The Digital Donor

My Very First Experiment: How Changing One Sentence Led to a 42% Increase in Revenue

2013-07-17T12:51:00.000-05:00

It seems like forever ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a sunny February day in Miami, Florida about four years ago. I had just settled into to the Intercontinental hotel getting ready for the MarketingSherpa Email Optimization Summit. My reasons for attending was to brush up on some skills, and maybe walk away with a few new email tactics that I could apply to my nonprofit clients. After all, I was the expert, right? I was sure that everything I was going to see I had seen before, or read about online, so my expectation was that this would be a good refresher course. Boy, was I wrong.

Within the first five minutes, I had my marketing intuition challenged when Dr. Flint McGlaughlin put up a slide on the screen with the following three emails. Each one was a different version of the same content. Each was designed by a top-tier NYC agency. The audience was asked to look at each one and vote for the email that was the most optimized, that is, the email that would produce the highest response.

It might be fun for you to do the same thing. Look at each one and pick out the email that you think will perform best.

Now consider the following:

Why did you pick the version you picked?
What made you believe that this one would do better than the others?
Why didn’t you pick the other ones?
What is the criterion that a marketer can look at and know that it is optimized?

Now, here is the results of a test of each of the three treatments.

As you can see, each one performed worse than the control. Now, the control was never showed to the audience-- but it didn’t matter-- the point was that when it comes optimizing emails, marketing intuition is not enough. Testing is what trumps marketing intuition. And when you test, you need to use a rigorous methodology.

After that, I was sold. At the first break, I called my team and told them that “starting Monday, we will change the way we do everything for our clients…actually, no-- starting now.”

At the time, I was consulting with the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and my team and I were doing all of the online donor acquisition work. The very next day, we were sending an email to a few rented lists in an effort to acquire new donors. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to test some of this new “rigorous testing methodology” that I was learning, so right there--from the floor of the conference--I phoned-in our very first test. Below are the screenshots of both the treatment and the control:

Can you see the difference? It is very subtle. In fact, the only difference appears in only one sentence-- the very last sentence of the email.

Now, best practices would tell me that only 18% of people that actually open and read emails will read all the way to the bottom, so how could making a change like this make a meaningful difference?

Even my client raised this concern. In fact, he was very reluctant to do the test, but eventually did acquiesce reminding me that I was the one that would be held accountable for results. Great. I love pressure. But I really believed in the test and was willing to bet the farm on this one.

So, we ran the test. And check out the results-- the new treatment, the one with revised sentence generated a 139% increase in the Clickthrough rate and a 42% increase in revenue.

Here’s what you need to understand

The last sentence contained the call-to-action of the email. You can see an enlarged version of both the control and the optimized treatment below.

Key Principle #1 - You must make them click. The call-to-action is perhaps the most critical element of any email, and interestingly enough, the action that you want the recipient to take is always the same-- you want them to CLICK! One mistake that many email marketers make is that they often give the email recipient too much information. And the recipient responds by saying no, and not clicking through to the landing page. But the landing page is where the conversion takes place-- not the email. So the goal of the email must first and foremost, inspire the recipient to click, not give, or buy, or register-- or anything else-- just take the next step by clicking.

Key Principle #2 - Your offer must be desirable to the recipient. Look again at the control copy and the optimized copy. What conveys more value to you-- “…making a tax-deductible online contribution now” or “…[becoming] a Charter Member of the George W. Bush Presidential Center.”? Consider the exclusivity of the two offers: can I make a tax-deductible online contribution anywhere else? How about joining-- as a Charter Member-- a Presidential Center that bears George W. Bush’s name? Can I do that anywhere else? When we look at the offers in this light, it becomes very clear what is the most desirable offer.

Key Principle #3 - Increasing traffic to your landing page usually means more conversions. Here is what is interesting about this experiment. We had 139% increase in Clickthrough from the optimized treatment. That means we had 139% more people visiting the landing page where they actually could make a gift. But, when we looked at our landing page metrics, the conversion rate (the percentage at which visitors donated) was much lower, and yet we still increased donations by 42%. So how can this be? What I learned is that by focusing my email on selling a click-- not a donation-- I can get a ton more people to at least go that next step with me to learn more on the landing page. Because I get so many more people to the landing page, some of the people that would have never even considered giving a gift have the opportunity to change their mind (with a strong value proposition presented on the landing page) and donate. These are people that if had received the control version with the call-to-action to donate, would have probably said no and not clicked.

Now, it’s your turn

Now it’s time to apply what you just learned. Look at one of your emails. Examine the call-to-action. Ask yourself, “Is there an offer? Is it desirable? Am I giving people too much information in the email that can be off-loaded to the landing page thus creating a compelling reason to click?” Most email service providers can do simple A/B split tests, so why not create a little experiment. Break up your email file into two segments and send one segment version A (the Control) and send the other version b (the Treatment). Then watch and see what your subscribers tell you by the way they respond. I’d love to hear about it, so shoot me a note and let me know what you learned.

"Testing Trumps Best Practices"

2013-05-13T05:00:00.000-05:00

That's a lesson I keep learning over and over again.

This week, I'm getting geared up for the MECLABS Landing Page Optimization Summit in Boston. Last year, I had the opportunity to speak on the big stage with my friend and colleague, Nat Ward. In our presentation, we shared some of the learnings from our experiments. This is a short clip from our presentation where we show how we increased our donation conversion rate by 25% by putting multiple calls-to-action on our landing page.

I Live Left of LOCO

2013-05-06T14:34:00.000-05:00

Those of you that know me know that this statement has nothing to do with my political orientation. LOCO stands for the Law Of Channel Orthodoxy. Well, it's a theory actually. A theory I made up. But I call it a law because it makes a better acronym and because people take laws much more seriously.

Anyway, the Law of Channel Orthodoxy goes like this:

The time and expense necessary to delivery a fundraising message (Resources) is positively correlated to the potential success of that message (Response Rate).

For example, let's consider face-to-face fundraising. It is most definitely the most time-intensive, and expensive fundraising method. But it is often the most successful. If I were to fly around the country and ask each of my donors to give a gift, then I could expect a response rate of 40 to 60 percent or more (note: this is based on 18,000 face-to-face visits that was conducted over a 10 year period which maintained a 45% response rate).

Then, let's hop down to direct mail or telefunding. Is it as expensive to call or mail all of our donors? Absolutely not! But will I get a 45% response rate-- probably not. Typical response rates for a successful direct mail and telefunding campaign would be between 6% and upwards of 20%.

Now, consider email. Is it as expensive to send an email as it is a direct mail package? No way! But are you going to get a 20% response rate on an email appeal? Not likely. According to the 2012 Convio Nonprofit Online Marketing Benchmark Report, the average response rate for a house file email appeal continues to hover around 0.15%.

