Nonprofits, Decrease The Cost of New Recruitment and Grow Your Donor Base

Just like any business, it is always costlier to obtain a new customer, or in this case a new donor, than it does to keep one.

The cost of obtaining a new interest can really degrade your budget.

It is possible to decrease the cost of new recruitment and grow your donor base with supporter engagement driven by email marketing.

Nonprofits always have a base of loyal enthusiasts.  As you know not all supporters have made monetary donations to your cause.  These people need to be motivated to do so.  When a donor is totally engaged in your cause, this, as stats have shown, moves them to gift.  Engaged supporters who already donate are noted making greater cash contributions more often.  This motivation can be achieved by marketing to your donor base.

Using marketing strategies, such as an email marketing campaign, cost-effective and will boost those donations in no time.  Use what you know about your donors to create an engagement operation that will inspire donations.

1. Analyze your existing database, categorize them into groups, for example, people who: never donated, donate once a year, donates several times a year.
2. Consider creative ways to attract new recruitments. Google AdWords is an excellent way to advertise your nonprofit: include a landing page for those interests, to sign up to your mailing list.  Apply for the Google AdWords grant which will allow you to run your ads at a steep discount. https://www.google.com/grants/
3. Review your donor base, keep it fresh. If you send to stale addresses you may be marked as a SPAMMER.
4. With Profile Pages, you can build email campaigns that target your audience, using specific demographics. Are they female, male, older, younger, pet owners, homeowners…
5. Make sure you include a CTA (call-to-action) in your email campaign. Don’t cover too much material at once, keep it simple and to the point.
6. Incorporate parts of your blog post into your mailings. Offer just enough to whet their appetite so they will click on the link to read the rest of your blog.  Make sure you place a donate button on that page too.

There are always several email tools available to personalize your messages.  Use conditional content, triggered messages: and test before you send to get a sense of what produces the best opens. (Dundee offers all these and so much more!)

Donor retention is challenging, donor engagement does not need to be.  Listen to what your followers are saying.  They don’t understand how difficult and time consuming it is for the average nonprofit to raise money. They want results; show them results in what you say with email marketing along with available social networks.