Nonprofit Expert Episode 39 – Click, Connect, Give: Turning Digital Touchpoints into Donor Relationships

DonorPerfect

Welcome to Nonprofit Expert, presented by DonorPerfect.

Darryl Moser

Welcome to the Nonprofit Expert podcast presented by DonorPerfect. My name is Darryl Moser. I am a DonorPerfect product manager, and my passion is all things tech related to helping Read More

DonorPerfect

Welcome to Nonprofit Expert, presented by DonorPerfect.

Darryl Moser

Welcome to the Nonprofit Expert podcast presented by DonorPerfect. My name is Darryl Moser. I am a DonorPerfect product manager, and my passion is all things tech related to helping nonprofits succeed. Today, we’re exploring how to get digitally connected to your donors and why connection matters. With me today is Matthew Montoya, senior manager, indirect customer ops and success. But let me focus on customer success because, Matthew, you and I have known each other for a long time, and the information that you bring to our customer is incredible. So is incredible. So please tell us a little bit about your role at Constant Contact and why nonprofits are inspired, by the work that you do.

Matthew Montoya

Well, thank you for the kind words, Darryl. I have been with Constant Contact for fourteen years now. Now going into my fifteenth year, I can’t believe it. And, my role at Constant Contact has been purely to teach Constant Contact, teach digital marketing so that nonprofits and for profits are successful. I have a particular, place in my heart for nonprofits, as people that have seen me through DonorPerfect, through the webinars and live sessions that we’ve done in person, they may have heard that, I worked for a nonprofit preceding my time at Constant Contact. I worked at a nonprofit for four years, and it was, the hardest job I’ve ever loved. It was a very small staff, two people, the executive director and myself, couple of volunteers, and we had to wear a lot of different hats. And, you know, finding time to do digital marketing was hard. We had a lot of other things to do. And yet the importance of doing marketing and and digital marketing, was always there. And so I am particularly passionate about taking my knowledge of digital marketing, marketing, and Constant Contact to help nonprofits grow because I wish I had had somebody like that to help me, when I was at

Darryl Moser

the nonprofit. Absolutely. Absolutely. Makes sense. And with digital marketing, one of the things that is so key right now in the nonprofit space is connection. And how do you actually establish connection when you’re not shaking a hand, when you’re not maybe face to face with someone? And so, really, this first question digs into how does digital connection differ from traditional forms of communication and fundraising? Matthew, what what are your thoughts on that?

Matthew Montoya

Well, digital connection, you know, is actually pretty unique compared to other kinds of media because it’s immediate, but most importantly, it’s measurable. And I’m gonna talk about that because that’s where I’m particularly passionate when it comes to digital marketing is being able to measure. And it it’s more than just measure success or failure. It’s a the ability to measure interests. So digital marketing, when you especially email marketing, when you deliver email marketing for a nonprofit, sure, you’re trying to get the message out. Sure, you’re trying to get people to to take the action, make the donation, get volunteers, inform the public. But the magic of digital marketing, especially email marketing, is the ability to measure interest. When you send an email, the audience, the subscribers are letting you know what particularly they’re interested in, And the savvy nonprofit is gonna take that information and cultivate it so that they’re sending more relevant content to the people that said, yes. I’m interested in that. Yes. I’m interested in the other. And in a interesting way, you have a connection with people because you’re sending them information that they’re interested in. How do you know they’re interested in it? Because they rose their hand by clicking on a button by clicking on a link. And you’re able to send that that more relatable content to them bridging that connection.

Darryl Moser

Absolutely. And one of the things that we call the connection measurement inside of donor perfect is is their engagement. And so a lot of the data that we get back from Constant Contact in the integration shows up in terms of opens and clicks and so forth. And we can get some real information. As you said, it’s a measurable form of engagement and how well you’re doing at the connection. So both traditional and digital are merely forms of communication. But what are the key differences, and how do you speak or communicate digitally? Do you change your message at all?

