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Nonprofit Radio for May 23, 2022: Many Ways To Test Your Digital Fundraising

 

Jeremy Haselwood: Many Ways To Test Your Digital Fundraising
As our #22NTC coverage continues, Jeremy Haselwood walks you through 30 variables you can test throughout your digital fundraising, including your homepage, donation pages, Facebook ads, and more. He’s from Fundraisers Unite.

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[00:00:11.54] spk_0:
mm hmm. Hello

[00:00:12.80] spk_1:
and welcome to tony-martignetti non

[00:00:26.24] spk_0:
Profit radio big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad

[00:00:28.04] spk_1:
you’re with me. I’d

[00:00:28.35] spk_0:
suffer the effects of

[00:00:29.56] spk_1:
osteoporosis if

[00:00:35.44] spk_0:
I had to raise my eyebrows to the idea that you missed this week’s show many ways to test your

[00:00:38.94] spk_1:
digital fundraising As our 22 NTC coverage continues,

[00:00:41.82] spk_0:
jeremy hazelwood walks you through lots of

[00:00:44.59] spk_1:
variables you can

[00:00:45.66] spk_0:
test throughout your

[00:00:47.00] spk_1:
digital fundraising,

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including your

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homepage donation pages, facebook ads and more.

[00:00:54.24] spk_0:
He’s from

[00:00:55.15] spk_1:
fundraisers

[00:00:56.13] spk_0:
unite

[00:00:59.54] spk_1:
On Tony’s take two doubling

[00:00:59.99] spk_0:
down on please share

[00:01:03.84] spk_1:
redux. We’re

[00:01:03.95] spk_0:
sponsored by turn to

[00:01:04.97] spk_1:
communications pr

[00:01:06.57] spk_0:
and content for

[00:01:07.35] spk_1:
nonprofits. Your

[00:01:14.04] spk_0:
story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o. And by 4th dimension technologies

[00:01:16.94] spk_1:
I

[00:01:17.12] spk_0:
thi infra in a box

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the affordable tech solution for

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nonprofits.

[00:01:22.54] spk_1:
tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant four D. Just

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like three D.

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But they go one dimension deeper.

[00:01:29.64] spk_0:
Here

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is many ways to

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test your digital

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fundraising.

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Hello and

[00:01:36.00] spk_1:
welcome to

[00:02:11.54] spk_0:
Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 22 NTC 2022 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10. Those very smart folks who help you use technology as you are doing your mission as you are doing your social change work everyday. They’re helping you leverage technology. My guest now is jeremy hazelwood. He is digital fundraiser, author, trainer and marketer at fundraisers United Jeremy Welcome to nonprofit radio Hey, Tony, thank you for having me here. I’m so excited to be here and talk digital fundraising. Absolutely. That’s what we’re here to do. I’m glad you’re excited Thank you. Alright. I’m glad to see you get excited about digital fundraising man. It’s my passion. So it’s like I wake up and I’m, I’m excited every day because I get to help companies raise money and do more good in the world. So

[00:02:31.26] spk_1:
it took a while to figure

[00:03:16.54] spk_0:
out what it is that gets me up. But that’s, that’s definitely it. This is it. All right. And your session is aptly named 30 ways to test your digital fundraising. You would like to see nonprofits develop a testing plan testing regimen. Yeah, yeah. I think it’s something that’s very underutilized just in my experience working with nonprofit, especially from a digital side. Um, my background is like I worked for agencies that marketing and fundraising agencies that serve nonprofits heavy and direct mail. And my role with them was to really bring digital and make it, um, just a better channel for their clients to raise funds. I noticed they do a lot in testing when it comes to direct mail, but when it came to digital,

