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[00:02:15.14] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Hey, this is show number 5 91. Only nine weeks to go for our 6/100 show. A decent host would have told you last week when it was showed number 5 90 it was 10 weeks to go, mm hmm Oh I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of blepharoplasty area If you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, create your email welcome journey. You don’t want to welcome new donors with only a single email or worse digital silence, seize this unique opportunity to draw folks into your story, validate their decision to support you and turn them into loyal ambassadors patty breach from the purpose collective helps you out. This is part of our coverage of the 2022 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10. I’m tony steak too. Please share Redox sponsored by turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o And by 4th dimension technologies I thi infra in a box. The affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D but they go one dimension deeper here is create your email welcome journey. Welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 NTC. The 2022 nonprofit technology conference. My guest at this stage is patty breach founder and Ceo of the purpose collective patty Welcome to nonprofit radio

[00:02:21.94] spk_1:
thank you so glad to be here.

[00:02:39.14] spk_0:
I’m glad you are my pleasure to have you. Your topic is very interesting to me and I think it will be to our to our listeners as well. Don’t follow donations with silence, create an email welcome journey. All right. Uh, so there’s the problem is clear there’s too much silence after. Are we talking necessarily about our first donation or is this any this is any donation should not be treated with silence, I guess. Right.

[00:03:19.34] spk_1:
Um yeah, I would say any donation especially, um not you don’t want to follow the first one with silence and I would extend this also to other actions. You know, if someone sign up to volunteer with the organization, if they join your email list, if they sign a petition, whatever whatever actions you are asking people to take with your organization. Um, if they do those actions and then you don’t say anything at all. Um that’s a really big missed opportunity.

[00:03:26.84] spk_0:
Okay, right. They’ve done they’ve they’ve followed your call to action and you thank them with nothing with some

[00:03:34.03] spk_1:
Alright, uh

[00:03:35.66] spk_0:
and your and your your seminar description implores us twice to do this right now.

[00:03:43.94] spk_1:
Right

[00:03:53.84] spk_0:
now, exclamation mark. So, Alright, what? Let’s first define an email Welcome journey. And then we’ll get into the details of how you set this up. What what, what are we talking about first?

[00:04:09.84] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. So email Welcome journeys are a series of emails that are sent directly after someone takes an action with you and they’re usually triggered automatically. Um They have a lot of other names. Sometimes they’re called like a nurture series or a drip campaign. I prefer to call them email welcome journeys.

[00:04:19.07] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. What was the last one drip campaign? Is that,

[00:04:22.08] spk_1:
Yeah, a drip campaign can be a little bit different, but sometimes it’s it’s we’re talking about the same

[00:04:36.64] spk_0:
thing. And so then you said a series. So this is not just a thank you. Thank you for whatever signing the petition, making the gift volunteering. It’s more than just a thank you email.

[00:05:02.74] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. It’s a series. So um research research shows that that window of time following someone’s action with you is the time when they’re most receptive to hearing from you. Um and I say that window of time, it’s it’s really like up to a month after, as close to immediately as possible and and going out to about a month later. Um That’s sort of like a magic window of opportunity

[00:05:05.75] spk_0:
that long though. I’m surprised that it’s that long.

[00:05:08.44] spk_1:
Yeah, I don’t

[00:05:10.51] spk_0:
want to take that. I’m not suggesting we take that long

[00:05:12.70] spk_1:
wait

[00:05:24.04] spk_0:
Till 29 days to thank your thank your new volunteer, but but they’re they’re still gonna be open to open to you to your messaging for that long.

[00:05:43.64] spk_1:
Yeah. And I would I would really emphasize that that as close to immediately as possible. So you know, if you can send one email right away then another one maybe three days later. Another one a week later. You can go up to a month if you have that much to say. But maybe you don’t. Maybe your email series is just two or 3 messages sent in the first couple of weeks.

[00:05:48.74] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. But you have that opportunity. It lasts. Does it start to decay over time? I would, I would think.

[00:05:53.59] spk_1:
But yeah.

[00:05:55.37] spk_0:
Alright.

[00:05:57.54] spk_1:
So yeah, we wanna we wanna strike while the iron is hot, so to speak.

[00:06:15.34] spk_0:
So um Since we’re talking about automated, presumably we’re gonna do this automated 2022. Do you have any resources that you can suggest to kick us off? Whether pay or free? That that folks could could look at.

[00:06:19.64] spk_1:
Yeah. I mean most of the major email programs out there are going to offer some sort of automated series

[00:06:28.60] spk_0:
has

[00:06:46.04] spk_1:
Constant content. Has one. Yeah. Campaign monitor has one um male or light. So I would just um make sure that you’re using an email program that offers that functionality. And if it doesn’t maybe consider switching to one that does.

