2. Running a major appeal gives lots of direct
marketing opportunities, but what happens
with the new donors once the appeal has
finished?
This session will look at the donor journeys that
RLSB put in place after their Little Heroes
Nursery appeal finished in October 2012.
With donors recruited via SMS and direct mail,
we'll look at how we kept in touch and put in
place a communication strategy that has
massively increased lifetime value compared to
previous recruitment activity.
3. What are donor journeys?
Why are donor journeys important?
Key principles of good donor journeys
The Little Heroes campaign
4. What are donor
journeys?
A series of donor communications
that are designed to form a coherent
and logical progression.
Donor journeys should inspire and
emotionally connect with donors so
that donor loyalty, commitment and
long term value is increased.
5. Your task
Turn to the person next to you. Describe a
donor recruitment campaign or product that
you currently use. What is your current
communications plan for these donors?
At the end of the session, I will give you
some more time to chat about how you can
improve the donor journey for his campaign
or product.
24. First gift – thank you
letter & invite to open
day
No – not attend open
Yes – attend open day
day
Face to face ask for Send letter about open
regular gift day and survey
Responders – record
Yes – thank you card & No – thank you for
preferences/thanks for
handwritten letter attending and survey
donations
Survey response –
record Non-responders –
preferences/thanks for general programme
any donations
Survey non responders
– general programme
25. Results based on small numbers and so
aren’t statistically significant.
26. Results
Cold Mailing - no welcome process - 15 months later
• 64% of donors have given once
• Average income per month, per donor is £1.12
• Average income per month, per active donor is £3.08
• No donors have a regular gift.
Cold Mailing - welcome process - 6 months later
• 70% of donors have given once
• Average income per month, per donor is £1.56
• Average income per month, per active donor is £5.29
• 8% of donors have a regular gift
• Every donor who visited the nursery has given again
27. Room for improvement
• Could work harder to capture phone
numbers and make better use of the
phone.
• Still have 70% who have given only
once – need to get this below 50%
by end of year.
28. One –off SMS donations
Panels on trains
and poster
campaign - £3
donation ask
Followed up with
an advocate ask
Then converted to
direct debit
29. First text – receive a
thank you message
and link to appeal
website
Advocate call – ask
Unable to contact for
them to spread word
advocate call
about the appeal
Yes – sent e-mail and No – thank you for Sent update texts
relevant info texting in about appeal
Update e-mails and Sent update texts
reminders about appeal
30. End of appeal –
advocates thank you
& DD ask
Yes to DD –
personalised thank
No to DD
you & invite to visit
nursery
Personalised
Sent regular giving by
Christmas card
text ask for Christmas
designed by nursery
appeal
children
31. Results
• Advocators were 15% more likely to
set up a direct debit
• No direct debit attrition after four
months
• Had 5% response rate to one off
donation requests
• 1.5% converted to regular giving by
text
32. Room for improvement
• Could have done more with the
outbound texts – with our limited
resources it was hard to keep on top of
this.
• Should have called people quicker –
ended up having to outsource advocate
call.
• Still need to work on maximising value
of prospect pool.
34. Your task – part two
For the donor recruitment campaign or
product that you discussed earlier,
think of three things that you could to
improve the donor journey and
experience.
36. • Donor journeys are an integral part
of your donor recruitment strategy.
• Remember the four key principles.
• Effective donor journeys massively
increase the lifetime value of your
donor base.