[00:03:17.90] spk_1:
it was kind of

[00:04:06.44] spk_0:
bland and one message and I’m like, there’s still so much that we can learn from digital, we can learn it so much more quickly than we can with direct mail. Okay. Um, is there a way that you’ve organized these, these 30 ways. I don’t know if we’ll be able to tick through all 30. Yeah, depending on how much you have to say about them, but we might, you know, we’ll see well organized by like channel um, facebook goal etcetera. Yeah, it’s actually funny. Like the original concept for this session, um, that I pitched to NtC was like 100 ways to test and it was gonna be a 60 minute session. Actually. No, no, that’s not. I have a, I have 100 ways to test within fundraisers unite. But for N TC, I was gonna do like 60 ways to test 60 and 60 minutes and then They’re like, well we only have the 30 minute sessions available. I’m like, let’s do 30 in 30 minutes. Um, 40, There you go. See the math works itself out. But, but for the sake

[00:04:21.13] spk_1:
of like organizing to

[00:04:22.15] spk_0:
your point. Um,

[00:04:23.16] spk_1:
I did, I focused

[00:04:24.42] spk_0:
on some specific areas. So I looked really

[00:04:27.44] spk_1:
at email, um

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social media,

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um, search

[00:04:30.33] spk_0:
engine marketing and

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let’s see

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um, donation page and social media. Really your facebook ads, not like all social, but so email, facebook ads. Search engine marketing, your donation page and your homepage. So these are

[00:04:45.20] spk_1:
The five areas that I

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focused on for the session

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for NtC.

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Okay, let’s start with the homepage and the donation pages because odds are

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everybody’s got one of those

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both of those and I do see some pretty weak donation pages, uh,

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lacking

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technology,

[00:05:05.26] spk_1:
lacking visual appeal.

[00:05:07.84] spk_0:
Um, so, but let’s, let’s start with, let’s start with the home page and you know, we’ll go beyond those two, but let’s make sure we cover the homepage and then donation pages. So what’s your advice around the homepage?

[00:05:18.01] spk_1:
Yeah,

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so with the homepage, I mean

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naturally it’s like

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you want your donation page, there’s so many boxes at the homepage, has to check when people come to your website, they need to know who you are, why you do what you do, who you do it for um in a way for people to connect with you. And some of

[00:05:36.31] spk_1:
the things that I talked about it and what people

[00:05:38.45] spk_0:
don’t realize too is like there’s things

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that you should test on your

[00:05:41.28] spk_0:
homepage. Um and there’s tools that you can use to test.

[00:05:44.03] spk_1:
Also, I didn’t get into the

[00:05:45.10] spk_0:
tools within the session,

[00:05:46.79] spk_1:
but you can use

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like um optimized

[00:05:49.00] spk_1:
lee or um

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omni convert. These are

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tools and

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actually google optimized you

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can use. These are tools that I

[00:05:56.44] spk_0:
we don’t have time to

[00:05:57.17] spk_1:
go into those, but what they

[00:05:58.41] spk_0:
essentially do is help

[00:05:59.38] spk_1:
you kind of a b test

[00:06:00.49] spk_0:
different elements on your homepage, for example, resources. Those

[00:06:04.69] spk_1:
3. 1 more time I’d like to

[00:06:05.80] spk_0:
share.

[00:06:06.47] spk_1:
Sure, sure. Optimized

[00:06:08.90] spk_0:
lee.

[00:06:09.84] spk_1:
Omni convert

[00:06:11.48] spk_0:
and google

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optimized and google

[00:06:14.11] spk_0:
optimize is free, but there are certain limitations, but

[00:06:17.26] spk_1:
basically these are

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like conversion rate

[00:06:19.29] spk_1:
optimization tools for your website or even

[00:06:23.94] spk_0:
for your donation page and to summarize

[00:06:25.59] spk_1:
what what these tools

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do is let’s say you’re one time that your homepage

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loads, You’ll

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get image a, as your homepage better and the next

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time your web page loads,

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it’ll be image

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B of the homepage banner.

[00:06:40.04] spk_0:
So it’s kind of randomized

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if you will, just

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to simplify. So

[00:06:42.74] spk_1:
when people see your

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website, they’ll get a version

[00:06:44.72] spk_1:
A and version be of your website.

