Right now, we’re heading into the busiest and most fruitful time of year for nonprofit fundraising.

Around 30% of all online donations are made during the year-end period - when people are in the holiday giving spirit ahead of the tax deduction deadline. In addition, donors make gifts 80% larger (on average) during December when compared to other months.

This means it’s important for nonprofits to pull out all the stops for a solid year-end digital fundraising strategy. These days, you can’t just launch a few appeals and cross your fingers hoping for the best. With that said, here are 5 industry tips organizations can use to promote giving during year-end.

1) THINK ABOUT DELIVERABILITY

You’re all set up and ready to send your first message. You’ve chosen your audience. You’ve crafted your copy. You’ve designed your heart out. You’ve thought of everything, right?

WRONG. Your year-end campaign could be the best campaign the world has ever seen, but if you don’t check up on your deliverability – it’s possible that a good portion of your list will never even receive it.

Email service providers like Gmail could be withholding your messages from hitting the inbox. If open rates take a dive, this could be the cause. If your list doesn’t seem to be opening and clicking on your messages like they used to, you could have a deliverability problem.

Now, there are lots of complex strategies for treating deliverability, but you probably don’t have the time and resources for them right before year-end. Thankfully, there is one low hanging fruit that you can grab just before your year-end campaign launches.

Suppress, suppress, suppress. Find the people on your list who don’t open your emails – let’s say in the last 12 months or more – and stop sending them messages. I know it sounds drastic, but this will weed out abandoned email accounts and people who just aren’t interested in being on your list anymore.  You don’t have to unsubscribe them entirely, but suppressing them will bring overall deliverability rate up.

2) KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO

Everyone likes to be treated like they’re special – and in this case, your audiences ARE special. They read your emails, sign your petitions, complete your surveys, and even in some cases – donate to your cause. So, take this time to thank them for all they’ve done.

Split your audience based on your internal org preferences. This could look something like: Donors, Action Takers, and Non-Donors. OR it could get even more granular – like recognizing new list members based on the action they took to get there, or emailing major and monthly donors. The sky’s the limit!

Then, all you need to do is plan just one or two sentences for each individualized audience to personally address them. Something like:

“Your recent gift has helped propel our work and continue our mission. Will you step up once more and make a donation before December 31?”

3) CREATE A BRANDED DONATION PAGE

Whenever possible, you should always create a branded donation page for each campaign you run. Your audience wants to ensure that the donation their making aligns with what they’ve seen.

This means pull over any design elements, banners, campaign matches, and deadlines onto your donation form. Messaging consistency will reassure your potential donors that their gifts are going to the campaign they intend to support, increasing their chances of converting.

4) PROMOTE, PROMOTE, PROMOTE

Yes, you’re planning on sending a few emails (I certainly hope it’s more than a few). But what ELSE are you doing to promote your campaign?

Why not post on Facebook or tweet about your campaign to increase your reach? You can use some of the copy you’ve written for your year-end messages, shorten it, and repurpose it for social. Remember these year-end posts should be added to your social media strategy, not encompass all of it.

Your organization’s website is another important part of campaign promotion. You can use tools like campaign lightboxes, feature your campaign on your homepage hero, or even redirect website visitors directly to your campaign donation page. Chances are, when someone visits your website at the end of the year, they’re already trying to donate. Why not make it easier?

5) YOU’VE GOT TO SPEND MONEY TO MAKE MONEY

That’s right – an investment in online advertising can really pay off once all is said and done. You might not see much return from folks clicking directly on your ads, but you WILL see an increased conversion overall – from people who are seeing your campaign promoted all over the place.

Search advertising – like Google ads – are especially effective at bringing new traffic to your homepage; where you’ll promote giving on your homepage hero, lightbox, or takeover.

Facebook Ads, including paid Facebook promoted posts, carousel ads, and newsfeed ads – can do a lot of heavy lifting to promote your campaign.

Try targeting donors from your email file (a custom audience), a “lookalike” audience based on custom audiences, a retargeting audience of visitors to your nonprofit website, and your organization’s Facebook fans—perhaps combined with interests similar to your organization’s mission.

So there you have it – lots of new tactics to get you started – and just in time for year-end. Happy Fundraising!

 

Jack Valor is a Digital Senior Account Executive with over eight years of experience in nonprofit and political campaign-based consulting. They specialize in email marketing, fundraising, deliverability assessment, optimization testing, and social media management. Jack has overseen strategy development for various high-profile nonprofits in the animal rights, women's rights, anti-corporate abuse, public broadcasting, and environmental sectors - making them ready for any challenge an organization may face.