Matthew Montoya

Yes. Yes. I do. So in hearkening back to the first point I made, which is the more relevant you can make content, the more relatable it’s going to be. But one thing that I have seen nonprofits struggle with in my fourteen years is, one, taking this idea of segmentation, of taking a large list and cutting up into smaller list. If anybody watching. If you want to imagine oversimplification of this idea of segmentation, it’s donor v non donor. Right? That’s a very binary version of segmentation. You would want to talk to previous donors differently than people that have yet to donate. Right? So one is nonprofit struggle with that idea. And I get it. Small staff, busy. Matt, now you’re telling me to send out two emails rather than just one. If you want to be most successful, yes. The other thing I find nonprofits struggle with is keeping their content when it comes to email marketing short. Brevity really matters. Brevity, timing, and relevance are the key pieces of email marketing success. Messages need to be short, very intentional, very tailored. The power of that is that you are able to give that relevant content where people can scan it and understand what it is you’re trying to do very, very quickly. On top of that, you wanna think beyond just email marketing, but digital marketing. Right? So an omnichannel type of experience. You wanna meet people where they are. So it’s more than just delivering an email, more than just hitting post on social media. It’s about engaging people broadly where they are. If we think about it, and I’d be willing to bet that most people, tuning in, probably already doing social media marketing. It’s generally gonna be the first thing that a nonprofit starts to do because it’s easy, and a lot of people think it’s free. And so if we go omnichannel and meet people where they are, fifty nine percent of potential donors generally are going to be engaging on social media, thirty three percent on email, and fifteen percent via text messages, SMS. And so making sure that we send out information that is brief, to the point, timely, and focused with that relevant content, omnichannel, meeting people where they are, we’re gonna get the best return on our time investments possible.

Darryl Moser

That’s those are some incredible stats, and I would have I would have not anticipated that social was that high. But to see a thirty three percent engagement in email and, of course, we know that SMS has actually been a growing segment. People are taking that as their preferential communication means. And when you talk about segmenting and one of the most common ways is trying to differentiate between the donor and somebody who is actually just paying attention to your organization. And I oftentimes think about, you know, are you speaking with empathy? Can you imagine what it would be like to be a donor and not be recognized for the fact that you’ve given a gift? To be treated as though you’re almost like brand new to the organization or even on the flip side as if you’re somebody who’s not given to the organization yet and being labeled as thank you for your gift. I mean, those simple kinds of faux pas are things that we wanna try and avoid with the segmentation. So sending the right message to the right people at the right time and in the right channels, you were just speaking about that in terms of those three different channels. So how is the fundraiser to know the right everything? Like, how do you know if you’ve got it right? I mean, you talked about measurement a bit, But

Matthew Montoya

it it really starts out with listening. So when you are communicating digitally, and when people react to that, whether that’s a like, a comment, a click in an email, a response via text message, they’re speaking to you. They’re talking to you. They’re talking to you through those tools. And so it is important, in fact, I would dare say imperative, for a nonprofit to listen. So many times, I’ve talked to nonprofit leaders who are very proud of themselves and rightfully so that they got the message out. Oh, I got it out. Now let’s move on to the next thing. And I’ll say, okay. Well, what are your results? What? What do you mean? What are my results? No. How successful was your campaign? You you you crafted this message, sent it out through social. What was your engagement? You sent out this email appeal. What was your click rate? And it is more often than not, Daryl, where the nonprofit I’m talking to says, oh, we don’t really look at the click rate, but our open rate is awesome. Okay. Well, the open rate doesn’t really tell you anything. Now just for anybody that’s unfamiliar with with email marketing, there’s different kinds of measurements that you can look at when you send out email marketing. And the one, that most people pay attention to is that open rate, the percentage of people that you sent an email to that opened it. The problem with open rate is that it simply doesn’t tell you anything. There’s several reasons for that. One is somebody may have received an email from you, opened it, immediately closed it. Well, you really can’t pat yourself on the back with that. Two, they could have had the their email program show a preview. Well, that counts as an open. But most impactfully is back a couple of years ago, Apple changed the rules and now mark any email that lands on their devices, any device, as opened. And so open rate has always been problematic, but now it’s even more problematic. And so when I ask these nonprofits about what’s your click rate percentage, how how are you doing with click rates, that is the most important metric because that proves the email was delivered, proves it was read, proves it was opened, and tells a nonprofit specifically what people found of value in that email. And if we think about it, let’s imagine a world, Daryl, where a nonprofit sends out the most beautiful email. In fact, it has a very clear call to action, donate now. That’s really all the email has is the ability, or the offer to donate, and somebody clicks a link in there. Well, what are they telling that nonprofit? They click that donate link. They’re very invested in that communication. They’re very invested in that nonprofit. And so if I was running a nonprofit, I would be paying very close attention to that click rate because that subscriber is speaking back to me. And I was certainly paying attention to the delta between people that clicked the donation link but didn’t donate because that’s telling me something very important that this person is very close to donating, but they need a little bit more encouragement. And I might send a follow-up email to them to push them over the edge to make that donation.