So, in each of these examples, it seems that the Law of Channel Orthodoxy seems to hold up. Still with me?

Okay, so the question we must ask then is, "how do we beat the Law of Channel Orthodoxy?"

Answer? Well, there are actually two ways:

Innovation - When we develop a way to achieve the same results while at the same time reducing the time and expense investment, we call this an innovation. Believe me, there are many ways that we can innovate in the nonprofit space. But the problem is that too often nonprofits feel they need to play it safe. We go for the guarantee, instead of taking a risk on something that could either go big, or be a big bust. But what I think many organizations fail to realize is that there is a risk associated with the status quo. If we fail to test and try new things, we are pretty much guaranteed to become obsolete.

But there is another way that we can beat LOCO.

Optimization - When we increase our response rates or improve results without proportionally increasing the amount of required resources, we call this optimization. Optimization begins with the belief, as Peter Drucker once said, that "adequacy is the enemy of excellence." It forces us to never be satisfied. It teaches us to interpret a 10% response rate as a 90% non-response rate, and inspires us to develop better ways to communicate so that we can get those non-responders to join us. Optimization can transform the culture of an organization by changing the conversation from "if only..." to "what if..." Optimization is synonymous with perpetual improvement and is essential to success.

So, in order to beat the Law of Channel Orthodoxy, we need to find a way to live left of LOCO. I'm telling you, once you get used to it, you wouldn't want to go any other way. Here's a few questions that you can ask yourself to help break free from going completely LOCO. It might be a good idea to ask your staff these same questions and compare your answers with theirs.

Am I LOCO?

1. My fundraising calendar is really solid because we have been doing things the same way for the past few years and have received good results. (T/F)

2. I don't typically try new fundraising techniques because they can be risky and we owe it to our donors to only invest in sure winners. (T/F)

3. I'm very happy with our fundraising results. I don't see how we could possibly do any better. (T/F)

4. I’m convinced that if we just implement best practices, then we will receive optimal results. (T/F)

5. I’ve been doing this a long time, and my experience and intuition is what I lean on when I evaluate a new fundraising program. (T/F)

So, How Did You Do?

If you answered true to one or more of the above statements, then you may be going LOCO! But don’t worry, it is curable…

Game Changing: How Ministries Are Using Social Gaming to Engage New Supporters

2013-04-30T18:34:00.000-05:00

Is it possible to use social gaming for social good? This presentation explores the fast-growing social gaming market and presents two case studies of ministries that are using social gaming to build brand, relationships, and donors online. The presentation concludes with a tactical 6-step planning exercise for anyone considering integrating social gaming into their online marketing and fundraising strategy.

Download the complete 105-slide presentation here.

This presentation was delivered on Wednesday, May 1, 2013 at the National Christian Leadership Alliance Conference in Anaheim, CA

Other Related Resources

Social Game Viral Simulator - Use this Excel spreadsheet to develop an estimate of the number of participants you can expect to acquire through an interactive social game.

Game Changing Innovation Article - This article, featured in the fall 2012 edition of Outcomes Magazine, walks through the Moody Virtual Marathon case study.

Oracle Whitepaper: Using Social Gaming to Drive Engagement: Insights and Best Practices for Brand Managers - This whitepaper features some best practices and tips for integrating social gaming. At the end are two case studies that feature major brands that use embedded philanthropy in their social games.

Social Network Games 2012 Report - This report is a good primer on social games, market trends, and terminology that you need to know if you are going to consider developing a social gaming strategy.

The Conversation is More Important than the Brand

2012-08-08T16:58:00.000-05:00

Brand marketers suggest that brand is everything. In order for your brand to be effective you must invest in building strong brand equity and make sure that you consistently deliver on your brand promise. To do this, your brand must be consistently portrayed and always visible.

But what if your brand creates friction in the communication process? Often when we think we are being marketed to we tend to put our guard up. Even if this doesn't happen on a completely conscious-level, it happens to some degree in our subconscious.

This was the premise of a recent marketing experiment that I conducted in partnership with The Heritage Foundation. The main question was this: “If the essence of marketing is messaging, and the essence of messaging is a conversation, how can we remove psychological barriers to that conversation?” Do "brands" induce feelings of anxiety? If so, by removing the brand and focusing on facilitating a more effective conversation, can we produce a stronger response?

The Client

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank in Washington, DC. Their work focuses on formulation and promotion of conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. They are the most broadly supported organization of their kind with nearly 700,000 financially participating members.

The Experiment

Heritage was in the third year of a talk radio campaign with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and was beginning to experience the law of diminishing returns. The massive audiences for these two nationally syndicated talk show hosts were not as receptive to our Heritage-branded messages as they were initially and we considered doing something drastic and perhaps even unintuitive-- creating an unbranded campaign. The idea was to have the radio hosts create excitement around a controversial issue and then send their audience to an unbranded web site where they could learn more. The visitor would be taken through a guided conversation online that provided an educational experience, and then at the end, provided with an opportunity to respond by signing an open letter to Congress calling for the end of wasteful government spending. After signing the open letter, the visitor was then taken to another page and provided an appeal to join The Heritage Foundation.

The Web Site

DirtySpendingSecrets.com is very simple web site that was designed for a very specific purpose-- to acquire new names and to inspire new donations. The message is simple and clear-- Washington is spending too much of your money, and here are some examples of how wasteful some of that spending is.

The site then stepped the visitor through a guided conversation about spending by asking them to answer simple questions. For example, how much money the US Government spent to train Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job?

When the visitor provided their answer, a message appeared with the correct answer and provided additional details-- this provided the educational experience.

When the visitor got to the end of the quiz-- when they were all good and worked up-- the web site prompted them to do something about it by signing the Heritage Foundation's Open Letter to Congress to tell them no more wasteful spending. This is where the brand is finally introduced.

The visitor is then taken to a Heritage-branded page where they can sign the open letter. After they sign it, the visitor is prompted to make a donation.

The Results

In the first three weeks of the campaign, the web site generated 115,000 new names for the Heritage Foundation and a significant amount of revenue from new donors. The web site also went viral with over 40,000 facebook shares, 4,100 tweets, and over 32,000 email shares.