[00:06:58.84] spk_0:
Yeah, if it doesn’t you, it sounds like you’re using one that was uh that was created in like 1997 and it hasn’t really evolved in the past 25 years. Male or light. I never heard of Mailer Light. I love the play on Miller lite. That’s fascinating.

[00:07:03.24] spk_1:
That’s a

[00:07:11.44] spk_0:
Mailer Light. That is fun. Alright. Um okay, so what should we be thinking about? We’re going to create our journey. What, what do we, what do we conceptualize before we start composing?

[00:07:33.84] spk_1:
Yeah, so I love to um think about like a real world situation, like, like a restaurant. So if you were to end up going to a new restaurant for the first time, um chances are, there’s some work that went into that decision on your behalf. Like, I don’t know when the last time is that you went to a new restaurant, but can you think of a reason why you would be venturing out to try a new place?

[00:07:53.74] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s newly opened or um, it’s uh, it’s a cuisine. I don’t get too often. I live in a small town, I live in a small beach town in North Carolina. So when, when an Italian restaurant opened a couple of towns away, which for us, a couple of towns was like a 10 minute drive. Um, you know, I jumped on it. So I went to uh, Italiano, the uh, the Italian swan. Uh yeah, so those are a couple, a couple of reasons.

[00:08:14.24] spk_1:
Yeah, totally. So you probably heard about it through word of mouth, Maybe you saw some advertisements?

[00:08:21.25] spk_0:
Yes,

[00:09:38.74] spk_1:
yeah, you might have been thinking about it for a while. Um, but the point is, you know, some, something went into your decision to go there, you put some effort into it and you were excited to be there And so there’s a couple of ways that could go once you get to this restaurant. All right. Like the first scenario would be, you know, you walk into this new italian place and staff greets you with a smile. They’re very happy that you’re there. They offer to take your coat. They want to know if you want to sit inside or outside if you’ve been there before. Um, just really generally make you feel very welcome and that has the effect, I’m sure of making you feel like you made a good decision. Like you, you’re very validated. Like I knew I should have come here. This was great. Um, and a second scenario might be like the alternative that could be that you walk in and you’re kind of ignored. Like the staff seems really busy, You can hardly get their attention and the effect of that is the opposite. Right? Like you might begin to question like should I be here? Are they closed for a private event tonight? Should have made a reservation. Like did I walk in the wrong door, You’re just thinking like, you know, maybe I’m not welcome here. And so when we all of us as human beings, we all want our decisions to be validated right? We all want to, we all want to feel like I did a really good thing. I’m so happy about doing that. I’ll probably do it again.

[00:09:47.99] spk_0:
Absolutely confirmation bias. Everything I do is correct.

[00:10:25.54] spk_1:
Yes. Right. Um, so when as a nonprofit, when someone donates to you and you just send them an automatic receipt and that’s it. They don’t hear anything else from you. You’re kind of being like that restaurant in the second scenario where someone has walked in with enthusiasm, ready to interact with you and you’re just like, I don’t have time for you. I’m sorry. So welcome journeys are meant to be more like that first scenario where we’re saying we’re so glad you’re here. Thank you so much for choosing us. You made a really good decision. You should make that decision again in the future. And um, it really helps to turn people into lifelong supporters of your cause.

[00:10:42.14] spk_0:
Okay. Get them early, helps us retain. Of course we know donor retention now now and focus specifically on donors don’t have retention is very poor. Yeah. First time. First time donor. First time donor retention. Very bad,

[00:10:46.97] spk_1:
totally. It’s, it’s around 40 to 45% for the average nonprofit. So

[00:10:51.24] spk_0:
that was even higher. I thought it was like 70 70 something percent,

[00:11:03.34] spk_1:
Uh, retention meaning 60% are not going to give again. Is the data that I have. Oh,

[00:11:04.37] spk_0:
40% retention. Okay. Yes. I’m thinking of the loss of, right. Alright. So

[00:11:09.63] spk_1:
data

[00:11:17.64] spk_0:
scientists that I data scientist that I am. Yes, I realize. Alright. So, so it’s somewhere. All right. So the loss, the attrition is Somewhere between 60 and 70. Something

[00:11:19.87] spk_1:
more than half of the people who donate your organization.

[00:11:27.24] spk_0:
That’s abysmal amazon amazon would would cringe at that. Yeah.

[00:11:41.14] spk_1:
Yeah. And the thing is you probably put a lot of work into getting those donors. You know, like you’re out there marketing your um maybe paying for social media ads. You’re doing really good work and just trying to raise awareness. And so once you’ve gotten them through your door, you should be doing everything in your power to keep them because it’s expensive and it’s time consuming to go out and find other donors might as well treat the donors you have like like V. I. P. S.