Darryl Moser

Absolutely. And it’s interesting you talk about that. And, of course, you know, in our business with with the tech, after you click that link and you get to the donation form, that’s another piece of technology that we have to make sure is absolutely spot on. And coaching our nonprofits to be able to develop a form that is actually very welcoming and receiving and simple to use and make it easy to give is another one of those reasons that you have to be able to convert that click rate into an actual gift. Matthew, you talked about actually speaking to your donors and measuring things like click rates. Do you ever suggest that they also try and grab an anecdotal feedback or pick up the phone and talk to them? How would you fit that into your feedback?

Matthew Montoya

Absolutely. I mean, let’s call it like it is. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest a nonprofit solely do appeal emails. There’s several reasons for that. One is you might be diluting the story of your nonprofit if you’re only asking for donations. Two, not every person that might be on an email list is able to donate right now. There could be things going on in their lives or busy or whatever the case is. They’re just not at the point right then to make a donation. So if we solely ask for the donation constantly, well, we could be burning out our list, right, because they’re just unable to take action right then. And that comes back to relevancy. If I keep getting nothing but appeal emails from a nonprofit that maybe I even care about, like, I’m motivated by and move by, well, what they’re teaching me is that my communication has no value, right, that it is irrelevant to me. And what will happen is that I will start to tune out the marketing coming from that nonprofit, and that’s the danger zone. A lot of nonprofits are very concerned about unsubscribes, and I could go on for a whole podcast on why unsubscribes are not necessarily something to worry about. The bigger danger is people just tuning you out. And so you want to have regular non appeal communication. You can have a donation link in an email, but you wanna do storytelling. You wanna talk about how, the nonprofit is impacting the community, how you’re making right with the mission, how, donations are being leveraged to help the world or whatever it is your nonprofit does. And so that’s one way to balance out just solely asking for money all the time. The other piece is when, coming back, to your question, when you send out emails and and you have content beyond just the appeal, you can actually learn more about your subscribers. So imagine an email that has, you know, my donation button, but also a story or two. Perhaps there was an event. Perhaps there’s something done in the community. Well, when people click on links to learn more about what you did, you’re learning a little bit more about the subscriber. Now this is a broad audience. Right? So all of you are servicing different needs. You have different kinds of, events and other things going on in your world, but let’s just kinda simplify it. Based on let’s say that I have a a an event, write up about an event that I held. Well, I’m learning that this subscriber, is interested in events. They’re interested in this kind of activity. Perhaps if it was a very geographically based event, I’m learning that they live on this side of town or they’re more likely to do x y z. And so it is important to balance out the communication with content that will motivate the audience, but also give the nonprofit the ability to listen for more details about the subscriber. Because as I said, every single time email marketing is sent out, audience is speaking to you. You need to make sure you listen.

Darryl Moser

Excellent. Excellent feedback on that. And so one of the one of the pieces to really look at too is with digital marketing, there is a cost associated with that, but the whole cost metric and the ROI changes. Tell tell us a little bit about, you know, if you’re gonna get this kind of good information back from doing digital marketing, what are your expenses, and and what kind of, statistics do you end up seeing in that area?

Matthew Montoya

Well, you know, the the the the long walk, I’ll take you on this one, Daryl, is, when I first started fourteen years ago at Constant Contact, you know, I’m very excited to get this job at a software company. And, you know, total of my friends, I’m working at Constant Contact, and they’re like, congratulations. Keep your resume polished. That’s a odd thing to say. They say, well, because email marketing is going out of business. Now if we think back fourteen years ago, Facebook was really surging. Right? It was revolutionizing the way we communicate, revolutionizing the world. And the the common thinking back then was that the social media was just going to devastate email marketing. We’re still here. We’re still here. And the reason for that and, firstly, you know, anybody that’s listening and watching, look at what’s in your inbox. You’re getting emails from large corporations and small nonprofits and medium sized nonprofits. They’re still using email marketing. Why? Because of the ROI, the return on investment. So the average return on investment is thirty six dollars for every dollar spent. And email marketing is remarkably effective because it’s not that expensive. And so the ability to get thirty six dollars for every dollar should be very encouraging to a nonprofit who probably doesn’t have large margins to begin with. So you can have a very effective way to communicate with people without much cost out of pocket. The other power of email marketing besides its fantastic ROI and besides its ability to have you be able to listen to people is that it’s ubiquitous. I would dare say that anybody watching or listening, if you think about your own life, what was one of the very first things you did today? Probably pulled out your phone. Sure. You looked at your notifications and social media, but you probably checked your email. Ninety one percent of humans check their email daily. Sixty one percent actually like getting promotional emails. Now you might go, well, we don’t promote. Yeah. You do. You’re just promoting a different kind of product. And the reason why people enjoy getting those kind of promotional emails is that they’re relevant. Right? And that they if I’m getting something that is useful to me, then I’m gonna like it, and I’m gonna take advantage of it. And so for those reasons and much more, you get that consistent visibility. You get that consistent return on investment that can continue to drive the mission of the nonprofit forward. It’s hard to beat.