The Key Takeaways

This experiment illuminated a couple of interesting principles:

The conversation is more important than the brand. When we lead with a compelling concept, and initially divorce that concept from being connected with any sort of brand, we can inspire a great many more people to engage in that conversation. When Rush and Sean talk about this new web site they discovered that exposes all of these government spending secrets, people take interest and seek out the web site.
The Call-to-Action should not be introduced until the value proposition has been experienced by the visitor. Too often, we think too little of our potential donors. We think if we just stick a donate button on our page, that people will just donate. And the problem is that some actually do. But the bigger problem is that so many more actually would if they have been properly guided through a conversation that enables them to discover the value proposition on their own. Our goal in communication should be to lead the constituent to an "aha! moment." This is no easy task and requires tremendous creativity and strategic thinking.
Good ideas go viral. A lot of people think there is an easy button for social media. But there isn't. If you think about things that are share-worthy, they are always things that move people. They must shock, surprise, make you laugh, make you cry, inspire you in some way-- the point is that a good social media strategy starts by developing a good and share-worthy idea.

Now, It's Your Turn

The model and concept that is outlined here is very repeatable. I would encourage you to perform your own experiment with the unbranded concept and share your results and learnings. Remember a good idea that isn't implemented is a worthless idea.

Onward!

Case Study: Optimizing Name Acquisition

2012-07-09T10:19:00.000-05:00

This is an abbreviated case study that illustrates how increasing the relevance and perceived value of your offer can produce stronger response on your landing page. Flint McGlaughlin, CEO of MECLABS pulled me up onto the stage to share this at the MECLABS Landing Page Optimization Summit in Colorado last month.

You can read the more detailed post on the Marketing Experiments Blog.

"Best Practices Are Nothing But Polled Ignorance"

2012-06-25T19:26:00.001-05:00

I wish I could say that I was the first one to say that, but I wasn't. Last week, I attended the MECLABS Landing Page Optimization Summit in Denver, CO and one of the first things I wrote down was that quote from my mentor Dr. Flint McGlaughlin. Flint went on to say that the marketer must be the philosopher of an organization. Philosophers are constantly consumed with the question of "why." This proves to be a difficult challenge when we face the perpetual barrage of questions that begin with "how."

How can I get this done in time?

How can I make my subject line more effective?

How can I increase my revenue?

Most marketers are too busy asking the questions that begin with "how" that they fail to ever ask the more important questions that begin with "why."

Why did this perform better than that?

Why do my customers/donors prefer this type of content over that type of content?

Why doesn't my landing page convert more people into customers/donors?

But it is precisely the "why" questions that lead to wisdom. I recently performed an experiment that challenged a longstanding direct response best practice and it reminded me that asking "why" is okay. The best practice goes like this:

Having more than one conflicting call-to-action on a landing page leads to non-decision and hurts conversion rate.

Now, I think that this actually makes a lot of sense. What I wanted to discover through this experiment is whether or not there could be a scenario where having multiple calls-to-action could actually lead to a greater conversion rate. The results were quite convincing.

The Experiment

In this experiment we tested two different landing pages that each had differing conversion paths. The control had a two column layout with a donation form in the left column and copy in the right column. The treatment was actually exactly the same with one exception: at the bottom of the right column below the copy we added a secondary call-to-action to register your email address to receive a free PDF download. Now, because the PDF offer required a confirmation page, we decided to add a secondary opportunity to donate with a page layout similar to the control, but with different copy.

Once the control and treatment pages were developed we performed a simple A/B split test and diverted an even 50% of traffic to both versions over the next 30 days. Once the results were compiled and validated, the control had a donation conversion rate of 2.52%.

The interesting thing is that the treatment, the version of the landing page with two calls-to-action actually had a statistically identical donation conversion rate of 2.51%. However, the treatment also received a 4.98% name acquisition conversion rate for people that responded to the secondary call-to-action for the free PDF offer.

What was even more interesting is that the people that responded to the PDF offer then converted at a 14.16% donation conversion rate when provided a second opportunity to give. This means that by adding the secondary call-to-action for the PDF, and adding a secondary opportunity to give, enabled us to create a 25% lift in donation conversion.

What I Learned From This Experiment

There were actually a few different takeaways from this experiment:

Donation conversion is greatly affected by visitor motivation. This is something that Dr. Flint McGlaughlin and his team at MECLABS talks about with their Conversion Heuristic:

C = 4m + 3v + 2(i - f) - 2a

This expression in plain english goes like this: Conversion equals four times visitor motivation, plus three times clarity of value proposition, plus two times incentive minus friction, minus two times anxiety. The variable with the highest coefficient is Visitor Motivation. What this means is that if visitor motivation is high enough, then it can often overcome inhibitors like friction and anxiety. Clearly when we add a secondary call-to-action to a web site we are adding friction into the process. But because the traffic that was coming to the web site was motivated to give, then it really didn't matter.
Reciprocity is alive in well in the donation conversion process. Reciprocity is a psychological principle that suggests that when I give you something, in some way you feel indebted to me, and because our natural inclination is to not be in someone's debit we tend to want to settle the score by returning the favor. When we offered a gift (free pdf) to the visitors to the site, they were more predisposed to return the favor (donating to the organization) after receiving the gift.
Best practices are not enough. If you really want to maximize your revenue by optimizing your web pages, then relying on long-held best practices is not enough-- you need to be willing to challenge best practices and even conventional wisdom by constantly testing within a rigorous methodology. Science trumps the marketer's intuition every day of the week. Remember what Dr. Flint McGlaughlin says, "Best practices are nothing but polled ignorance."

Happy Experimenting!

Music Attaches Itself to Life

2012-04-11T23:15:00.000-05:00

I don’t remember where I was, but a Sheryl Crow song came on, All I Want to Do is Have Some Fun, and it was amazing how instantly I was whisked away to a (a-hem) party that I was at in High School. I remember how I felt—young, unconquerable, yet inwardly insecure—I remember details like the front porch at my friend’s house that had these severely over-grown holly bushes that seemed to engulf the prime seating area on the porch.

When I hear the Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s Turandot, I think of my grandmother. I was her live-in caretaker when she had entered into the early phases of Alzheimer’s. I remember that song came on in a Best Buy and I was wearing a big suede coat with puffy fleece lining and recall vividly singing along to the words in the middle of the home audio section to the delight to Grams.

When I hear the classic hymn, Be Thou My Vision I remember standing at the alter next to my (soon-to-be) wife, holding her hand and marveling at the clouds finally parting from the soggy-wet rainy day and sun beams shining in through the big curtain glass window in the Bible Chapel where we took our vows.

Music is powerful. The interesting thing is that it attaches itself to our lives uniquely. My triggered emotions and memories connected to a particular song may be very different than your own. Most likely, you have different emotions and memories—and most definitely different songs that have so deeply (and surprisingly randomly) attached themselves to you.

But music is a powerful, and woefully underutilized medium when it comes to marketing and fundraising. How might we use music to attach itself to a positive giving experience? We’ve become programmed to drop whatever it is we are working on to check the newest email that comes in when we hear that simple little email “chime.” How might we create a similar sensory experience in the donation process?

Please share your thoughts on this—and some of your music-attached-memories.