[00:12:10.64] spk_0:
Absolutely. All right. So, what do we what do we again? So what do we start to think about before we start writing? Like what how do you want us to organize our series? Our journey.

[00:12:13.64] spk_1:
Yeah. So I will just drop one more statistic in to say that these welcome journeys. They see really good open rates. Um, I don’t know if you’re familiar with average email open rates, but they’re

[00:12:25.94] spk_0:
we’ll go ahead and acquaint. Acquaint me. Acquaint us

[00:13:09.24] spk_1:
Average is around 20%. And open rate is it’s it’s it’s a you know, it’s a statistic. That’s not the most reliable thing in the world. But on average, most email newsletters you send are going to see about 20-25% open rate? Maybe two or 3% click rate. And on a welcome journey, email. Those numbers are going to be double or triple. I’ve seen this happen with so many organizations. So they’re getting open rates of 50%. They’re seeing click rates that are 5, 10, 15%, which is huge. And it just goes to show that people want to get these messages and they want to hear from you, and they, they work, they work really

[00:13:12.54] spk_0:
well. Get us going, what, what, what, what, what do you want to think about?

[00:13:54.24] spk_1:
Okay. So today, if we were to build a donor journey, so we’re welcoming someone who’s made a donation. Um, I suggest that you write anywhere from 3-5 email messages and as we said, starting immediately and going up to four weeks later. Um, and the key here is to always provide something of value to your supporters. Um, because this is about them, this is not about you. So this is not your opportunity to say, we’re so great as an organization and we’re really wonderful. And look at all the ways that were wonderful. This is the opportunity to say to the donor, you’re so great. Look at all of the impact that has been made possible thanks to you and your support.

[00:15:26.94] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, content, content creation, content management, content exposure, turn to, they can help you create content right. Right. For whatever audience it you have to write for. Is that your board, is it your donors. Is it all your supporters for the annual report? Is it just segment, is it your employees? You got to write something internal has to be done just right. Take it off your shoulders. The content management, Where do you want all this content to live? They can help you organize it, curate it and the exposure. If it’s for public audiences, then you’re going to want it out to the public that maybe blogs, that maybe newspapers, whether its op ed or its articles that may be conferences, maybe it’s podcasts, content. Do you need help with content? Turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o now back to create your email welcome journey. So how do we make sure we’re, you know, we’re, we’re varying the message with with the same purpose, You know, 3-5 times over over a month.

[00:16:18.14] spk_1:
Yes. So my suggested structure for this. Um, I like to start with, um, a plaintext gratitude message sent as close to immediately as possible. Um, sometimes because of the way your database might sink with your email program overnight, you can’t do immediately. It might have to be like within 24 hours, which is fine. But I think a plaintext gratitude message ideally from the founder of your organization, the executive director, someone who whose name would be recognizable. Um, just basically saying, Hey, I saw your donation come in, it means a lot to us. I really appreciate you, you’re wonderful, you’ve just made all of this possible. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. We’re so grateful for you. Um something

[00:16:20.74] spk_0:
like before we go ahead. I wanna, I wanna extract everything from this very first message because this is to me this is the most important one. So go ahead. You continue. I’ll remember my question. Go ahead.

[00:17:03.84] spk_1:
Um I was just gonna say that. I think that plain text messages are really powerful in this day and age because all of us get a lot of corporate looking emails a lot of the time that are really polished. They’ve got a lot of photos and colored buttons and things in them. And plaintext feels personal. So there’s there’s no images in it, there’s no special formatting. It’s just, it really feels like a real human being sat down and typed that message out to you. And so that’s what we’re going for on. This first one is a really personal touch point.

[00:17:21.04] spk_0:
Okay. You anticipated my exact question which is gonna be why? Why plaintext over formatting? Okay. Uh do we continue? Are we continuing that in our in our series or uh text or you still would like to introduce some formatting after the first message?

[00:17:25.48] spk_1:
Yeah, formatting after the first message is is my recommendation for for the way to go.

[00:17:43.44] spk_0:
But the first. But so the first one looks like it that the Ceo really did or maybe a board member or something. You know, if, if, I guess if not a recognizable name at least a prominent name like board board chair or something like that. You know, it looks like they actually typed it out.

[00:17:50.64] spk_1:
Exactly, yes. That’s what we’re going for.

[00:17:51.80] spk_0:
It came right from their right from their email app to to you. Okay.