Darryl Moser

That’s excellent. That’s, I mean, it’s a stewardship of the nonprofit. It’s spending where you’re going to get the return. And one of the stats that you you had in there, and I just wanna pull that back up because it really kinda blew me away, because people used to ask, well, how how many times per month per year should I be emailing my donors? And the sixty one percent of consumers that enjoy receiving weekly, right, that’s that’s kinda different than the age old, like, back in the day when we started with Constant Contact. It was like, well, once a month, we’re gonna send out a newsletter via email. So this weekly creates a higher frequency of context. And is it how do you change what you put in those weekly emails?

Matthew Montoya

Well, you know, it first starts honestly, it first starts with taking a big step back and going, how segmented can I make my list? You know, I gave the example, the binary example of donor v non donor, but there’s a wider way that you should approach segmenting your list. Now each nonprofit might have wildly different variations on this, but you could have geographic segmentation or demographic segmentation. Are they interested in this, that, or the other? And so that empowers a nonprofit to send more emails. I wouldn’t consistently send an email to the same group every single week, but I may send more targeted emails more frequently. The reason why you can get away with that is because it’s useful. It’s got that content in, that is going to be relevant to the audience. The other piece of that is making sure that you are consistently sending out that useful information. You don’t wanna email just email. I’ve met so many nonprofits that just they feel compelled. We’ve gotta get that bimonthly email out no matter what. Well, make sure you’re taking time to not just think through segmentation, but also think through, is this content useful in developing unique and appealing, pun intended, content. Don’t just send to sit.

Darryl Moser

Makes sense. Makes sense. So your discussion about relevance is gonna lead us into this next, topic area, which is storytelling. So in order to build a connection, we know that, the donors have to be able to feel, like they’re a part of your organization. They know what you do. They know why they give because there’s stories that they’ve heard inside of your organization that just really moved their heart. So this first question was, Matthew, in your fourteen years, I mean, is there any one story that has jumped out at you from the nonprofit community as to, like, this incredible compelling story? And and what what can we learn from that?

Matthew Montoya

I I have a story about storytelling. So my first five years at Constant Contact, my job was to travel the country three weeks out of four, and for two or three days of that week, teach an eight hour long digital marketing class. And in part of that class, we would talk about storytelling and how important it was to make your content reflect your audience. So many for profits and nonprofits make their content all about them and not about their audience. And as a way to illustrate this power of storytelling, I, and it it seems so, full of forethought now, but it was really me just trying to connect to my my class. I said, alright. Well, you know, we’d had introductions a couple of hours before, so I knew which nonprofits were in the room. Having come from a nonprofit, I knew that nonprofits should be able to do their storytelling well. Well. Right? And so I said, hey. You’re a nonprofit. Tell us your story. Tell us about your mission. Person who tells story, tell a mission. And I go through the two or three nonprofits that I have on on average. And one time, I was in Hartford, Connecticut, and this part of the class was usually an hour five or so. And, I call in my nonprofits to tell their stories. And maybe my second or third nonprofit, who I picked to tell their story stood up, and she said that her nonprofit was devoted to crafting paper flowers. That’s interesting. Tell us more. They crafted paper flowers for kids in the hospital with cancer. And the reason for that is that some kids, you know, the the the pollen and and the flowers were problematic in the hospital. And they would donate these flowers, these beautiful flowers, very artistic. They donate these flowers to the children. And there was a not a guess, but you could tell as the person and the person was telling the story very, very emotionally, of how their their nonprofit was built. And you could tell it was it was moving the class. And the person, that I picked, went on to say, I did this because my child had cancer, and they later passed, and I decided to devote my life to this. And everybody was just kind of in awe. And this might sound like hyperbole, Daryl, but it’s not. Three people, four profits, stood up and said, can I donate to you? Can I give you some money, like, right now? And, they did. And I said, that’s the power of storytelling. Right? Is is taking the the the importance of the nonprofit, the mission of the of the nonprofit, the vision of the nonprofit, the background, the history, the impact, and relating it to the audience. And that story has stuck with me ever since. That was such a moving experience. Beyond just what that woman and her nonprofit does, it was just amazing to feel the energy of the impact of a nonprofit live in person.

