Geared Up for Growth
Good customer matches are also key to making big files work. There’s plenty of opportunity to use those. They should be tested, along with ZIP files. And try new products. There is value to being on top of the newest products that are coming out there. Don’t be afraid to try new models, new products, new lists. And of course, along with the list plan that has you in a variety of markets, you need to be testing. And I’m not talking about tweaks to your creative. I mean test your message, test your package, test seasonality constantly. You should have multiple control packages and multiple list plans to go with those.
No. 2 is online. Creating targeted ads gives people a reason to click through. The most important part of that sentence was “gives people a reason to click through.” It doesn’t always mean give or donate. It could also mean offering them an inexpensive premium or a call to action that requires someone to give you their e-mail or their home address so you can immediately put them into your conversion program, which of course you will have ready to go before you run your first ad. And again, test. Test your ads, test their placement, test the call to action, test the landing page. Make sure your image or text is so compelling that when I look at it, I have to see more.
And then No. 3, of course, social media. Your social-media strategy should be well-thought-out and as planned and tested as every other part of your fundraising and communication plan. When you sit down to plan a fundraising strategy for a program or a campaign, everyone should ask themselves, “What do we want our community and their friends to share, like, tweet, post, pin, retweet, text, check in, forward, Digg, Reddit, upload, download, publish or in any other way participate with us on this campaign?”