[00:18:23.24] spk_1:
Yes. And along those lines to make it feel personal. We also want to make sure that you’re writing in whatever tone feels right for for that person for your organization. Like are you a young fun, upbeat organization where you’re going to use language that’s like, you know, you rock, you crushed it great job or is it going to be a little bit more um, heartfelt and, and serious where you know, this work is really hard. Your support means a lot. Like thank you. Just try to find a tone that feels genuine to who you are as an organization.

[00:18:51.24] spk_0:
Okay, consistent, right? You wanna have a consistent tone across? All right. All right. Alright. So that’s your, that’s your first one and it should go out as soon as possible, but you’re saying uh, 24 hours might be necessary. Yeah. It seems to me that first one really should be in the 1st 24 hours. No.

[00:19:02.94] spk_1:
Yes, exactly, exactly. In the 1st 24 hours. If you can do it within an hour or two of the donation even better. That’s that’s when someone’s, it’s still on their mind um and so it’s a really great time to get that gratitude message in.

[00:19:11.14] spk_0:
Okay, Okay, message number two,

[00:19:59.84] spk_1:
Message # two is going to be a story of impact and I recommend sending this one about three days later. So when I say story of impact, I mean tell a really great story about something someone’s life who has been changed as a result of your organization um and animals life that’s been changed um and environmental space that has been approved, whatever it is that you are doing um tell a great story that that shows like you know a clear before and after here is the problem now, thanks to you and your support, we were able to provide this solution. Um Thank you for making this possible. You’re wonderful. I just wanted to make sure you know the impact that you’re having in the world.

[00:20:07.74] spk_0:
How do you feel about video for these? For the 2nd 1 is a short video or what?

[00:20:17.84] spk_1:
Yeah, video is tricky and email simply because you can you can’t really get an email to play a video from within the email

[00:20:22.37] spk_0:
itself.

[00:20:46.44] spk_1:
So you would be relying on someone to click on it to watch it in another window. And since email, click rates tend to be pretty low, I mean even even for a really good welcome journey, 15% click rate would be extremely hot. So 15% of people would see the video. Um, it doesn’t hurt to add it. I would just make sure that if they don’t click on the video, the body of the email contains the same message that they would get from watching the video.

[00:21:04.54] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Your, your message should stand alone without the video. Quick rates are so low. Okay. Okay. Um, but you said, you know, we get visuals, photos,

[00:21:07.62] spk_1:
Yes. You’re

[00:21:08.44] spk_0:
welcome. Welcome here.

[00:21:44.34] spk_1:
Absolutely. Yeah, photos can be really powerful when you’re telling stories. So I would, if it’s possible to have a first person narrative for this email, I would really recommend that. So like if there’s a community member that you’ve worked with, who could tell his or her own story in their own words. Um, that kind of narrative is really powerful to us as human beings. It’s, it’s a lot easier for us to wrap our mind around the story of one person than it is to wrap our mind around a huge problem that spans many communities, but I know not all nonprofits work with people. So that’s not always possible.

[00:22:01.34] spk_0:
Okay. Alright. But alright, it could be a heartfelt story from a volunteer who saw something or facilitated something. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Did you have more?

[00:22:59.64] spk_1:
I was gonna say again, we want to use that you focused language as much as possible. Thanks to you. This is possible. We really appreciate your support. We’ve been able to do this together with you. Um So really making sure the donor sees themselves in the story, sees their role In what you’re doing. Um and the other thing I would add is I really recommend sending all these messages at a a 6th grade reading level. So um I think sometimes in nonprofits especially we tend to use a lot of big fancy words or jargon that only makes sense to us who are you know in the industry that we’re in where we feel the need to like treat it like a you know a grant proposal where we’re talking about infrastructure improvements and etcetera. I would just keep it really simple. Keep your language super simple. Um No need for big words. Um Just right right from the heart.

[00:24:24.14] spk_0:
Exactly right that’s exactly what I was thinking of gratitude, sincere sincerity from the heart. All right it’s time for a break. Fourth dimension technologies. Their I. T. Solution is I. T. Infra in a box it’s budget friendly. It’s holistic. You pick what you need and leave the rest behind. It’s like your I. T. Buffet you’re going down the line with your tray I. T. Assessment. Oh yes definitely definitely want to have the I. T. Assessment this time. Multifactor authentication. Yes I’ve been looking forward to that. Bring it on put it on the tray. Other security. Um uh Not not not tonight not tonight cost analysis. Yes you can’t go through without cost analysis help desk. I gotta have if I’m going through the buffet line gotta have help desk and there’s more to choose from on the buffet so whatever you choose based on your situation based on your budget. The I. T. Buffet I. T. Infra in a box. All right. Fourth dimension technologies tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Um You said three days after for the second message. Is that three days after the person took their action or three days from the first message?

[00:24:33.14] spk_1:
three days from the action.

