How Omnichannel Campaigns Can Deliver the Experience Donors Actually Expect

The for-profit world has raised expectations for how nonprofits should engage their supporters.

“Our donors expect from our nonprofit partners the same experiences they're getting with a Netflix or an Amazon, if you will,” Ryan Katz, president of Moore’s Edge Direct Division, said.

That means they want the nonprofits they support to know who they are and what they care about across any channel, whether it’s direct mail, connected TV, paid social, email, or something else entirely. Asking a donor for a gift via email after they’ve just made a donation through another channel can fall flat. That’s why your nonprofit’s omnichannel campaigns must create a cohesive experience for donors.

The Role of Data

For Ashleigh Lambert, vice president of client strategy at Allegiance Group + Pursuant, data is what omnichannel campaigns hinge on. She said that without some mechanism connecting information across channels — even a manual sync — there's no real omnichannel program.

“The real point of the omnichannel is that you're leveraging that data so that, ‘Oh, I see that [the donor] did this thing here, therefore I'll give them a different message in this other place,’ or ‘I'll do the next step in order to move them in the journey,’” Lambert said.

She said your nonprofit’s CRM is the foundation for doing this.

“That's really going to be your source of truth on the gifts that are coming in again, or your audience segments — how you're classifying various people, whether they're volunteers or actual donors, etc.,” Lambert said.

To take it up a level, marketing automation tools can communicate with donors on one channel based on activity on another channel. Katz said this can help nonprofits reach donors via multiple channels simultaneously.

Data cleanliness is non-negotiable, especially for complex omnichannel campaigns. Lambert said teams can do this manually, but services exist to clean up data records at scale.

Why Silos Undermine the Donor Experience

Many nonprofits already have CRMs and marketing automation tools. The challenge they face, Katz pointed out, is siloing. In omnichannel campaigns, what’s typically siloed is how nonprofits are thinking about the channels themselves.

“I don't want to be talking about a sustainer and how they're just going to engage with a CTV spot,” Katz said. “I want to talk about my sustainers in general and all the places in which they're going to engage and how they're going to measure on the platform. So, even if you're siloed by channel organizationally, making sure that you're having conversations about those audiences in a confined structure.”

Silos show up in other ways, too. For Lambert, it’s critical that the omnichannel campaign is managed with consideration to what’s going on with the rest of your organization.

It's not just about your team or your channel, and it's also not just about that one campaign,” she said. “There's an arc throughout your entire year. For example, we might also have newsletters that are going to go out, or we're going to have an event, and we have a peer-to-peer type of component that we want to engage people in. So, what are all of those things, and then how does your work tie into that? Thinking about it in that way can be daunting because it really requires you to step back.”

On the creative side, Lambert said it’s important to recognize that siloed work functions may cause teams to work harder rather than smarter.

“Is there something that your team can use and not either create new or duplicate because it might already exist?” Lambert said. “I think what we tend to see is just because of these silos that happen within organizations — because they think that their functions are so different — they duplicate lots of work. So, honestly they’re getting in each other's way with who they're talking to, the stuff that they're sending out. That lack of coordination is really a problem.”

When the System Works, Donors Notice

When that coordination works, donors stop receiving duplicate asks, irrelevant appeals, or tone-deaf solicitations right after they've just given — and that alone improves the experience. For instance, having a strong system in place to manage donor contact information is crucial to creating an omnichannel campaign that’s not disjointed.

“If Ryan has multiple emails, for example, I need to make sure that I'm talking to Ryan utilizing the best email and only that email, so he's not having the same experience across different email platforms, if you will,” Katz explained.

Additionally, if someone made a gift through a link delivered via text message, you wouldn’t want to invite them to give through a different channel immediately afterward. Doing so might make the donor feel that their gift is underappreciated. Katz said getting as close to real-time data collection can help.

“Trying to ingest that data as much as you can in real time to ensure that you're creating a seamless donor experience — whether it's trying to get them to convert or … engage in a gala or maybe even volunteer for an event — getting that data as best as possible in real time in a similar spot is only going to help you ensure that it is a seamless donor experience,” he said.

Lambert added that strong planning — not just on the creatives but on the touch points of the campaign — is necessary. Direct mail, follow-up email, and retargeted ads each need to be coordinated on both timing and segmentation. A direct mail package may have a longer response tail, for instance, while email follow-up and retargeting run concurrently with slightly different messaging based on what was sent.

“All of that has to be coordinated so that it feels like somebody's naturally moving through a conversation with your organization,” she said.

Progress Over Perfection

Both Lambert and Katz acknowledged that taking on this omnichannel work can put strain on nonprofits’ already limited resources — and that institutional cultural norms may need to shift.

“It's wonderful to be like, ‘You should do omnichannel campaigns and you should have a coordinated effort,’ but at the end of the day, they might really be fighting an uphill battle,” Lambert said.

However, teams should focus on doing what they can because any progress is a step in the right direction.

“[Nonprofits] really have an opportunity to put the donor at the forefront of the conversation,” Katz said. “... Just to make it as much about them as you can will help them become more engaged and more loyal to that nonprofit.”