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So you can test

[00:06:47.76] spk_1:
different things on your

[00:06:48.64] spk_0:
website, like an image

[00:06:50.23] spk_1:
or a call to action or a headline or

[00:06:52.27] spk_0:
something like that. Um, that’s generally what that does. Um, that’s again, I didn’t get into any of that because it does get to be a little more technical. Um, really what my point of my session was and really the point today is like,

[00:07:05.74] spk_1:
here’s what you

[00:07:06.65] spk_0:
can test and then we can also get into

[00:07:08.72] spk_1:
why it’s important to test,

[00:07:09.85] spk_0:
which a lot of it’s kind of common sense knowledge, but that’s not always common practice though. Um, but when it comes to your home page, one of

[00:07:17.79] spk_1:
the things that, that I

[00:07:18.71] spk_0:
always recommend is like testing like your hero image, which is like that first image that’s at the top of your home page. Um, some nonprofits might have a video running up there instead of an image, but testing that using, like, especially if you’re

[00:07:32.64] spk_1:
doing a campaign,

[00:07:34.34] spk_0:
um, if you’re running a

[00:07:35.81] spk_1:
campaign like right now, I don’t know

[00:07:37.81] spk_0:
when people will hear this, but let’s say it’s

[00:07:39.80] spk_1:
a springtime

[00:07:40.85] spk_0:
campaign, your email is springtime campaign oriented. You’re, let’s say you’re running

[00:07:45.74] spk_1:
facebook ads. It’s springtime campaign

[00:07:47.75] spk_0:
oriented. Um,

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so like let’s

[00:07:50.25] spk_0:
have like your

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hero image on your

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page be that

[00:07:53.77] spk_1:
same campaign

[00:07:54.94] spk_0:
as opposed to like

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here’s what we do or

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here’s how you can volunteer,

[00:07:59.14] spk_1:
like make that image

[00:08:00.58] spk_0:
coincide with the rest of your campaign elements.

[00:08:03.94] spk_1:
Right? Make

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it timely make it integrate

[00:08:05.61] spk_1:
with your campaigns,

[00:08:06.69] spk_0:
test that with the campaign versus not testing it if

[00:08:09.68] spk_1:
you don’t have the tools

[00:08:11.03] spk_0:
and watch

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how your donations

[00:08:12.82] spk_0:
will increase because that message is right there in

[00:08:15.19] spk_1:
the front for people to see.

[00:08:16.62] spk_0:
Um, so

[00:08:17.83] spk_1:
you know, that that’s one thing that you

[00:08:21.84] spk_0:
can test is your hero image using a campaign image as opposed to like a

[00:08:22.83] spk_1:
general branded image or

[00:08:28.24] spk_0:
some other kind of call to action image. Um, so I’ll pause there, see if you have questions or if you wanted me to

[00:08:30.72] spk_1:
kind of roll into the next

[00:08:31.91] spk_0:
one, you know, go to the

[00:08:32.85] spk_1:
go to the next homepage

[00:08:34.13] spk_0:
idea.

[00:08:34.72] spk_1:
Okay. Yeah. Next one would be like your

[00:08:37.09] spk_0:
donation

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button text. Um,

[00:08:40.04] spk_0:
pretty much every

[00:08:40.80] spk_1:
nonprofit. I haven’t

[00:08:42.02] spk_0:
Seen one and I don’t

[00:08:43.18] spk_1:
know how long

[00:08:44.37] spk_0:
that does not include that donate button

[00:08:46.28] spk_1:
up in the upper, usually

[00:08:47.38] spk_0:
right hand corner.

