Our Charity Dynamics retained strategic services clients receive weekly status updates that allow us to plan and track initiatives that help our clients reach their digital communication and fundraising goals.
Each week, we share the most innovative ideas we see in the industry and look for ways to keep our clients on the cutting edge. Here are three of our favorite ideas from the last month:
1) A/B Testing Subject Lines for EOY
According to research from Retention Science into email subject lines, question marks have the biggest impact on opens with a 44% higher rate than exclamation marks. Overall, punctuation marks increase email open rates by 9%. Other key findings include conversion rates are highest in July and December and lowest in January and February; and novelty items featured in subject lines boost open rates, but not conversion rates. With small changes making such a significant impact in open rates, consider A/B tests throughout your EOY program when you have the biggest opportunity to impact conversions.
2) Trend in Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: Asking donors to cover transaction fees
Today’s donors are savvy: They realize that it costs money to raise money. And as a result the trend in peer-to-peer fundraising is for donors to pay their own online credit card processing fees. This has become a trend because:
- donors are not shocked by these fees
- they like the transparency
- many prefer to pay these fees
Consider piloting this concept while continuing to measure conversion rates to ensure this extra step doesn’t reduce the number of people completing the donation form or registration process.
3) Activate Receipt Manager for EOY Sustaining Gift Receipts
For the 15.9 Luminate Online release, new functionality powered by the Receipt Manager will allow for the bulk creation and sending of aggregate sustaining gift receipts. This functionality can reduce staff time responding to individual receipt requests in additional to automating a valuable service to and touch point with your sustaining donors.
About Charity Dynamics Strategic Services Retainers:
Charity Dynamics Strategic Services Retainers are planned, hours based, ongoing engagements where project teams collaborate on the short and long term needs of the client. A strategic retainer allows for flexibility and access to the full diversity of expertise on the Charity Dynamics team including consultants, web developers, analytics, designers and UX experts. Raise more money, reach more donors and make a bigger impact by leveraging our team to meet your digital fundraising and communication goals.