Too Much is Sometimes Too Much

2012-03-21T09:38:00.001-05:00

I spend a lot of time on airplanes. More often than not, there are weather delays, or mechanical issues, or something else that prevents my flight from leaving at the advertised date and/or time. Usually when this happens we get some sort of message from either the pilot or flight attendant over the intercom. I'm amazed at some of the things that they'll say on that thing! Do we really need to know that the thing that they are fixing is imperative to our ability to take-off and land. I mean, if it's busted, I'm not so sure I want to be on this plane even after they fixed it. This introduces a whole new series of anxiety-inducing questions that I would have never needed to entertain.

'If that thing broke, what's to stop it from breaking again?'

'What if the guy fixing the broken part, doesn't do a good job?'

'What other little very important parts could have been affected?'

Sometimes too much information is not helpful-- it can be actually quite hurtful. When communicating with customers and donors, we need to give them enough information to accomplish our goal for that particular conversation-- but that's it. This is especially important when things go wrong. Often when there is a problem, we get insecure. When we communicate out of our insecurity, we often say more than we should say. When we say more than we should say, we may make things actually worse.

Here's a simple way to overcome this challenge: plan ahead. When you must have a challenging conversation with a customer or donor, think through what the goal of that conversation is. Write it out on a piece of paper. Make a short list of talking points that bring clarity to the goal you've defined. Finally-- and this is most important-- plan to listen more than you talk. Many times, the customer or donor just wants to be validated-- they want to be given the opportunity to voice their concerns or frustrations--and if you can give them that, then you can often accomplish more than your best speech ever could.

Confusing Activity with Productivity

2011-11-04T08:31:00.002-05:00

I have a terribly bad habit. When I'm on an airplane, I have a tendency to be a "Nosy Parker" and try to read the magazine article, newspaper-- or even better-- powerpoint sildes of the people sitting in front of me. I'm fascinated by what occupies the attention of my incidental traveling companions.

So I'm sitting here, somewhere between Minneapolis and Dallas, spying the deck of the dude in front of me. Here's the headline of the slide he's been stuck on for the past 65 minutes:

"We are starting the process of identifying the implementation roadmap now, but it will not be complete until February 2012" (It is currently October 2011)

And then here is the schedule that followed:

October - Pre-draft of roadmap version 1.0
November - Workshop to refine roadmap 1.0; refine timeline, activities, and resource allocations
December - Review version 2.0 with Steering Committee; refine timeline, activities, and resource allocations
January - Incorporate findings from architecture assessment; refine timeline, activities, and resource allocations
February - Seek approvals for business cases and roadmap version 4.0

Really? Five months, just to get a plan together. Now, admittedly, I have no clue what this roadmap is for. But I think this is a good metaphor for how we often meet for the sake of meeting, and desperately quest for consensus when what we probably need is just strong leadership. To me, this seems like a throwback to a time where life moved much slower. In the digital, ever-connected age, we need to be agile and move quickly. What is cutting edge today is old hat tomorrow.

Or, it may be that we satisfy ourselves with activity when we should be striving for productivity. I read a study recently that suggested that when we talk about our goals and plans, subconsciously it is just as satisfying as actually doing them. So maybe we need to talk (and meet) less and fixate on actually doing more. Perhaps we need to ask for forgiveness instead of begging for approval.

Or maybe I just need to mind my own business on airplanes.

The Human Assembly Line

2011-10-18T23:29:00.000-05:00

If there is one thing that absolutely terrifies me, it is the assembly line. The thought of pressing the same button every day, week, month, year, absolutely nauseates me. Well, living in a post-industrial America, I shouldn't have to fear that any more...or should I?

As I survey the way that most businesses are organized, it is very comparable to a human assembly line. For some reason, we think that the best way to organize effort that leads to output is within very narrow, hierarchical units. The larger the organization, the more narrow, and the more hierarchical it becomes.

But is that really the most efficient use of resources? If you hired multi-talented people, couldn't they be able to perform multifaceted roles? It seems that the greatest loss of efficiency comes from one person trying to communicate to another person exactly what they are thinking.

For example, a strategist writes a document that outlines her strategic plan, and then an account person needs to pass that along to the client to get feedback that gets passed back to the strategist, and then the consolidated document gets passed to a project manager that breaks each element of the strategy down into smaller tasks that can be assigned to various talents. By the time it reaches the end-- no matter how well the initial concept is documented-- there is substantial disconnect between the people executing the idea and the idea's originator.

What if instead, they could just execute what they were thinking? Instead of investing in technology, and books about process, and consultants to help us break down tasks into smaller and smaller pieces that can be inserted into a queuing system and managed by yet another set of resources-- would it not be more efficient to cross train employees to be multi-talented? Looking back on all of the various projects that I have been involved in, I've found that I've been most engaged, most fulfilled, most stretched, and most rewarded on projects that I've been able to take from drawing board through results presentation.

Three Questions Every Employee Asks

2011-09-01T06:08:00.003-05:00

Our senior management team just started reading 12: The Elements of Great Managing by Rodd Wagner and James K. Harter, Ph.D. In the book, the authors break down the Q12 statements that were introduced in First, Break All The Rules. These statements are based on Gallup's data from over ten million workplace interviews and they represent what every employee needs to be truly engaged at work.

As I've thought about these 12 statements, I think they can be summarized within the following three questions that every employee asks themselves:

1. Do I matter?

2. Does what I do matter?

3. Does the company matter?

Let me break them down:

Do I matter?

If I truly matter to the company, I will be provided with the tools, training, and resources I need to do my job effectively. I will be compensated fairly. I will be provided opportunities to learn and to grow. I will have the overwhelming sense that I don't work for my manager, but that my manager works for me. I will be set up for success, not destined to failure. I will be provided benefits that give me and my family peace of mind. I will have a clear career path and a manager that helps me to constantly move forward. From time to time, my company will even provide opportunities for me to just have fun.

Does what I do matter?

If what I do truly matters, then I will will be missed when I'm not around. I will feel safe and free to speak up and provide my opinion. I will receive help when I need it without feeling threatened. I will freely give and receive trust. I will not live in fear of making a mistake. I will be able to easily draw a line between what I do and how it creates impact. I will be asked what I think about policies, processes, procedures, and people. I will be respected for my unique contribution to the team. I will be surround by people I genuinely like and that genuinely like me. I will receive public recognition for a job well done and private redirection for a job not so well done. I will know what success looks like and how I can obtain it.

Does the company matter?

If the company truly matters, then people will buy/donate/subscribe/retain/hire. Our competition will know us and study us. Our product or service will get results. Industry leaders will apply within, not have to be recruited. Other companies will try to copy us. Investors will want to own us. The way our industry, vertical, sector, or even the world works will be different.