Darryl Moser

And I think that’s that’s key. Like, literally, I had the chills running down my spine as you told that story. And that’s the first time I’ve actually heard you tell that one, Matthew. That’s kind of a a really interesting but so appropriate for what we’re trying to get across. And now we actually have new tools inside of digital storytelling that you can use inside of your email and so forth because it’s really hard to get that emotion across. I mean, when you were teaching in the class, that person was live. They had the their voice tonality and everything else like that could change. So tell us a little bit about how tech has given the ability to put tonality in your email and your communication and so forth from Constant Contact.

Matthew Montoya

Well, one thing I did with that person, and anytime that I I did this piece of the class where I had nonprofits tell their story, is I would then turn around to the clients and say, now capture that story and insert it in your email. Capture that story. Well, there’s a couple of different ways. One is the written word. I mean, you can tell the story through the written word, and it can motivate, move people. Just tell the story to begin with. But with digital marketing, you have the ability and the the the absolute power of video. And, you know, it’s it’s it was true fourteen years ago, and it’s more true now than ever. Video is the king of content. Putting a video in your email, is really powerful because if, you know, if I use a picture of what my nonprofit does, well, that’s beneficial, a photo, because a picture tells a thousand words, and we spend very little time actually in an email. So the fact that that picture is telling a story is great. But we think about video. Video is a thousand pictures. And so we have the ability to communicate very clearly, very adeptively, but tell that story where you can feel the emotion. You can hear the inflection. You get those pauses. You get that human piece of the marketing. And it is the human piece that motivates people. You know, the old saying about all buying is emotional. Well, I would dare say all donating is emotional. You know, the more that we can relate what we do as a nonprofit to our audience, the impact, the movement, the energy, the passion, the more you’re gonna pull on people’s heartstrings. And some of you might go, well, that’s cheesy and that’s cliche. That is what makes people open their their wallets is is the impact and the emotion emotional humanity of what you do is going to motivate people to do something.

Darryl Moser

So they’re hearing this story, and they’re feeling connected to the nonprofit. And the reason that people are opening up their wallets and And it’s interesting. So, Matthew, one of the things that you may have heard me talk about this in some of our other work together is is, like, there’s disc profiles. There are people that get motivated through, like, a statistical impact, you know, knowing the numbers and hearing that. But the reality of it is is those numbers are just a different form of communication to evoke emotion. Right? And so but one of the things that we hear from our donors inside of the donor perfect world is that people give because they wanna know that they can make an impact. They would like to know where their money will go and how will it actually change, what will the outcome be. And there’s a whole discussion inside of the nonprofit community, as opposed to outcome versus outputs. And and outcome is really changing the world that we live in. And that’s what drives a lot of the motivation to when people end up giving is is that they’re going to feel and sense some of that. When we talk about those measures, what does Constant Contact see? What have you seen, the emotional versus measured outcomes? How does one digital communication satisfy those donors?

Matthew Montoya

Well, I’m gonna give you probably not the best example of this, but it is one that is real, and it affected me. So I regularly listen to my public radio station. They have a here, it’s a jazz station, and I grew up on jazz. My my dad, my grandmother, the big jazz fans. And, they were doing as as as NPR does. They’re a constant appeal, a monthly appeal. And I said, you know what? I have never donated to my NPR station. And so I got on my computer, and I donated. And I got an email back saying, thank you for your donation. You have enabled us through your gift to play, it was like, two days worth of music. And I sat back and I said, wow. That’s really cool. I am I am providing jazz to my community for two days. But you know something else happened. I was like, just two days. I could give more. I mean, I’d like to supply them a month’s worth of music. And guess what I did? I donated again. I became a monthly giver. And and so that is one illustrative of sending that that relevant content, thanking people for their action, but it was a really clever piece of marketing because I’m wondering if my NPR contact, the person that actually set up that email, knew what they were doing. Like, that, you know, obviously, what they were looking at, and I I highly suspect that this is true, is they were truly giving me that quantitative, like, this is your impact. But they also knew that I threw in I can’t I can’t remember what I threw in, but maybe twenty five dollars. And so they knew that, you know, okay. Twenty five dollar gift. You know, this many hours of music. That’s probably not gonna be enough for this person. Right? Like, they know that my persona is trying to, give, but also there was that element of, like, I’m doing this for others. Right? Almost a selfish act. Like, I am providing the world with music. Look at me. And and I thought that was such a clever piece of marketing. And it showed me that they were listening, they were watching, and they were anticipating my next step. And I I’ve loved that they’ve done that. And, I mean, I’ve now been a monthly, give a monthly contributor. I wanna say this was six years ago. Oh, it was during COVID. So, this would have been five years ago.

