Are hidden friction points in your donor journey causing you to lose valuable supporters?
In today’s fast-paced world, people are constantly bombarded with distractions and have little patience for complicated processes. Any friction in your donor journey—whether it’s before, during, or after making a donation—could deter potential donors from completing their contributions, leading to missed opportunities for your nonprofit.
That’s where donor journey optimization comes in. This strategy involves analyzing and improving each step of the donor's journey, from initial awareness to post-donation follow-up.
Optimizing the donor journey makes it easier for your donors to support your mission. This can increase donor retention and boost donations. In this article, we'll cover how to optimize the donor journey, including crafting compelling messaging, leveraging technology, and personalizing communication.
Understanding Your Donors
The first step to optimizing your donor journey is to understand your donors.
- Who are they?
- What motivates them to give?
- What are their preferences and behaviors?
By answering these questions, you can tailor your messaging and communication to resonate with your donors.
Here are some strategies to gain insights into who your donors are.
Conduct Surveys
Donor surveys are a powerful tool to gather donor feedback and insights. You can use online survey tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to create and distribute surveys. Make sure to ask questions that are relevant and actionable, such as "What inspired you to donate?" or "What could we have done better in our donor communication?" or “Was there any part of the donation process that was difficult or confusing?”
Analyze Donor Data
Your donor database is a goldmine of information about your donors. Use website analytics tools and your CRM software to analyze donor data and identify patterns and trends. For example, you might discover that donors who give a certain amount, a specific type of gift, or through a certain channel are more likely to give again or support a certain program.
Create Donor Personas
A donor persona is a fictional representation of your ideal donor. By creating donor personas, you can better understand the needs, motivations, and preferences of different segments of your donor base. There are online tools that can help you create donor personas based on demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data.
Mapping the Ideal Donor Journey
Once you have a deep understanding of your donors, the next step is to create a map of the donor journey. The donor journey is the sequence of touchpoints that a donor goes through from initial awareness to post-donation follow-up.
By mapping out the donor journey, you can identify gaps, pain points, and opportunities for improvement. Here are some tips to creating your donor journey map.
Identify Stages of the Donor Journey
The donor journey typically consists of four stages: Awareness, Consideration, Donation, and Retention.
- In the awareness stage, the donor becomes aware of your organization and mission.
- In the consideration stage, the donor evaluates whether to donate or not.
- In the donation stage, the donor makes a donation.
- In the retention stage, the donor receives post-donation follow-up and engagement.
Identify what each of these stages looks like for your organization currently.
Identify Touchpoints at Each Stage
A touchpoint is any interaction that a donor has with your organization, such as visiting your website, receiving an email, or attending an event. By identifying the touchpoints in each stage, you can understand the donor's experience and expectations at each touchpoint.
How do your staff and organization interact with donors during each of these phases? Make a list of any time the donor sees or hears from your nonprofit from the moment that they learn about your organization.
Map Out the Donor Journey
Once you have identified stages and touchpoints, you can create a visual map of the donor journey. Include every point in time that a donor has a touch-point with your organization. In today’s world, it’s imperative to have a multi-channel approach so you can interact with your donors in multiple places, wherever they are.
How to Identify Friction Points in Your Donor Journey
After mapping out the donor journey, the next step is to identify and address pain points. Pain points are areas of friction or frustration in the donor's experience that can lead to drop-offs or disengagement.
By addressing pain points, you can improve the donor experience and increase donor retention. Here are some common pain points in the donor journey and how to address them:
- Lack of clarity: Donors want to know where their money is going and how it will impact the world. Provide clear and transparent information about your organization's mission, programs, and outcomes. Use visuals, stories, and testimonials to illustrate the impact of your work. On your donation page, list specific dollar amounts and corresponding results that could come from that level of donation.
- Complicated donation process: Donors want to make donations quickly and easily. Make sure to streamline your donation process by reducing the number of steps and clicks required. Optimize your website, use a mobile-responsive donation form, and offer multiple payment options.
- Lack of follow-up: Donors want to feel appreciated and valued after making a donation. Make sure you have a well-thought-out stewardship plan. Send timely and personalized thank-you messages, share updates on the impact of their donation, and use segmentation and automation tools to deliver relevant follow-up communication.