[00:08:48.42] spk_1:
Uh, and most of

[00:08:49.52] spk_0:
them will say donate and I think

[00:08:51.45] spk_1:
that’s fine. I don’t think

[00:08:52.42] spk_0:
there’s anything wrong with donate, but what if instead of donate it said give now

[00:08:58.04] spk_1:
or make

[00:08:58.64] spk_0:
a difference

[00:08:59.42] spk_1:
or feed a

[00:09:00.32] spk_0:
family, you know, whatever

[00:09:01.72] spk_1:
that call to action,

[00:09:02.71] spk_0:
maybe fund

[00:09:04.24] spk_1:
a research study.

[00:09:06.24] spk_0:
Um, so

[00:09:07.12] spk_1:
we’re very accustomed to just saying donate now because it’s

[00:09:09.60] spk_0:
very direct, but it’s also

[00:09:10.99] spk_1:
very transactional.

[00:09:12.48] spk_0:
Um, but again,

[00:09:13.54] spk_1:
I’m not saying that it’s,

[00:09:14.48] spk_0:
it’s not going to

[00:09:15.59] spk_1:
work for your organization, but if we

[00:09:16.97] spk_0:
don’t test, we don’t know

[00:09:18.19] spk_1:
right.

[00:09:18.86] spk_0:
Um, and I think there’s certain

[00:09:20.52] spk_1:
kind of boilerplate

[00:09:21.54] spk_0:
templates that is non profit as an

[00:09:23.94] spk_1:
industry we go

[00:09:24.86] spk_0:
with because we know that in general this

[00:09:27.09] spk_1:
is what’s supposed to work. And I don’t

[00:09:29.71] spk_0:
remember you

[00:09:30.76] spk_1:
remember years ago act Blue

[00:09:32.36] spk_0:
did well with Chip in.

[00:09:34.44] spk_1:
Yeah,

[00:09:36.06] spk_0:
something like

[00:09:36.69] spk_1:
that. But I’m sure they, I mean

[00:09:57.94] spk_0:
they have lots and lots of records that they’re mailing too. So I’m sure they tested and, and chip in. You saw the blue button and said and for them it was like chip in, you know? Yeah. Well, but, and even to that point it’s like chip in and that could be like vernacular. That’s that organization and their audiences like they associate with that non profit you know, So what’s the vernacular, the language

[00:10:00.72] spk_1:
that you’re a nonprofit would

[00:10:01.69] spk_0:
use, you know, maybe it is chip in, you know, maybe it’s feed a family, you know, whatever that is, but test that out. Um, if you don’t have, if you have zero data, your new nonprofit or you’ve never tested before, then you probably have data on what donate now is doing for you. Like let’s switch it for a month and try to keep everything constant If we, if we have too many factors going, we’re not going to know what works, you know, so you always want to change

[00:10:24.81] spk_1:
One thing at one time.

[00:10:26.14] spk_0:
Um, and if all

[00:10:26.91] spk_1:
things are the same and we

[00:10:28.01] spk_0:
only changed the text on that donated button, then it’s a pretty safe bet that the donate button was the reason that, you know, the,

[00:10:35.49] spk_1:
that we got and you can

[00:10:38.54] spk_0:
also test it with. I’m trying to think of some of the other

[00:10:39.85] spk_1:
tools. Um, well even the tools

[00:10:42.64] spk_0:
that I mentioned, they can test conversion rates and things like that.

[00:10:45.52] spk_1:
But because

[00:10:46.50] spk_0:
I know one pieces, like we talked about testing, but then there’s like,

[00:10:48.91] spk_1:
how do you measure the testing? Um,

[00:10:50.85] spk_0:
and one is if you’re, you’re not using any

[00:10:53.25] spk_1:
tools, it’s just kind of how did we do last month

[00:10:57.44] spk_0:
versus how we do this month? Um, did we change anything

[00:10:58.99] spk_1:
else? No, Then we can probably attribute it to this and that’s kind of the

[00:11:02.54] spk_0:
roundabout. Like

[00:11:03.49] spk_1:
we can probably attribute it to this.

