The End Game: Plan the End Before You Plan the Beginning!

When you look to the end game — your users' experience, the donation, the giving — you need to look at the ease with which the conclusion of the proposed transaction is made. Consider all the time, money and effort spent to direct your alumni, supporters or targeted prospects to the landing page when the result is abandonment — ouch! — followed by shock, stress and questions. If you then ignore the result, it may lead to a repeat performance of the abandonment response.

An inventive method of replacing this negative result with a more positive response (which is not always a donation) is to use a deep-marketing closing tool. This tool offers multiple uses and promotes a variety of actions, including establishing dialogue and developing an engagement. The actions are fully measurable and can enhance the potential of positive user responses.

The drive toward end-result tools such as landing pages, microsites and squeeze pages is clear, but is the strategy? Do not use these tools for the sake of using new tools; use them as a predetermined integrated component within your overall integrated marketing communication (IMC) program. Also, don't go in blind. Using a tool that is not measurable and not based on solid knowledge of your market is a waste of your time and money, and may provide a negative user experience.

Landing pages are easy to create. Great and very supportive firms such as XMPie, MindFire, EasyPurl and others offer the mechanism to convert a static reply page into an interactive tool. However, it is vital that any closing apparatus you create be based on the four principles that make up the foundation of effective IMC — relevance, integration, interaction and measurement (RIIM) (along with results). Your closing or end game must include a measured, predetermined formula of RIIM designed to attract the prospect via a behavioral review of the "what" that makes the targeted prospect donate.