These are just some initial observations, but from them I think a new credo may be formed from perhaps a single ageless question, "Where can I find meaning in life?" Some of the greatest minds in history have wrestled with this very question and it seems we are still wrestling with it today. Sadly, if we seek to extract ultimate meaning in our lives from our careers we will be perpetually disappointed. Industry is man-made and ultimately has an end. Many have reached that peak and found nothing but disappointment. So if we put our complete hope in finding meaning in enterprise, we will find that it is in fact meaningless. There must be something more that drives us, inspires us, and satisfies us with real meaning and purpose. Something that brings meaning to work, not in it. Something bigger. Something that surpasses everything that we can create through the work of our hands. Do you know what that is? I do.

Humility

2011-08-05T17:34:00.001-05:00

Humility is the mark of greatness. Humility enables a leader to recognize his limitations, and seek out others to come along side him to bring perspective, diversity, and wholeness to an organization.

Humility enables an employee to reach out, reach up and grow in his skills and abilities through training, continuing education, and mentoring.

Humility enables a consumer to become a customer. It is the first step to realizing and meeting his needs and desires.

Humility enables a married couple to get help when they are struggling with the pressures of work, kids, bills, and relationships.

Humility enables a drunk to get sober.

Humility brings resolution to an argument.

Humility leads a broken man to the Lord.

Humility is necessary for courage to be born.

Humility seeks forgiveness, offers forgiveness, and accepts forgiveness from others.

Humility is the key to progress, to innovation, and to optimization.

Einstein Was Only Half Right

2011-07-26T17:00:00.002-05:00

Albert Einstein was credited with defining insanity as, "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Well, in the modern world, I'd say that Mr. Einstein is only half right. We live in a world that is changing so fast that if we do the same thing over and over again and expect the same results, we might be considered just as crazy. This is especially true with fundraising and marketing in general. The same old same old doesn't work like it used to. There is another law at work in our modern world that is becoming more and more relevant. That is the Law of Diminishing Utility or the Law of Diminishing Returns. When we approach fundraising with the same old approach, we will find that we will eventually run out of margin. Please don't misinterpret this-- I am not suggesting that direct mail is going away anytime soon. My conviction is that we need to rethink how we do direct mail. We need to make direct mail more integrated to stay relevant with a growing audience of people that don't write physical checks anymore. We need to integrate mail with mobile, web, and social media. We need to innovate and optimize the way we approach fundraising. Think I'm crazy? That's what they said about Einstein.

Hey Social Media, Show Me The Money!

2011-07-11T23:29:00.007-05:00

First, let me apologize to all of my social media guru friends and colleagues. What I'm about to share may greatly distress you, disturb you, and just plain insult you. Too bad. This is something that has been pent up for way too long and it is time to let it out. If you are really upset, take it out in the comments.

I attend and speak at a lot of conferences related to fundraising and marketing. And it doesn't matter where I go, or what the focus of the conference is-- inevitably one of the keynote sessions is going to be talking about "how social media is going to transform your organization." But the case studies they offer up are all about some obscure campaign that's earth shattering success is measured by the number of "Likes" on Facebook. Are you kidding me? As if you can take those magical "Likes" and cash them in for something real and tangible like a meal for some poor child in Africa, or a cure for cancer, or to support a missionary in China. Show me the money!

Okay, so my beef isn't necessarily with social media. It is in the way we use and measure social media. Maybe it's just because I'm a direct response guy, but I want to be able to show how social media moves the needle when it comes to the three key building blocks to fundraising success: new names, new donors, and more donors. The rest is just fluff. Let me share with you a new recipe I've been cooking up with social media.

Eggs, Milk, Flour, Sugar, Butter

Each of these elements have tremendous utility on their own. However, if you combine each of these elements in the right measure, under the right conditions, you get something completely different-- you get a cake!

Same is true with our different communication channels. We sometimes get so myopic, so siloed in our thinking about what we are going to say on each channel that we miss the greater opportunity to combine the channels to get something that is way better than just the sum of the parts. So, we decided to test it out.

'What if We Could Get 100% Response Rate on a Direct Mail Piece?'

That's the question we asked ourselves. Now, we know that for all practical purposes expecting a 100% response rate is tomfoolery, right? I can see the old-school DM guys having some fun with this. But if we made our direct mail dynamic...if the mail wasn't an end in itself, but a beginning...if we could find a way to make a direct mail piece go viral...then, maybe we could talk about a new concept-- the Effective Response Rate. The effective response rate is the total number of responses--from any channel-- that all originated from a single piece of mail.

Well, I'm sure you can guess what happened...I mean, I wouldn't write a blog post about an experiment that completely flopped would I? [Hmmm...that is an interesting question, I actually think I would if I thought that there was a key learning that could be taken from it.] The campaign that we launched combined highly personalized direct mail, with an online interactive game and social media, and our effective response rate for the direct mail piece was 213%. Boom!

How did we do it?

First, we started by thinking about our ideal target audience. Our plan was to create a campaign that they would want to engage in. Did we have specific business objectives? Absolutely. But instead of making those objectives the focal point of our message, we created an environment where the target could experience our value proposition instead of us shouting about it.

Then, we made it fun. We created a competitive environment where people were incentivized to engage with the campaign every day, and most importantly, recruit others.

Finally, we made it easy for people to recruit others by integrating social media. By providing a team incentive, and an individual incentive we were able to drive the right behaviors that helped us accomplish our business goals.

In the end, we were able to experience the exponential benefit of tightly integrating the channels to accomplish far more than each could accomplish on their own.

Want to See the Actual Case Study?

I'm being somewhat vague intentionally. See, I would love to have the opportunity to talk with you about exactly how we were able to generate an effective 213% response rate for our direct mail campaign-- but you have to meet me half way. Shoot me a direct message on Twitter at @DigitalDonor, and I'll set up a time to walk you through the case study. I'll also probably ask you some questions about your specific business or campaign objectives so be prepared to share that. Together, we can think through how you too can combine all the channels to bake a sweet treat for the CEO.

Fresh, Joy, Love, Tasty

2011-06-11T23:15:00.001-05:00

Have you ever noticed that most companies today don't market their products, they market your values. I was at Panda Express for lunch today. There, hanging in the in the middle of the restaurant, were four not-too-subtle banners. Each bore the image of one of PE's finest entrees along with a single-word:

"Fresh"

"Joy"

"Love"

"Tasty"

"Fresh" and "Tasty" I get, but "Joy" and "Love?" Since when do we go to a fast food restaurant to get our fill of these? I prefer the Orange Chicken.

