Mobile campaigns have a unique value in that they are a new inroad into a donor’s cellphone. The increased usage of cellphones has changed the landscape of telemarketing, direct mail and digital campaigns; text messages are read 90% of the time, and giving on mobile devices again increased in 2018. 25% of donors have completed donations on mobile devices.

In our work with organizations that have added the mobile channel over the past two years, we have helped launch approximately two dozen campaigns to current donors, lapsed donors and non-donor prospects. The types of campaigns have varied from standard appeal and renewal messages to sustainer invites and cultivation. We’ve had the opportunity to do A/B testing and assess the ability of peer-to-peer texting to bump up giving in other channels.

P2P vs Blast/Broadcast

There are two core types of texting methods, which are commonly referred to as P2P or peer to peer, and blast or broadcast texting. 

The benefits of P2P texting include lower costs and fewer data restrictions, opportunity for highly targeted data collection, and simple and flexible interfaces that allow many organizations to manage the physical texting process internally rather than externally. Reduced restrictions on P2P campaigns also present an opportunity to message more constituents, as the process of opting-in is not a requirement for this method due to the manual sending of text messages. 

Because broadcast messaging is built around a mass blast, automated message send rather than a manual send like P2P, it is required that message receivers be opted in to receive text messages. This can reduce available quantities for text messaging, but at the same time decrease opt out rates and produce high results on the refined and smaller universe. Broadcast messaging can be a great tool for organizations with large membership bases, and it’s faster to press send on just one text that’s immediately distributed to a full file. 

It’s possible to combine both methods, keeping in mind that the broadcast file will be smaller due to opt-in requirements. It’s also possible to combine these methods with a telemarketing strategy!

KPIs

Some key metrics to track in texting campaigns are:

Opt-Out Rates—Similar to an email unsubscribe, do not call request or do not mail suppression, opt-out rates are the percentage of donors who request to no longer receive messages. Unique to texting is that once a donor opts out, they are permanently removed from texting with no gray area or way for re-entry as of right now—therefore high opt-out rates decrease the available texting universe, especially if there is limited or no growth on further developing it.

Contact and Hygiene Rates—We have also been able to establish a baseline on two critical percentages in order to help clients estimate what percentage of their donor files they will be able to text, and also how many will actually respond. These metrics are essential to estimating projected quantities and revenue potential. Based on our analysis to date, we have found that an average of 7-10% of donors who are texted respond to the initial message. When it comes to ballparking your possible texting quantities, we have also found that 20-25% of most organizations’ phone numbers already in their databases are cell phone numbers. To boost those quantities, we have recommended wireless appends for some clients through phonematch vendors, which can increase the available quantity of phone numbers by 15%-20%.

Revenue—A key evaluation tool for determining the revenue generated from texting campaigns from MWD’s perspective is the ability to not just determine the actual dollars raised from a texting effort, but also the percentage of the lift in response that organizations will see from linking a text message to a companion campaign in another channel. Based on the texting campaigns we have evaluated to date, we are finding that for revenue purposes, texting is best used as a tool to lift response for companion online and offline campaigns. Standalone texting efforts without direct mail or digital campaigns to anchor them have not yet proven to be significant revenue drivers on their own; yet there are case studies that show that P2P texting can double the revenue of a stand-alone effort.

MWD In-house Services

Is it time for your organization to add mobile as a new fundraising channel? MWD would love to help.

MWD teams are currently set up to provide several critical service components in both campaign set-up and overall strategy execution for a mobile program. We have established benchmarks for costs, contact rates and file size that have allowed us to support our clients in the budgeting process, as well as to insert mobile campaigns into integrated calendars of contact touchpoints across online and offline efforts.

As far as campaign set-up, we also assist in the creation of segmentation strategy, scripting materials, data hygiene, as well as basic set-up assistance of the texting platform of choice. We have designed scripting templates for messages and canned responses that build on successful tactics we have identified as far as length, substance and conversation paths, and have helped conduct trainings for our clients and their teams.

Our Analytics team is able to provide reporting to identify cross-over gifts between texting and other channels, and we have created customizable data layouts to help clients capture different data points identified in texting conversations.

 

Wendy Marinaccio Husman, Account Director, is a direct response professional with almost 15 years of experience in development. Prior to her work with MWD, she served as the Director of Development at Alonzo King LINES Ballet and the Membership Director at the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy; she also spent a year in Shanghai consulting on email campaigns, database setup, and direct mail.  Wendy received her Bachelor of Arts in Science, Technology, & Society from Stanford University and her Master of Arts in Performance Studies from New York University. 

   

Kate Sienicki, Telemarketing Director, has over a decade of experience in telemarketing.  Prior to joining the MWD team, Kate has built a deep bench of experience on the agency side of telemarketing, working with both political and non-profit clients and managing their results and relationships with their telemarketing vendors. Kate has a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications from Boston University.