Darryl Moser

Interesting. So you also touch on something that we get asked a lot is is, should I ask them to give again and the thank you? But think about, as you said, the craftiness of that communication was very smart in terms of talking about the impact. And we know that not only in the email communication, but even when you get to the donation form, if you can translate the dollars into impact. So many people will, you know, have a meal, or we will be able to provide housing for this. It’s some material form that is measurable. And just like you said with NPR, you were actually able to see your way through to delivering more music to more people just because you could make it tangible at that point. It wasn’t just dollars and cents anymore.

Matthew Montoya

They they pulled on my heartstrings, to be honest, and I I don’t want people to over index on what I’m saying. I felt a built felt a bit guilty, and I don’t think that that was their per se intent of the the reply back. But it was certainly my response is that, you know, quite truthfully, I was in a position where, yes, I could afford more than that one gift. I felt like this is enough, and it gave me a chance to really look at what I actually wanted to contribute. And I don’t mean that financially. I mean, like, I really want to have a stake in this. This means something to me, and I wanna play a role. And so the idea of on that donation form, in my email marketing, in my social media marketing, in my text marketing, reflecting back the human side of whatever it is you do, not just here’s the pictures of the kids we help or here’s the community center we built or here’s how we enhance this this garden. It’s also realizing that your subscribers, your your your followers on social media, they’re human, and they are paying attention to you because they have a need to. Mhmm.

Darryl Moser

Mhmm. Very, very true. Very true. So one of the other pieces that we can take from the storytelling is the segmentation. Right? And so one of the things that we’ve we’ve learned is that segmentation can deliver six times, the the donation rates, that are out there. That’s when you think about six times the number of dollars that are coming in, if you intelligently segment your communication going out to your donors, what are some of the best means that you have found to divide up your list, to change what you’re saying to your donor community? What’s going to create that kind of six multiplier impact?

Matthew Montoya

Firstly, this is gonna be for part of the audience. I hate to say it, but I’ve just seen it. I don’t have a percentage breakdown, but I know that part of your audience is suffering from what I’m about to describe, which is we are well beyond the days of the one email to everybody. You know, that that classic monthly newsletter sent out to the entire world. A lot lot of people call it an e blast, an email blast. Nothing wrong with the concept of the newsletter. Nothing wrong with the concept. You can call it an e blast if you want. More, I’m talking about that one omnibus email sent to everyone. The reality is the average email subscriber spends nine seconds with an email. Nine seconds. We’ve talked earlier about the power of the ROI in email marketing, the power to tell a story and affect people emotionally through digital marketing. But we have a nine second window of time in front of people, Daryl. And gone are the days where we can send out that one email for everyone because how in the world is that email gonna be relevant for everyone? Our goal as nonprofit digital marketers is to remember that the email is not the destination. Social media post is not the destination. The SMS text message is not the destination. It is an advertisement for the destination. It is a billboard for the destination. We want people to get in that email, click and go as quickly as possible. And where do they go? Well, maybe they go to our donation form. Maybe they go to read some more blog content. Maybe they go watch a video about the impact of the nonprofit. We want that click because, one, it’s measured. We talked about that earlier. But it also shows a commitment. When somebody decides to click on a link, they’re saying, okay. I want to learn more. They’re now more invested. Now they’re gonna spend more time. Now they’re gonna think about the impact, the pros, the cons. Now you’re gonna have a chance to pull their heartstrings. And so the that comes back to segmentation. Segmenting our list allows us to send the most relevant content possible. So what are some ways that you could do that? It is going to depend on the nonprofit audience today. For some of you, it’s gonna you’re really gonna wanna look at the that geographic breakdown, especially in, like, large metros. If you’re trying to do, let’s say, an event, right, or maybe some volunteering opportunity, You need to be conscious that it could be very, very hard for people to do something in the southeast, and your thing is, and they’re they’re living in the northeast part of the city. We have to be conscious of that. You also wanna think through your demographics, and the demographics could be age based, income based, especially income based. And some of you may go, well, I don’t know the income level of my audience. Well, you you can ask, and you can ask through email. Like, hey. We’re trying to communicate to you better. Click on your approximate income level. Right? You wanna think through what people’s roles are, and and what kind of influence they might have. And then also behavioral. Pay attention to those clicks. Pay attention to past donations. Pay attention to who’s not interacting. So many people, when they look at digital marketing metrics, they get very excited about the people that are taking action. And I get it. Right? You’re getting more donations. You’re getting more volunteers, more attendees. But think about those people that are not taking action. If somebody willingly gave you their email address, if they’re willingly following you on social media, if they willingly gave you their phone number, permission permission to text them, They’re more invested, obviously, than somebody who didn’t. But then if they don’t take action in any of that digital marketing, we’re losing them. And so you definitely wanna pay attention to the people that are not taking action and change the way you communicate to them. I might carve out the people that have not interacted, let’s say, with my email marketing in a while, and I might try a different kind of email communication, more strong verbiage in my subject line, different kinds of content to try to get them engaged again. So many nonprofits ignore the people that aren’t paying attention to their content.