[00:24:34.74] spk_0:
So

[00:24:38.64] spk_1:
ideally that wouldn’t be too far off from the first message either. That first message.

[00:24:48.64] spk_0:
Okay Okay but in the worst case it could have been four days. So I just I want listeners to have as much as as much detail as possible. All right.

[00:24:52.14] spk_1:
Yes I appreciate that.

[00:25:06.74] spk_0:
Yes I’m picking your brain. You know you’ve got you’ve got the wisdom so you’re here to share it. Right? I hope otherwise we’re done. Otherwise we’re done So you know you are here for that. Okay. I know I know. Um All right. Anything else on message number two?

[00:25:11.24] spk_1:
No that’s

[00:25:15.44] spk_0:
okay and then again this is all automated. Right. It’s all set up. The first message goes as soon as you can. The second message goes three days after the action. This is all set up in a in a workflow in your your your email app.

[00:25:50.44] spk_1:
Yeah and this is this is not designed to create more work for your staff. You want to set it up once and forget it. So you want these messages to be as evergreen as possible. So you don’t have to go in and update them all the time. Um ideally you’d only want to update it maybe once a year. Um and just know that it’s it’s doing its thing. It’s chugging along in the background. It’s bringing supporters closer to you closer to your cause um all without you having to to really do anything.

[00:25:57.94] spk_0:
Are you looking at? I presume you are but I’ll ask looking at reply rates to see if people respond to these emails.

[00:26:12.74] spk_1:
Um yeah, I mean it depends on the email, some of them that first plaintext message does tend to see a lot of replies. Um So yeah that’s that’s a really good thing to track every

[00:26:16.06] spk_0:
because that’s the one it looks, it looks so personal.

[00:26:18.88] spk_1:
You

[00:26:19.78] spk_0:
want to make sure and you want to make sure it’s set up to go back to a person.

[00:26:23.05] spk_1:
Don’t

[00:26:23.93] spk_0:
send don’t send it from do not reply address.

[00:26:42.74] spk_1:
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think you should ever send any message from do not reply address. You always want your supporters to be able to talk to you. Um But yeah, a quick note on that plain text one if you’re let’s say it’s coming from your executive Director and your executive director is a person who gets way too many emails and can’t respond to all of them. I would just make sure that you have some sort of system set up so that someone can help him or her deal with that influx of messages so that everyone’s getting a response to their response. And it feels like a real conversation.

[00:27:00.74] spk_0:
Right. Right. Right. That’s easy to set up. You can set it up with a rule based on the subject because you’re you’re controlling the subject when they reply those those emails get, you know, forwarded or they go to a mailbox and somebody else can answer or something like that. Alright. Yeah. Yeah. Don’t don’t send a person looking email and then the person replies to it and then you don’t reply back blew the all for the purpose of the first email.

[00:27:26.58] spk_1:
Alright.

[00:27:27.77] spk_0:
Alright. So we’re through our first two.

[00:27:31.94] spk_1:
Are

[00:27:32.18] spk_0:
We on to our 3rd message now?

[00:28:03.04] spk_1:
Yes. This message is # three. So this is gonna come about um a week after the donation. Um And this one we recommend doing some sort of request for your donor to take in action with you. And it’s really important that we are not asking them to donate. Again that’s not what we’re doing. We’re inviting them to do something else. Like maybe attend an event if you have events that you put on. Maybe you want to you want them to share a post on social media for you or you want them to sign a petition or maybe fill out a survey. So you can learn more about them. Something where you’re saying, hey, will you please engage with us? We want to get to know you better. We want to be better friends with you. We want you to be in our inner circle with us. Here is an opportunity for you to do that.

[00:28:37.34] spk_0:
Okay, interesting. So just this third message, it’s not too soon to ask for something more, but not a donation. I don’t know, it’s not it’s not a donation, but it’s take some other step with us. Do something.

[00:28:41.14] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. It’s it’s a way

[00:28:43.02] spk_0:
to build

[00:28:56.94] spk_1:
on the engagement that, that you already have. Um I don’t think it’s too soon. But again, every audience is different. So you might set this up and you might see that you’re not getting a lot of um, engagement on this email and then it’s not a good fit for your audience. So try something different then in that case,

[00:29:02.66] spk_0:
what kind of what kind of action rate should we be looking for?

[00:29:32.84] spk_1:
So, you, you would want to look at your open rates and your click rates, especially click rates for this email and you’d want to compare them to the other emails in this series. And so if you see that they’re right about if all the emails in this series are seeing a 50% open rate. This one is two and maybe a little bit higher click rate because you’re actually asking them to click on something As opposed to the plain text email, there’s probably nothing for them to click on in that one. Um, that’s where you want to be. About the same open rates a little bit higher click rates. If you’re seeing a lower open rate, a lower click rate than maybe try putting different content into this email and see if it performs better.