A Proven Formula to Optimize and Revolutionize Your Email Program

2011-05-03T12:25:00.004-05:00

When it comes to optimizing email campaigns, best practices are not enough – you need a rigorous methodology. This workshop will teach you how to focus your thinking on what really works when it comes to increasing response and enhancing revenue. After completing this course you will be able to:

Discern the email marketing messaging sequence

Learn about how others are finding success during these times

Apply the email messaging effectiveness formula as illustrated through actual case studies

Download the Presentation: Discover the Proven Formula for Optimizing Email Campaigns

This presentation was delivered on Thursday, April 28, 2011 at the Christian Leadership Alliance Conference in Dallas, TX

Other Resources of Interest

Also, I’ve included some links to some additional resources that were referenced in the presentation:

Free Email Optimization Webinar - If you missed the presentation at CLA, or if you would like to see it again, we are hosting a free live webinar on Wednesday, July 20th at 12:00 PM CDT. Space is limited, so please sign up today.

Convio 2010 “Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study”– Lots of great metrics and insights in this report. This will help you know how you “stack up” with other nonprofits across key metrics.
MarketingExperiments - This organization is the applied research arm of MECLABS. These are the folks that invented the Email Effectiveness Index that was discussed in the presentation.
Convio’s “The Next Generation of American Giving”– This is a study on the contrasting charitable habits of Generation Y, Generation X, Baby Boomers, and Matures. Lot's of great takeaways in here.

The Most Important 85 Characters in Your Email

2011-04-29T11:36:00.000-05:00

Want to know a secret? People aren't looking for a reason to open your email, they are looking for a reason to hit DELETE. So, how do you get them to open?

Best practices would say to focus on subject line optimization. Which is a great place to start. But you can Google the best way to write a good subject line and find plenty of help on that.

I want to share with you what I'm experimenting with-- the first 85 characters in the email body which just so happens to show up in most inboxes and desktop notifications.

You can tell that most marketers are totally ignoring this. Their first 85 characters goes something like this, "Make sure you add myEmail@MyDomain.com to your whitelist...." or, "If you are having trouble viewing this email, click here...."

According to best practices, these are spot on-- but here is where it might make sense to challenge these best practices by testing something else.

What if you can use those 85 characters to extend your subject line, or better yet, make a compelling value proposition statement that encourages folks to open?

Check out some of these:

Which ones would you want to/need to open?

I have a bad habit of using myself as a focus group of one, but I have to admit, I usually scan my inbox and often look at nothing but the first 85 characters of the email to see if it is worth my time to go any further. I do this with personal emails, work emails, and emails I've subscribed to receive.

I'd love to hear your feedback based on experimenting with this concept. Post a comment, or send me a message on Twitter (@DigitalDonor) with your results.

You Could Be The Next Star!

2011-03-16T08:53:00.005-05:00

I just received an email announcing that Simon Cowell, that sinister former American Idol judge that everyone loves to hate, is launching a new singing competition show called The X Factor (don't ask me how I got on that mailing list). This time, would-be pop stars of any age will compete for a $5 Million contract with Sony.

So, same old game, bigger pay day.

Is there still that much pent-up demand to be instantly famous? Maybe that's why our economy sucks so bad-- the millennials that should be gearing up to build the next tomorrow are too busy hanging out in audition holding rooms trying to look good in distressed designer jeans, spiky hair, doing their best Justin Bieber impersonation (wow, I sound old when I talk like that).

I'm SOOOOO over American Idol, but I have to admit the paradigm is brilliant:

Invite customers to create the product. This is the crux of the show-- you invite people to present their proposal for for a new product idea. In the case of Idol, that proposal is in the form of an audition.
Select a panel of experts to vet the product ideas. This is the early stages of Idol when the judges decide who advances and who gets sent home. It doesn't hurt when the judges have quirky personas themselves.
Recycle the leftovers, and sometimes the rejects become the main thing. Idol does this brilliantly. They take the best of the worst auditions and turns them into compelling content. Remember William Hung? "She bangs, she bangs...oh, baby, and she moves, she moves!"
Let the customers design and shape the final product. Once the contestants have been narrowed down, the viewers at home get to decide who will be the next star. This is customer-driven innovation at its finest!
Create a pent-up demand for the product before it is even released. By voting for their favorites, and helping to create the new star of American Idol, the people at home become vested in the product they've helped to shape and line up at the record store (or I guess iTunes), to purchase the album the minute it is released. Apple does this too-- iPhone 7 is coming in 2014-- are you ready?

So, although I think Simon's next show is going to lay an egg like Duets, and his other post-Idol start-ups, I do think there is life to the American Idol paradigm. Think about how you can engage your customers and donors in helping to shape your next program, project, or ministry. Follow the American Idol model and "who knows-- you could be the next big star!"

This, Not This...

2011-02-21T14:46:00.010-06:00

The past two weeks in North Texas have been among the coldest, like ever. The first week of February our offices were closed 4 out of 5 days due to ice and snow. The next week wasn't much better. Another storm rolled through shutting down schools and businesses again.

So what does that have to do with anything related to marketing? Well, actually quite a bit.

During that cold snap, I received two emails that I think represent the best and worst in terms of relevant messaging. So I figured I'd attempt to channel one of my heroes, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, CEO of MECLABS, and do a heads up comparison of these two emails using his legendary "This, Not This" bit.

Below is a copy of the first email I received that came from The Creative Circle which is a local talent placement agency.

Now, granted the message envelope isn't that great. The subject line is "Talent Update" which is the same subject line for every email I receive from them. But because my email system displays the first two lines of the email through a desktop notification, I was drawn immediately to the highly relevant comment about the weather:

"Brrrrrrrrrrr! Did you make it to work today?"

Actually, no, I didn't-- our offices were closed. I read on:

"If you didn't, I bet the work is just piling up, and that is where the Creative Circle comes in..."

Brilliant. The value proposition is established and tied to a very relevant need I have.

He's right. Work is piling up. Maybe I do need to reevaluate my department's staff plan.

From there the email goes on a little bit of a rabbit trail. True, the Super Bowl was in town. Yes, I get the connection to needing a [marketing] "champion". But perhaps that could have been saved for a completely different email. Maybe after the Super Bowl?

Anyway, aside from that the email did a great job of using external relevance-- things that are happening in the world around us-- to create a message that resonated very strongly with me.

Now, for the "Not This" example.

A couple of days later I was still home, our offices were still closed, and it was still the coldest it has ever been since I've lived in North Texas. But now the news channels were reporting that this wasn't just a North Texas cold snap, the winter storms were hitting the entire country!

It was at that point I received the following email:

Okay, so right off the bat this thing is whack. In the message envelope, the sender is "Cool-Off." What? I know that this is the name of your company—but dude—seriously? Do you think anyone is looking to cool off?

