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Don't Forget About Engagement!
Recently I heard a podcast featuring Tom Ahern. He’s a brilliant, experienced direct marketer/fundraiser. On the podcast he said that nonprofits simply need to do just three things:
- Ask for a donation
- Thank the donor
- Report results back to the donor
I disagree. There’s a very important step that must not be neglected: ENGAGEMENT!
Engagement is the glue that ties it all together! And these days you can do it online. Here are some huge benefits of online engagement:
- Today you can reach and engage more people with powerful, inspirational, and motivational involvements at their convenience.
- It’s inexpensive (especially compared to setting up and running an event).
- You can easily track your prospects’ engagements in order to build “engagement scores“. By doing so, you’ll be employing the ultimate lead qualification instrument. Simply stated… no predictive model or wealth screening can beat the power of real-time tracking and engagement scoring.
Tom is an outstanding direct marketer with tons of experience in direct mail and traditional marketing channels. So I can understand why he didn’t include engagement on his list. Traditional direct marketing is a one-way conversation. Online marketing is a two-way conversation (and sometimes a group or community conversation). He may not be involved in developing online engagement offers very often. In case you’re wondering what I mean by “engagement offers”, here’s a short list of ideas for you:
– Video conferences (or live events)
– Google Hangouts (or Skype chats)
– Calculators
– Quizzes
– Individual or community chats
– Video downloads
– Games
– Widgets
The list is endless!
My advice to Tom (and you) is that the list should look like this from now on:
1- Ask for a donation
2- Thank the donor
3- Report results back to the donor
4- Offer an opportunity for engagement (in-person or online)
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Feeling like your job is getting harder because donor expectations have changed and competition for the charitable dollar is growing?
Finding that the old orthodoxies and conventions espoused by so-called experts in online echo-chambers and at conferences don’t work anymore?
Want to help more people make impact by facilitating their acts of philanthropy but feel like too many obstacles keep getting in your way?
Then this book is for you.
Engagement Fundraising was developed from the perspective of a donor who discovered firsthand that the impersonal, spray-and-pray approaches of his beloved charity were not only offensive but also wasteful and ineffective. So he took action. And now, you can too.
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