[00:29:45.94] spk_0:
Okay. But

[00:30:01.04] spk_1:
the idea is someone who donated to you is pretty fired up about you. And so they’re probably a really good candidate for your event. They might really be interested in attending that. Or if you are looking for volunteers, you know, your donors might be a really, really good target audience to say, hey, do you know, we have these volunteer opportunities. Would love to meet you in person. We’d love for you to get more involved. If that’s something that interests you. Here’s the like,

[00:30:19.34] spk_0:
survey is an interesting idea to, you know, what, what, what motivates you about our work? How do you like to be communicated with? You prefer email, you want to share. You know, do you want to get our text chains if if we have that, you know, etcetera. Right.

[00:30:56.14] spk_1:
Yeah, totally. And all of us, it’s kind of human nature. We love to talk about ourselves and a survey can be an opportunity to do that. You know, like tell us about you what, what draws you to our work. Um, if if you can ask a more specific question like if you’re an animal rescue organization, you could say like do you have a pet at home, who are they, what’s their name? You know, just just really making it seem like like we care about you, we see you and we want to know you better,

[00:30:57.94] spk_0:
you’re a dog person or a cat

[00:30:59.22] spk_1:
person

[00:31:00.94] spk_0:
uh, that then then you just know what to send them and what not to send and what kind of pictures to send and what not to send.

[00:31:13.74] spk_1:
Yes yeah, that feels nice on the donor’s end to be like, oh they care they want to know about my cat

[00:32:32.54] spk_0:
It’s time for Tony’s take two who can you share non profit radio with? It’s the reduction I asked you this last week this week I beseech you who can you share non profit radio with find folks is it board members, is it your friends who work at other nonprofits, your colleagues and your existing in your nonprofit doesn’t sound so x tilted your existing nonprofit the place where you work is there other people in the place where you work, who can you share? non profit radio with, I would be grateful, I’d like to have more folks benefiting learning from nonprofit radio you are, why not let others don’t be selfish, don’t be selfish share non profit radio thank you Whoever you can share with, I’d be grateful. Send them a link, connect us on linkedin, send them to tony-martignetti dot com, share a show. Thank you. Thanks very much. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for create your email. Welcome journey with patty breach. Alright, so we’ve got these three messages within a week, right? The third one you said, I believe within within a week of the action?

[00:32:39.54] spk_1:
Yes,

[00:32:40.65] spk_0:
That’s right, Okay. Yes, three messages in a week, even though we have 30 days you wanted, you want it all in a week.

[00:33:23.04] spk_1:
Yeah. And again, this is, this is something to try out with your audience so maybe you space them out a little bit more, Maybe it’s Plaintext immediately. You wait three or 4 days before you tell the story of impact And then you wait six or 7 days before you requests them to take an action with you. It all depends on your audience I think um it’s better to send them a little bit sooner to the donation date. Um just because you don’t want someone, you don’t want the trail to go cold, so to speak and for someone to get an email three weeks later and be a little confused like why are you asking me for this and for them to not even remember that they made a donation with you?

[00:33:33.14] spk_0:
Okay, Okay, Um now earlier on you had said 3-5, what would you, what would you do if you were gonna? So so the three is that you gotta do at least three?

[00:33:38.84] spk_1:
That’s my recommendation yep

[00:33:40.84] spk_0:
at least wait. What would you do if you were gonna if you wanted to carry it on to four or five what what what would those what might those look like?

[00:35:01.24] spk_1:
Yeah so email number four would be another story telling you know and this would be two weeks after the donation. So one full week between the email before prior to this. Um And this is pretty similar to the other storytelling email that we sent. Like if you can tell the first person narrative great we still want to stir up people’s emotions make them feel like they played a really important work role in your work. Um They’re changing the world you know we still want to keep that you focused language in there. Um And there’s a couple of reasons why we recommend having another story of impact email. Um For one we as human beings are our brains are just wired to interpret the world through stories. We love stories. Um So hearing a story is really impactful for us and also stories are really good at stirring up emotions and emotions are such an important part of what you do. Um They drive all of our decisions as humans and so if you can make people feel more emotions more positive emotions about their donation about your work. Um It’s gonna it’s gonna really help you in the long run. Okay.

[00:35:02.94] spk_0:
Anything else about the optional number 4?

[00:35:20.14] spk_1:
Okay. Um I would just say if you are setting up a journey with only three emails, um This one could you could swap this one for email number three if you want. So you could have one gratitude message and to storytelling emails and be done with it. If you feel like you don’t have a survey set up or you don’t have events to invite people to or that just feels too confusing to think about right now.

