It’s that time of year again! According to World Atlas, the average American spent $830 on holiday gifts in 2015 – with a large portion of that being spent on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Giving Tuesday is a way for people to create some balance with their consumer spending by giving to charities. It’s a movement that inspires people to give to the causes they love. And it’s an opportunity for people to remember your mission in the midst of their holiday shopping.
So how can you leverage some of the successful tactics used on Black Friday and Cyber Monday to improve your Giving Tuesday campaign? Let’s take a look at some common marketing practices and Giving Tuesday campaign examples that make those two of the biggest revenue-generating days of the year.
Product Curation and Personalization
Consumer brands are experts at product curation and personalization. And for good reason. According to Experian, personalized emails generate 6x higher transaction rates.
Ever noticed how you get emails from Amazon showing you special promotions on products you clicked on last week? They know that by tailoring their messaging to your habits and behavior, you’re much more likely to buy.
How does this translate to Giving Tuesday for your nonprofit? Glad you asked.
Tip 1: Curating your offer
You can curate your asks to specific programs based on what you know about your donors. It’s great if a donor gives $50 to a broad Giving Tuesday campaign, but what if they would have given $100 to a program they are especially passionate about? The more you know about your donors and their levels of engagement across your programs, the more specific you can be when asking them to give.
For example, let’s say that 15 donors clicked on a link to a video about construction on your new facility in your last email update. Send those 15 people an email asking them to give to your New Building Capital Campaign on Giving Tuesday.
Personalizing your messaging shows your donors that you know them. And as a result, they are more likely to give. Plus, leveraging the media buzz of Giving Tuesday gives you a reason to reach out to them.
Tip 2: Personalization
Take your revenue goals up a notch by challenging each donor to give a little more on Giving Tuesday. Here’s how you can easily do this.
- Run a quick report in your CRM that includes the last donation amount.
- Send the list to your email marketing system. (hopefully, it’s integrated!)
- Use your email system’s personalization or dynamic content feature to add the last donation amount into each donor’s personalized email.
- Include messaging around challenging them to give above and beyond their most recent gift.
- Hit send.
If personalization in the consumer messaging produces 6x higher transaction rates, let’s shoot for the moon on Giving Tuesday.
Promotions and Affiliates
Big consumer retailers leverage affiliate networks – people outside of their company who will promote their brands – to reach new consumers. In 2015, it’s estimated that Amazon’s affiliate program generated 10% of its total revenue.
Most affiliate programs provide an incentive for every purchase the affiliate drives to the brand. On big days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, big retailers not only provide the affiliate with an incentive (typically a commission on purchases), they also provide special promotions on products to make the messaging more compelling.
So how does this translate to Giving Tuesday you ask? Great question.
Tip 3: Utilizing your network
Let’s call your “affiliate network” your evangelist network. These are the people who already support your cause. On Giving Tuesday, ask them to help promote your mission and recruit new donors.
One way you can do this on Giving Tuesday is through a challenge grant. Here’s how it works.
- Ask one of your corporate sponsors or biggest donors to contribute a $5,000 challenge grant for Giving Tuesday.
- Set a goal for how to unlock the grant – number of new donors, the amount of money raised, etc.
- Challenge your evangelist network to help you “unlock” the challenge grant on Giving Tuesday.
Make sure to give your evangelist network the tools they need to promote this challenge. Write social media copy, include images, and provide links to your donation page.
A challenge like this builds momentum, creates a sense of community, and gets people excited about supporting your mission.
Follow Up
Once you’ve acquired your new donors make sure you have a follow-through plan in place after they donate. You shouldn’t just throw them into your current email stream. An immediate acknowledgment letter and a triggered automated welcome email series will do the trick.
If this sounds overwhelming to you, it may be time to invest in an automated tool that can do all of this – and more – for you. Integrated nonprofit CRM solutions include the ability to create custom donor receipts that send automatically every time someone makes an online donation as well as trigger an automated welcome series.
Let’s make the most of Giving Tuesday by using these three proven tactics from Black Friday to impact the world for good.
Want to learn more about the impact of a Giving Tuesday campaign? Take a look at last year’s Giving Tuesday stats and revenue figures.
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