This same ridiculousness is repeated in the subject line, "Limited Time Offer from Cool-Off.com.”

Because I do this stuff for a living, I just had to open the message and find out what they would say next, but if I didn't I would have trashed this thing instantly. When I did open it, it just kept getting better (and by better I mean worse—much worse). There was a big hero shot with a pool and palm trees, and a big momma-gamma misting fan. Ha!

But then I spotted the headline:

"Summer is Right Around the Corner..."

Um, what?

Then the first sentence (which was one giant hyperlink): "Beat the Heat" and Save (25-30% OFF) on all Patio Misters..."

Is this a joke?

Then I scanned the "In This Issue" (apparently this is a newsletter) and there were three "Quick Links:"

Register Now - For what exactly? What a silly thing to have at the top of your "Quick Links." Register Now for more bad emails, or to access your site, or for more irrelevant offers???
News - Sorry, not interested in any news. I get that from Fox.
More About Us - Well I guess it is all about you, huh? Obviously sales are down being it's FRIGGIN FREEZING everywhere in the country and you guys want to try to get a boost. Well, I'm sorry 'friend.' If you want to do business with me in the future, you may want to think about me, my needs, my problems, and then begin a relevant conversation with me that makes sense. I'm not stupid. I'm not going to buy a mister hose just because it is on sale. You need to think before you hit the send button next time.

Alright, enough with the rant. The key takeaways here are simply this:

1. Every time you send an email you are initiating a mental conversation with the recipients of that message. Make sure you don’t start a conversation that makes you look stupid, insensitive, or out-of-touch. No one wants to do business with people like this.

2. Relevancy is the key to good email communication—in fact, it is the key to good communication in general. Howard Gossage, an old ad mogul once said, “The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.”

3. Beware of sending the wrong message to the wrong person at the wrong time. Social media changes the game in a lot of ways, and bad marketing can take on a life of its own. I wrote another post about that called, The Wrong Message to the Wrong Person at the Wrong Time.

What's the Diffrence Between For-Profit and Non-Profit?

2011-01-31T10:59:00.004-06:00

Every organization on planet earth asks for your money. Some are for-profit companies and some are non-profit companies. Both start with basically the same goal:

How do I solve a problem?

Through the exercise of solving a problem a product is born, or a services is created, or a program is developed. But ultimately, success is determined by how effectively an organization can solve the problem.

Take McDonald's for example. Their challenge is to fix the problem of hunger. They create arguably good-tasting, low-cost, quickly prepared food. Through the course of solving the problem of hunger McDonald's sells the products they create to people like you and me. Now, McDonald's isn't the only one in the hunger business. So, to convince you that they are better at solving your problem of hunger than someone else, McDonald's consistently sends us messages to remind us that they are the best place to turn when you are hungry. McDonald's asks for your money.

Now consider another organization that is in the hunger business, Feed the Children. Feed the Children provides meals to children around the world that are malnourished or suffering from starvation. Just like McDonald's, Feed the Children exists to solve the problem of hunger. Just like McDonald's, Feed the Children asks for your money. But there is an obvious difference between these two organizations. When you give your money to McDonald's you are trying to solve your own problem, but when you give your money to Feed the Children, you are solving someone else's problem.

So, why do people get so bent out of shape when non-profits ask for money? Is it because we are all completely self-centered and we'd much rather spend what we have on ourself? Consider this. We live in the richest country in the world and are the most generous nation in terms of what we give to charity, yet still on average Americans only give about 2% of their annual income to solving others' problems. How might the world change if that 2% was more like 20%?

That's why I'm in fundraising.

Why Donors Don’t Donate On Your Web Site

2011-01-30T14:49:00.000-06:00

Usability, or lack thereof, is one of my pet peeves. The other day I was hopping around some of the big nonprofit sites to see how they were handling their donation user experience. I thought that perhaps there would be some best practices that I could glean and share with my clients. It didn’t take long to discover that most nonprofits do everything that they can to discourage would-be donors from making a donation. One particular site that stood out the most had no fewer than 11 screens that the poor, helpless potential donor would have to click through in order to make a donation. Can you believe it, 11 screens! I guess that they wanted to make sure that the donor was really, really, really serious about making a donation.

So you don’t make the same mistake, consider these following best practices:

It’s all about the experience. Making a donation has a completely different feel than ordering tchotchkes from Amazon. Do away with the online store feel and try to create a one-to-one relationship between each project and the associated donation response form.

Less clicks, more dollars. There is a direct correlation between the number of clicks that you put between a user and goal and conversion rate. The technical term for this is called Funnel Abandonment or Checkout Abandonment. Try to limit the number of screens that the user must click through in order to complete the donation. If at all possible, enable the user to complete the donation on the same page that prompted it.

Um, can I have a little help here? If you do have a multi-step check out process, clearly communicate that to the user. Provide some frame of reference as to where they are in the check out process and when the torturous form-filling will end. Give them clear directions as to what information is required and optional, and for the sake of everything holy, provide the user with coherent and easily identifiable error messages.

You have not, because you ask not. We recently launched a microsite for a client that included a free resource offer for users that filled out a registration form. The goal was purely name acquisition. About a month into the campaign we added an option for users to also make a donation through the form. That simple little change translated into thousands of “extra” dollars and did not affect the conversion rate for the form whatsoever. Whenever appropriate, add a donation option to registration or name acquisition forms.

No, I don’t remember my password! Putting a login screen between a user and a donation form is like putting an obstacle course between a grocery shopper and the check out lane. It seems like a good idea—after all, once the donor sets up their account all of their information will be saved, right? Wrong! I learned this lesson the hard way. Trust me, don’t do it.

Although this is not a comprehensive list, by following these best practices you will be helping to make the online donation experience a positive one.

Have You Ever Heard Of...

2011-01-20T08:54:00.000-06:00

There is a lot of talk about brand these days in the nonprofit world. But, what is your brand? Isn't it a collection of ideas and experiences that your customers and donors carry around in their heads? It seems that no matter whom you talk to—the brand expert d'jour—you often get a very different interpretation of what a brand is and, more importantly, how you can make it more effective.

So . . . since it seems there is no clear science for the right way to approach your brand, I figured I'd get out there with my own branding thoughts.

How many times have you been engaged in conversation with a friend or colleague and they asked you, "Have you ever heard of ______?" If you answer yes, the conversation will shift to a discussion of whatever _____ is. If you answer no, the same will occur. It is in these moments that I believe that your brand is defined. Forget the fancy focus groups, pyramid diagrams, catchy tag lines, or even that killer logo—your brand is what people talk about.