Darryl Moser

Interesting. Interesting. So those are all great examples of the way that nonprofits should be looking at their data. And, again, a lot of that data ends up coming, you know, from the CRM with the integration that we have with Constant Contact. We’re able to send in your lifetime giving. What was the date of your most recent gift? Some of those income demographics and so forth are actually, data appends that we can put into the donor perfect CRM that then feeds Constant Contact to try and make the information that you’re sending out via email more relevant. So all of this works together to create a really winning combination of being able to fundraise. One of the other pieces that we’ve been talking about for a while, it’s been in the for profit space, has been multichannel. And so, in a couple of weeks, actually, I have to give a presentation speaking about the donor tendencies of millennials and the new generations that are coming along, and we talk about email and social and SMS. And we’ve had some SMS products that have been out there for a while. You used the term ubiquitous earlier in our conversation. It has not quite gotten to the point of being as ubiquitous as being email communication. But generationally, do you anticipate that this could change? Do you see that future generations are going to be more receptive to wanting to see SMS as their mix of communication.

Matthew Montoya

I mean, we see it in our data, at at Consticonder, but I also see it just personally. I mean, you know, my teenagers will text me from their bedrooms. It’s I I I I would I would caution everybody though not to over index on the generational piece. I mean, I don’t wanna use my own personal story too much here, but my father, he is in his late seventies. He is omnichannel. He likes social media. He communicates via email. He texts. He likes phone calls. Like, don’t assume, oh, well, our generation’s older. Our our audience is older, so they’re gonna be more likely to to check email. Yes. There are delineations around age, but the more important thing is think omnichannel. Try to communicate in a variety of different digital spaces to meet your audience where they are. If it’s a millennial who’s in email, you’re meeting that that millennial. If it’s a baby boomer who is on social, you’re meeting them there. Like, don’t assume the generational divide. Be, where your audience is, and your audience is spread across the digital landscape.

Darryl Moser

That’s really good feedback. And sometimes, I think you’re exactly right, Matthew. I think we want to think about it as being a generational box, but it’s not. It’s not. We’re seeing that there are different skills and interests and and, just preferences of communication. So

Matthew Montoya

When you go omnichannel, you can extend a donor’s relationship up to sixty, up to seventy six percent. And what that kind of metric tells me is that we do need to to stop thinking so, generational. You you you need to be as an and then is in as many places as you have the time to be there. Don’t don’t ignore a social don’t ignore a digital marketing channel because you assume your audience isn’t there. You’re gonna be leaving donations on the table.

Darryl Moser

That makes sense. So our last topic here is what we wanna what we call call to action. And, so all of this communication is great, but there is a desired motivation of what we wanna see this prospective donor do or donor from the past. So tell us a little bit more about how does the call to action fit into the digital communication styles that you’re talking about? I know we talked about the donate button, but, you know, are there better lead in methods that will you know, placements? All those things as to you know, what what’s the best way to approach a call to action inside of it?