[00:35:33.24] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Well, another another step could be a petition if you’re if you’re doing advocacy work, right? Sign a petition message number three,

[00:35:37.50] spk_1:
definitely. Yeah.

[00:35:41.34] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. All right. Um and what about number five if we if we’re gonna go all the way.

[00:35:45.94] spk_1:
Yeah. So

[00:35:46.50] spk_0:
email the

[00:36:29.93] spk_1:
Email No five. This is when we’re gonna make a request that they become a monthly donor and ideally this is going to come um right around the one month mark from their donation. So about um, a couple of weeks after the previous message. And the key with this message is that you want to start it off by saying by acknowledging their previous donation. So you want to start off by saying, we know who you are. We’re still thinking about that donation that you made a month ago. We’re still really grateful for you. Um In fact, we were thinking you might be a good fit for a monthly recurring program because we know how much you love our costs, whatever that might be

[00:36:32.15] spk_0:
excellent. Okay,

[00:36:45.03] spk_1:
so you’re not making the mistake of, you know, we want anyone to feel like we’re asking for money when they just give us money and like it’s like, are you even keeping track of what I’m doing

[00:36:45.88] spk_0:
for you? So

[00:36:56.13] spk_1:
you want to start off the first sentence of that email if you can, you know, last month you made a generous decision. We’re still thinking about how great you are. Here’s an invitation to join our monthly program.

[00:37:04.63] spk_0:
What kind of conversion rate would we aspire to? Right.

[00:37:16.73] spk_1:
Um, this, in my experience, the conversion rate on these, this particular email is going to be, um, on the lower side, but pretty steady. So I would say maybe 5% of your donors are going to choose to become monthly donors, which is great. Monthly donors have so much value to an organization as you

[00:37:29.23] spk_0:
know. Okay. So 5% is very good

[00:37:32.13] spk_1:
in my opinion? Yeah.

[00:37:47.43] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. All right. Uh, should we, should we bother if we wanted to go if we want to go more? Are we, are we then doing too much? If we go like six or 7 messages In 30 days, is that too much? I

[00:38:26.82] spk_1:
think that’s probably too much again. Every audience is different. Um, I think this, This is a good five emails is a good number. That feels like um you haven’t really worn out your welcome with them. You’ve capitalized on their enthusiasm and sort of kept them kept them going, kept drawing them further into what you’re doing. Um and at this point I would say now you can put them just into your regular email newsletter schedule. Um That is another thing that I would recommend is while someone is in a journey, I recommend making sure they’re not getting any other email communications from you. They’re just getting the journey.

[00:38:34.92] spk_0:
Mm Okay. You don’t want to uh they want to contaminate

[00:38:36.62] spk_1:
right? Or overload.

[00:38:38.95] spk_0:
You’re welcome journey or overload them. Okay.

[00:38:40.84] spk_1:
Yeah. Or accidentally send them a solicitation email when they just donated to you three days before you don’t want to do that.

[00:38:48.22] spk_0:
Yes. Yes. Is it a mistake if we’re only gonna do three?

[00:38:51.82] spk_1:
Is

[00:38:52.12] spk_0:
It a mistake to ask for monthly giving in message # 3? Is that too soon?

[00:39:10.62] spk_1:
That feels a little soon to me? I would say if you want to ask for a monthly giving, um Maybe do it as a 30 mil but give it a little bit more time Between the second and the 30 miles.

[00:39:24.62] spk_0:
Oh, you maybe could. Okay, and you can test these things to, well, you have to, you have to have a decent number of people to to test um Alright, so that’s a possibility. You could ask for the monthly giving in the third email, but wait longer.

[00:39:29.72] spk_1:
All right. But

[00:39:31.10] spk_0:
why take the lazy way? Why not just do

[00:39:32.72] spk_1:
five?

[00:39:37.82] spk_0:
Do the do the the the the the preferred breach method would be

[00:39:39.61] spk_1:
the

[00:39:40.98] spk_0:
Full series of five. Right?

[00:40:07.01] spk_1:
Yes, absolutely. That’s what I recommend. I also want to say um you want to make sure that you’re the way that you’re segmenting people into this journey is really important. Um You don’t want to ask a monthly donor to become a monthly donor. So you want to make sure that you can filter out any monthly donors from receiving that specific, you know? Yeah, I in a perfect world, I think every nonprofit organization would have many journeys set up. So you have a journey for a new one time donor of turning one time donor, a monthly donor things that are just very specific to what what that action was that that person took with

[00:40:23.85] spk_0:
you um

[00:40:27.31] spk_1:
and have have segmentation that matches those parameters.