So what makes an organization worth talking about? Well, it's often the things that either receive the least attention or get overlooked completely. Here's my short list:

1. Who picks up the phone when someone calls?

If you are like most companies these days, it's an automated system. Usually the first thing folks hear is, "In order to better assist you, we have created the following options: For sales press 1, For service press 2 . . . Start typing the first 3 letters of the persons last name . . . If you know the extension of the party you wish to reach, you may dial it at any time . . . "

Want to know how that translates to your customers and donors?

"In an effort to better serve our needs and cut our costs, we have implemented an electronic answering service. We don't think you are important enough to hire an actual person to answer your call—but if you want to buy something from us today, press one and you can talk to a real person right away. After all, we've spent a great deal of time writing our upgrade scripts for our telemarketing firm in India—and we always like to increase our average sale value."

And the whole time, your customer is thinking, "Gosh, I just want to speak to a real person . . . I just have a quick question . . . I don't know how to spell his last name . . . if I knew the extension of the person I am trying to reach, then I wouldn't have dialed the main friggin number!"

If you want to have an organization worth talking about, start by hiring the best receptionist that you can find. Give them the title, "Brand Representative" and pay them twice what a typical receptionist makes. Give them goals by which you will measure their success and develop metrics to plot their success. Better yet hire multiple Brand Reps so that no matter when the phone rings, there is always someone there to answer the call. Can you imagine what kind of "brand" impression it would leave if someone called your organization after hours and an actual, live person picked up the phone? Not only that, but the person on the other end of the phone was actually knowledgeable and able to address your donor's question? Even if they didn't have an answer on the spot, what if they recorded the question, routed it to the correct person, and then the very next morning the donor received a call from someone in your organization with an answer? Do you think that might get people talking?

2. What about when things go wrong?

How can we turn a boo-boo into an opportunity for great branding? An order gets messed up. The wrong product ships. A flight is delayed or cancelled.

The last one hits home with me. I travel a lot for work and have amazingly horrendous luck with having my plane leave at the actual, advertised date and time. But because I fly a lot, the airline knows me. They know exactly how many miles I fly, where I fly to, and how many times I've experienced delays—or worse—cancellations. What if once in awhile, when things go wrong and my flight is delayed and I'm sitting on the tarmac in 100 degree Dallas heat with no air conditioning, nowhere to turn, and all I can think of to do is post nasty Facebook updates about the airlines—what if at that moment I received a call from my airline. "Mr. Kachuriak, this is Bill from American. I know you are not thrilled with the delay of your flight, so I just wanted to call to personally apologize. As an Elite Platinum member we very much value your trust and thank you for your patience today. Let me buy you lunch when you get to Reagan. I just emailed you a voucher you can use anywhere in the airport."

Wow! Talk about a lasting branding impression! I would go from feeling like a victim to feeling like someone truly special . . . and I can promise you that I'd be talking about it with everyone when I reached my destination. When it comes to your brand, people believe what other people say, not the clever brand promise that you post on your website.

Another important point to note is that your customers will understand and accept that things can and will go wrong. It's part of life. It's what you do about it and how you respond that will differentiate those trying moments as either positive experiences or negative ones.

3. Do you know how to say thank you?

This is one area that is especially poor for nonprofits. We are great about sending out that appeal letter on time and error-free, but we get a little bit more lax in our fervor to send out a thank-you. One of the greatest experiences I ever had working in ministry was when things were going very bad financially and we had everyone in the organization from the CEO to the janitor spend 4 hours a week in our call center making calls to donors thanking them for their support. Two amazing things happened as a result:

The month we did the calling campaign was the only month in the previous 9 months that we were in the black. The amazing thing was that we were not allowed to ask for money on the calls. The call campaign was exclusively to thank donors and ask if there was any way to pray for them. But as we began to talk to folks, they would ask if they could make a donation over the phone.
The more amazing thing was that the calling campaign sparked a revival at the ministry. Some of us for the very first time got to talk to the people that we were ministering to and hear them tell us how much our ministry has blessed them over the years. I held the record for the longest call at 124 minutes. I was captivated by an elderly widow that had spent her life working in the Miami public school system. She actually wrote a manuscript about her experiences that no one had read—including her—in over thirty years. She sent me a copy and I'm working on getting it published. The point is that this wasn't just about the donors anymore, it became about the staff. Working in a nonprofit, and especially a nonprofit ministry, can take its toll on staff. Generally, you are under-staffed, under-resourced, over-worked, over-extended, and at times even a bit jaded. That's what makes this such an important principle: take care of your donors, and they will take care of you.

So, to recap, here are some ways to make your brand talkable (in a good way!):

1. Get rid of the answering machine. Let your customers and donors know that they are important and that their call is important to you. Answer their calls all hours of the day and night. If you say you will get back to them, do it! These folks are the reason that you have a job.

2. Look for opportunities to turn a mistake into a positive experience. You can
differentiate your organization much more in this area than any other magic formula, value proposition, or USP. Start with your largest donors/customers and work your way down. Remember, larger donors often start as smaller donors, and you never know who might have the capacity to give more—but beyond that—if you want to have a strong brand, a brand worth talking about, treat every donor as if they were a large donor.

3. Learn how to say thank you. Amazing that the manners we learned at the earliest age are forgotten so easily. Go out of your way to let your donors know how much you appreciate them and you will be blessed—financially and personally.

To All You Youth Leaders Out There

2011-01-13T22:33:00.002-06:00

Rarely do we receive the privilege of knowing that the choices we make actually make a difference in someone else’s life. Just today, I received proof that when we respond to the call of the Lord—in even a seemingly small way—that it does not return void. Here’s an excerpt from a Facebook message I received:

Subject: Overdue Thank You

Hey Tim,
I hope this message finds you well. It has been way too long since we last spoke. I'm about to start my final semester at [College] on Monday, but being home for Christmas caused me to think about high school and the old small group. I realized that I'm not sure I ever thanked you for all of the time that you spent with us. Looking back, I am sure there were many other things that you could have been doing with your time.

So, I wanted to make sure you knew how much I appreciated your time with us. Some of my fondest memories are from times that we spent together with that crazy bunch of guys. That group was such an encouragement to me. God truly used you in my life. Thank you for your time and your heart for the Lord. You had a great impact!

God Bless!

Here’s what I believe. Had I not been the one that responded to the call to lead this high school small group then the Lord would have called on someone else. But because I did respond, I now am receiving the blessing of knowing that I have been used by the Lord to make a difference.

Be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading. Don’t ever confuse the reality that He is the one that does the work. But always remember that being used by God is a blessing and the perfect fulfillment of our very purpose for living.

What a day! God is good!

Abortion Statistics Pro Life and Pro Abortion Folks Can Agree On

2010-12-21T09:24:00.004-06:00

Regardless of whether you are pro life or pro abortion, it is hard to argue with these facts.

Via: Pro Life