Not Enough New Donors? Maybe It’s Because You Need 10 Touches and More ‘Story’

Right about now this analysis might fall into the "nice to have" but "juice may not be worth the squeeze" category. But if we don't want to prove this through a data project, then we either must dismiss it or accept it. I am not comfortable dismissing it because I have heard and seen enough study data to say that there must be some truth to it.

So, if we believe there is truth to this, then as marketers and fundraisers we better make sure our "content" is actually working to raise awareness and, perhaps most importantly, build upon the prior communication.

This is where I get concerned. Most nonprofits have one acquisition control. In other words, even if someone got three acquisition appeals per year for three years in a row — but they all say the same thing — is that really "shaping the future donor's vision"? Shouldn't we be building a story? Shouldn't we be building our credibility, the sense of need, the urgency of our missions along the way versus just communicating the same thing over and over? My gut tells me that repetition is not what we really want to be doing as we try to acquire new donors into our organizations and missions.

Kucera references in some of his work that shaping vision is a process. In the sales cycle, he refers to the role of content marketing. "This is largely what content marketing is all about — vision shaping through information. It's for this reason that I call content marketing 'the alchemy of intent.' A big part of vision shaping is framing the challenge or even identifying a challenge the prospect didn't know they had, a 'latent need' in the vernacular. Content marketing is about using various media to turn both latent and blatant need into an intent to buy, transforming it into a sellable need."