[00:40:45.61] spk_0:
Okay. If you’re journeying with a new monthly donor, What might the 5th message solicit for? Could it be for uh an outright One time gift? Or is that a mistake or what might that 5th 1 look like a solicitation wise?

[00:41:19.41] spk_1:
Yeah, good question. So, um the monthly donor journeys that we set up our shorter, they’re usually only about three messages and there’s no ask as any any part of those three because um this person is giving at the level that we want them to give them. There’s there’s really not much else that we want them to do if we did want them to make another one time donation. We probably want to save that for a special occasion like holiday giving season or if you have a capital campaign coming up. Um So we really just want to have that journey be focused on gratitude.

[00:41:37.21] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Alright. Anything else? Uh well, what were the questions like in your in your session? Do you remember some of the the I don’t know the most valuable questions?

[00:42:17.30] spk_1:
Um Yeah, so I had a lot of questions about um you know, how how do you get buy in from your your team to do this? You know how like that there was one organization that said um Okay, they wanted to have every email in the welcome journey should be asking for a donation because it was sort of like their policy that every email hasn’t asked um which is not something not not a strategy that I agree with. Um But yeah, getting I mean, it can be a lot to set set these

[00:42:21.51] spk_0:
breach that’s a breach of the breach

[00:42:25.80] spk_1:
methodology. All right, Okay.

[00:42:34.50] spk_0:
So what so what do you say to that person? How do you get this? How do you get your leadership to uh consent to deviating from the policy?

[00:43:09.10] spk_1:
Yeah, I mean, I would I would want to share the marketing rule of seven which I think you’ve probably heard of before that. It takes 77 different marketing touchpoints before a conversion happens. So um I think it’s really important that your donors are hearing from you in ways that do not involve you asking them for money. So you have all those touch points um sort of building up and and helping you out so that when you do make an escalator down the road, they’re ready for it because you’ve had all these non ask touch points leading up to it.

[00:43:19.90] spk_0:
Okay.

[00:43:23.20] spk_1:
We don’t want to produce donor fatigue or they just think I only ever hear from these people and they want money from me.

[00:43:27.14] spk_0:
Yeah. Alright. But clearly that organization does not adhere to the to the seven

[00:43:33.00] spk_1:
to

[00:43:45.90] spk_0:
The seven touchpoints principle. They’re well they’re doing seven touchpoints but every one of them is a solicitation. They perverted perverted all seven touchpoints principle. Alright, Alright. What would you like to leave us with around email journeys,

[00:44:30.59] spk_1:
describe um I guess oh my gosh, there’s so much I could say on this. I guess I would want to say that we love setting these up. We love helping organizations with them. So if anyone has more questions about how to do this or how to do it specifically with with their system, their database, their email program. Um We’d love to talk it through um on our website we have um some free resources around email. Welcome journeys. Can also sign up for an hour with us. Free office hours that we have every week, it’s not a sales consultation and advice for an hour. Um, we’d love to see more nonprofits doing this so however we can help make that happen. Um, let us know I want to be a part of it.

[00:44:38.79] spk_0:
Okay. I asked for inspiration. I get a sales pitch. Okay. I understand. Now where is the, where’s the purpose collective

[00:44:48.09] spk_1:
website? Um, it’s the dash purpose dash collective dot com.

[00:44:56.09] spk_0:
Okay. Sorry,

[00:44:56.64] spk_1:
sorry, go ahead.

[00:44:59.59] spk_0:
I was just gonna repeat it for folks. The dash purpose dash collective dot com.

[00:45:02.59] spk_1:
Yes.

[00:45:03.69] spk_0:
Okay.

[00:45:04.79] spk_1:
And for inspiration

[00:45:09.81] spk_0:
embarrassed. You know, go ahead. Yes.

[00:45:16.09] spk_1:
What I will say is that not a lot of organizations are doing this,

[00:45:19.43] spk_0:
um,

[00:45:30.19] spk_1:
nonprofits and for profits alike, but it’s so effective. And so if you can set this up for your organization, even if it’s just three emails, um, it’s, it’s really gonna make you stand apart from the rest

[00:45:53.09] spk_0:
like so many other things like, like handwritten notes and personalized short videos, things like that that nobody else is doing them. These great ideas are out there. You can stand out, but you got to do them in order to, to just to stand out. All right, excellent patty breach. Thank you very much.

[00:45:56.29] spk_1:
Thank you. This

[00:47:15.88] spk_0:
is founder and Ceo the purpose collective and thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of the 2022 nonprofit technology conference Next week. More from 22. NTCC If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you, that’s two. Beseeches one show, find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o And by 4th dimension technologies I thi infra in a box, the affordable tech solution for nonprofits. tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant or D Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, thank you for that. Affirmation scotty be with me next week for nonprofit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great mm hmm.