.

Ok, here are some more statistics that support direct mail.

Based on USPS research, 55% of people said they “look forward” to opening their mailbox, and 56% stated that they find receiving and reading mail enjoyable.

People who see print marketing are more likely to trust it than other channels. This is because of print’s high credibility rate: 56% of customers find it to be the most trustworthy type of communication. Trust is important to consider when you ask donors to contribute to your organization or institution.

Direct mail is more cost-effective than other methods, because it enables you to personalize your appeal. Direct mail also drives higher response rates and is a lot more fun!

Could a more creative approach to personalized direct mail improve your organization’s fundraising programs?  Click here to start the conversation about how we might be able to help.

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