[00:11:05.50] spk_0:
Um, if

[00:11:06.52] spk_1:
smaller, medium

[00:11:07.67] spk_0:
sized nonprofits

[00:11:08.40] spk_1:
may not have the budget

[00:11:09.68] spk_0:
to actually put the analytics and technology behind

[00:11:12.16] spk_1:
knowing for sure

[00:11:13.50] spk_0:
what

[00:11:14.30] spk_1:
the difference maker was. But if you’re

[00:11:16.18] spk_0:
looking for some data points like that’s certainly something that can help is

[00:11:20.11] spk_1:
swapping it out and keeping

[00:11:21.35] spk_0:
everything else the same.

[00:12:07.14] spk_1:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications, Content creation and content management, What projects do you have that they can take off your plate, lift these weights from your shoulders? Content creation Is there some writing project some series that you need to do or that you’ve been thinking about doing you’d like to do for internal audiences. External board donor’s community. What writing projects can they take off your plate and then the content management and also the distribution. Getting you the

[00:12:07.84] spk_0:
placements and

[00:12:49.14] spk_1:
as well as managing that content for you on your site, whether that’s blog, wherever you may, print or digital. Right, Alright. So how can they help you with content creation, content management and then also the distribution, getting the, getting your good word, you as an opinion leader, thought leader in your community. Getting that out. Turn to communications, your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to many ways to test your digital fundraising.

[00:12:54.74] spk_0:
You made the point a

[00:12:56.05] spk_1:
couple of times, keeping everything

[00:12:57.26] spk_0:
else the same. I

[00:12:58.88] spk_1:
guess if you if you change a few things

[00:13:01.05] spk_0:
or a bunch of things

[00:13:02.54] spk_1:
and your outcomes improved,

[00:13:07.04] spk_0:
I guess

[00:13:07.82] spk_1:
by outcomes, you know,

[00:13:08.65] spk_0:
we’re keeping it simple. So we’re saying

[00:13:10.00] spk_1:
donations improved.

[00:13:11.67] spk_0:
Then

[00:13:12.47] spk_1:
then then

[00:13:13.21] spk_0:
then that’s terrific.

[00:13:14.25] spk_1:
But if donations declined

[00:13:16.35] spk_0:
and you don’t know what it is that you changed that caused them to

[00:13:19.14] spk_1:
decline. So then you have to go back to where you were in the beginning

[00:13:22.43] spk_0:
and then

[00:13:23.39] spk_1:
iterative lee changed

[00:13:26.44] spk_0:
one thing at a time and

[00:13:26.59] spk_1:
figure out what what what

[00:13:29.24] spk_0:
is, what is, what

[00:13:29.49] spk_1:
is it that’s depressing

[00:13:30.73] spk_0:
your,

[00:13:31.56] spk_1:
your outcomes and change that one little thing

[00:13:33.92] spk_0:
and then and then test and see

[00:13:35.54] spk_1:
if you, you get higher

[00:13:36.53] spk_0:
than your baseline.

[00:13:38.54] spk_1:
Yeah, exactly. Because the

[00:13:43.75] spk_0:
tests that I’m talking about in the test

[00:13:45.31] spk_1:
will go through. It’s like

[00:13:46.44] spk_0:
these are tests that you do one at a time. I’m not like

[00:13:48.64] spk_1:
here’s 50 things

[00:13:49.62] spk_0:
you can test and let’s do them all at once.

