The Least Important W: Where 

If you look at the W questions journalists are told to answer—who, what, when, where, why—each has their value. Clearly, you want to be asking the right who, with details about what they are giving to and why they (specifically) would want to give, at the right time.

This makes where – the channel of contact or the channel of gift – the least important of the Ws. In many cases, these “wheres” aren’t even the same place. People who respond to a DRTV ad aren’t swiping their credit card in the TV (yet!). More mundanely, as we’ve talked about in this blog, for many organizations, over half of the donations made to direct mail packages among those under 50 are actually made online. Thus, if you classify these donors by their “where” of donation – that is, that they are digital donor – you miss the reason they donated.

Yet, this is one of the ways donors are most often classified – this one is a mail donor, that one is a digital donor, that third one is a texting donor. And it’s one of the ways we most often organize ourselves as organizations.

Every one of your donors has a mailbox, TV screen, email address, and probably a mobile device. All these channels can be used to influence a donation, and the channel(s) of persuasion may not be the channel of transaction.

That’s why we recommend omnichannel campaigns that integrate a person’s interactions with you for a consistent experience. They talk to a whole person rather than a stereotyped “mail-only” or “digital-only” version of themselves.

Thankfully, this type of omnichannel outreach also raises more money. One organization used the SimioCloud modeling for sustainer prospects to create an omnichannel journey that included an email and programmatic campaign. The evergreen programmatic campaign featured a monthly ask for sustainer prospects that included display, video, and CTV. In the email campaign, the sustainer model audience receives monthly asks. The results of the omnichannel campaign saw an overall increase in digitally acquired sustainers of 26%, with an average gift of $52.

Creating a surround sound approach is beneficial for building viable relationships with your new and current donors. This approach can include a combination of channels such as streaming video (CTV), online video, display advertising, social media advertising, email marketing, and more.

An omnichannel strategy provides you with multiple to apply creative, personalized, and strategic methods to increase donor response. The key is coordinating messaging and offers across channels to create an integrated donor experience. These will create better conversions, better data that helps you customize communications, and thus deeper relationships.

Omnichannel donor engagement allows you to execute truly integrated, strategic campaigns that create more personalized, meaningful interactions across channels. The comprehensive nature of omnichannel makes it a highly effective approach for nonprofits as it allows you to tailor your messages to be specific to individual communities.