How to Reduce Friction in the Donor Process
Optimize Your Fundraising Landing Pages
A landing page is a standalone web page that is designed to convert visitors into donors. A well-designed landing page can increase donation conversion rates and reduce bounce rates.
Here are some tips for optimizing your fundraising landing pages:
- Keep it simple: A cluttered or confusing landing page can overwhelm visitors and reduce conversion rates. Make sure to keep your landing page simple and focused on the donation goal. Use clear and concise headlines, subheadings, and bullet points. Use high-quality images and videos that illustrate the impact of your work.
- Use persuasive copy: The copy on your landing page is crucial in persuading visitors to donate. Use persuasive language that emphasizes the benefits of donating, such as "Your donation can save a life" or "Join us in making a difference today." Use social proof, such as testimonials or donor badges, to build credibility and trust. Pose thought-provoking questions like, "Will you help preserve our public lands for generations to come?"
- Optimize for mobile: More and more donors are using mobile devices to make donations. Make sure to optimize your landing page for mobile devices by using a responsive design, larger fonts, and clear call-to-action buttons.
If you haven't looked at your donate page in a while, it's probably time to evaluate it for the user experience. NextAfter shares a Donation Page Friction Template to analyze your donation page and identify any areas of improvement.
Use Personalization and Segmentation to Reduce Friction in the Donor Journey
Personalization and segmentation are keys to building strong and lasting relationships with your donors. By personalizing your communication, you can show your donors that you care about them as individuals, not just as donors. Plus you won't bother them with communication channels they don't want or campaigns they don't care about. Everybody enjoys wasting less time!
To begin personalizing your communications, start with segmenting your donor list. Segmentation is the process of dividing your donor base into smaller groups based on shared characteristics, such as demographics, giving history, or interests. By segmenting your donor base, you can deliver targeted and relevant communication that resonates with each group. This can be done in your CRM, email marketing software, or by using other tools like nonprofit wealth screenings.
Once your list is segmented, you can incorporate dynamic content into your communications. Dynamic content changes based on the recipient's profile or behavior.
For example, you can use dynamic content to show different donation amounts based on the donor's giving history or to show different impact stories based on the donor's interests.
If a donor donated $50 last year, you may want the pre-populated options to be $25, $50, $250, and $1,000. But if that donor has donated $1,000 each year for three years, you may want to adjust the pre-populated choices to be higher - $500, $1,000, $2,500, $10,000.
Carnegie's Nonprofit Development Specialist, Megan Lencoski, saw this play out while working for a local nonprofit.
Before segmenting, the organization would mail an appeal to 6,000 donors. After segmenting their list to only donors who have donated to that specific campaign in the last five years, their mailing list was decreased to less than 1,000 people. This drastically decreased their printing and mailing costs. They also had a better sense of who they were talking to and could tailor their ask directly to them.
As a result of the segmentation, Megan and her team saw an increase in total dollars raised for that campaign. Paired with the decrease in expenses, they declared the segmentation a success!
Measure Success and Make Data-Driven Decisions
Measuring success is crucial in optimizing your donor journey. By measuring key performance indicators (KPIs), you can track your progress, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions. Here are some KPIs to track in your donor journey optimization:
- Conversion rate: The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who make a donation. By tracking the conversion rate of your campaigns, you can identify which touchpoints or landing pages are most effective in converting visitors into donors.
- Retention rate: The retention rate is the percentage of donors who give again. By tracking the retention rate, you can identify which donors are at risk of lapsing and which retention strategies are most effective.
- Average gift size: The average gift size is calculated by taking the total amount a donor has given and dividing it by the number of times that donor has given. By tracking the average gift size, you can identify which segments or campaigns are most effective in generating larger donations.
- Cost per acquisition: The cost per acquisition is the cost of acquiring a new donor. By tracking the cost per acquisition, you can identify which acquisition channels or campaigns are most cost-effective.
Reduce Donor Friction to Increase Donations
Donor journey optimization is a powerful strategy to boost your fundraising success. By understanding your donors, addressing pain points, and measuring success, you can create a seamless and engaging donor experience that can lead to increased donor retention and donations. Remember, donor journey optimization is not a one-time project. It is a continuous process of testing, learning, and improving.
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