Matthew Montoya

I’ll I’ll focus on email. So as I said before, you have about nine seconds with your audience. And so you really want to focus on making your email as simple as possible. So as I said, gone are the days where we can have five or six or seven articles with seven different links or fifteen different links with ten different images. The more simple you make your email, the more successful it will be. So what does that mean? That means about a paragraph of text, one image not including your logo. And I would suggest no more than two calls to action. Now when I say two, that little bit of a pregnant pause there was intentional. I would actually have very clear button in my email, donate now, attend, register, whatever it is, and I would make an image. An image is important, having an image because that image tells a thousand words or a video be clickable to the same location so that you’re giving people two ways to get to the same location. You want to have that very simple, noticeable call to action, because one, nobody actually reads content in an email. They scan and they skim it. And so they’re gonna get the gist of it. What’s in it for me? And then here’s what I want you to do. And when you have a clear call to action, you can increase clicks up to three hundred and seventy one percent. Already talked about the importance of clicks. Right? You’re getting to learn more about your subscriber. The three hundred and seventy one percent increase in your click rate is going to mean more to your bottom line. They know exactly what you’re asking to do, and you make it easy for them to do it, you are going to see an increase in behavior. Similarly, one of my most passionate, items that I talk to nonprofits about is make sure you also have automation set up to, at the bare minimum, welcome people to your email marketing list. When you send out a welcome email think about it, Daryl. If you go to my nonprofit website, you’re motivated, you give me your email address. Well, it would be very smart to immediately send you an email thanking you for subscribing, and I would be very smart to put my donation link in that email and tell you about the impact my community, my organization, provides for the community and how you can help impact that that mission. Because automated welcomes generate a hundred and sixty percent higher open rates and six hundred and sixteen percent higher click rates. Because when somebody subscribes to an email, that is the most motivated they are going to ever be. And so if you take anything out of today’s presentation, hopefully, it’s segment, tell your story, and please set up a welcome email tied to when somebody joins your list.

Darryl Moser

Wow. That’s incredible. Those stats are are crazy, and there must be something about the timing as well. And I don’t know if there’s any material on it as to, like, how quick should it be? I mean, we’re living in a world where this could be seconds.

Matthew Montoya

Yeah. Instantaneous. Like, no more than five seconds. And Constant Contact has the power that when a contact is either added to a list through DonorPerfect or through a a form fill, you can immediately send out that email automatically.

Darryl Moser

Wow. Responsiveness. It means that the the prospective donor knows that you’re paying attention or at least that you have the systems set up to pay attention. So we would be remiss in having a technology conversation in this day and age without at least touching on AI. And so we’re on the topic of connection here, and how do we establish connection? We talked about segmentation. So my question is is is AI going to be a help to us in this daunting task of connecting to donors, Or is there a chance it can go in the wrong direction? Like, people will begin to see through it and say, oh, that’s an AI message.

Matthew Montoya

I I would dare say a little bit of both. So firstly, I use artificial intelligence all the time, every single day. Artificial intelligence is built within Constant Contact to help a nonprofit build that perfect email with that clear call to action, right content. But AI should help you, not replace you. Yes. There is AI written content that does feel canned and, dry. AI should be a help. It should actually be your cowriter, not your voice. So I’ve been in marketing for over twenty years. I’ve said several times. I’ve been at constant contact fourteen years. I know how to write marketing copy. I know how to write effective marketing copy. But the fact that I can get AI to craft up think of it as a draft. Right? I put in my ideas. I get the draft. Well, that just saved me five, ten, fifteen minutes that I can then further refine the draft, bringing in my humanity and having that human piece just can’t be replaced. Having that piece of the storytelling that’s clearly coming from the heart, clearly coming from the mission, is is still going to play a role. But artificial intelligence can help quite a bit in crafting a strategy but also content. But you should think of it as an assistant, not a replacement.

Darryl Moser

That’s great feedback. And the balanced approach is is usually the best way to go. So, Matthew, as we wrap up today, I wanna thank you so much. Again, our guest is Matthew Montoya from Constant Contact. He is so knowledgeable in terms of how to communicate with our nonprofit community. Matthew, if there was one call to action that you have for our listeners today, what would it be as you leave them?

Matthew Montoya

Well, I’ve proven I can’t give one word answers, Daryl. I’ll I’ll say a few. Set up that welcome email. Set up that welcome email. Make sure you’re taking a step, back and saying, am I sending the most relevant content possible through multichannel, omnichannel marketing? And if you are a DonorPerfect customer, do know you have Constant Contact available to you for no extra charge. Use it. Get the word out. Use the power of DonorPerfect and Constant Contact together to help grow your mission.

Darryl Moser

Awesome. Thank you so much, Matthew. And, we just really appreciate your input and how you share with this community and how much it means to all of us that, you know, work with nonprofits every day. So thank you all.

Matthew Montoya

Thank you, Darryl. Thank you, everybody.

DonorPerfect

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