[00:13:51.65] spk_1:
Because if you think about if you

[00:13:53.03] spk_0:
change that button, if you

[00:13:54.08] spk_1:
change it to say give

[00:13:55.37] spk_0:
now instead of donate now and

[00:13:57.07] spk_1:
it goes to your landing page. But you’ve

[00:13:58.64] spk_0:
also changed an image

[00:14:00.23] spk_1:
or headline or something on the

[00:14:02.54] spk_0:
landing page, then we don’t know if

[00:14:03.10] spk_1:
you’ve got more donations

[00:14:04.08] spk_0:
because you change something on your landing page or if

[00:14:06.55] spk_1:
you change something on that button that got them to the landing page. So

[00:14:10.47] spk_0:
you know the, the need

[00:14:11.79] spk_1:
to put together kind of a testing

[00:14:13.17] spk_0:
roadmap um,

[00:14:14.35] spk_1:
would be something that you would want to do for your organization and be like here

[00:14:17.76] spk_0:
and it takes time

[00:14:18.74] spk_1:
because you can only test

[00:14:19.78] spk_0:
one thing at a time. So it’s like

[00:14:20.87] spk_1:
here’s what we’re going to test

[00:14:22.07] spk_0:
in this calendar year and then whether it’s

[00:14:24.97] spk_1:
bi weekly, weekly,

[00:14:26.41] spk_0:
monthly, whatever it is, you know, having that plan laid out the

[00:14:29.73] spk_1:
to learn

[00:14:30.52] spk_0:
because the whole point of testing is like we want to learn,

[00:14:32.75] spk_1:
we want to raise more

[00:14:33.59] spk_0:
money for

[00:14:34.88] spk_1:
less cost

[00:14:35.65] spk_0:
of, of a transaction to obtain that donation and we

[00:14:39.13] spk_1:
want to learn more creative

[00:14:40.54] spk_0:
works. How many hits do we need?

[00:14:42.93] spk_1:
What’s a, what’s a

[00:14:44.24] spk_0:
sample size that

[00:14:45.20] spk_1:
we can rely on

[00:14:47.04] spk_0:
uh,

[00:14:47.69] spk_1:
to draw conclusions from?

[00:14:49.84] spk_0:
Yeah, that’s actually a really good question.

[00:14:52.72] spk_1:
Um, and I

[00:14:53.53] spk_0:
don’t, I don’t have like an answer

[00:14:55.01] spk_1:
that other than the

[00:14:55.97] spk_0:
generic. It depends.

[00:14:57.49] spk_1:
You know, I think

[00:14:58.69] spk_0:
if you’re a smaller nonprofit

[00:15:00.45] spk_1:
that doesn’t

[00:15:01.89] spk_0:
get a lot of traffic to your homepage in this case, then I mean

[00:15:06.04] spk_1:
where it could take

[00:15:07.08] spk_0:
you months to get enough traffic, you know, which is

[00:15:09.83] spk_1:
kind of like the sad thing about

[00:15:11.44] spk_0:
a nonprofit that doesn’t get a

[00:15:12.55] spk_1:
lot of traffic is when will,

[00:15:14.09] spk_0:
you know, we’ve, we have enough data to learn something. You

[00:15:17.83] spk_1:
know, I think it’s quicker to

[00:15:19.08] spk_0:
learn like with like

[00:15:20.11] spk_1:
advertising where you can actually have a budget and it will

[00:15:22.88] spk_0:
kind of force impressions

[00:15:24.16] spk_1:
to your website.

[00:15:25.25] spk_0:
Um, in that case, like

[00:15:26.78] spk_1:
I usually like to have,

[00:15:28.54] spk_0:
I mean at least a few 1000 clicks. Uh, so

[00:15:31.45] spk_1:
we kind of have enough data to make

[00:15:33.33] spk_0:
a decision.

[00:15:34.27] spk_1:
Uh, with the

[00:15:35.33] spk_0:
website, I mean going by that, I mean there’s, there’s some small

[00:15:39.98] spk_1:
nonprofits that may not get a

[00:15:41.99] spk_0:
1000 visits to their website in

[00:15:44.71] spk_1:
half a year or a whole year.

[00:15:46.38] spk_0:
You know? Um,

[00:15:47.58] spk_1:
in which case maybe

[00:15:48.65] spk_0:
you want to test something else

[00:15:49.82] spk_1:
1st? Maybe when you’re

[00:15:50.78] spk_0:
prioritizing exactly exactly. It’s

[00:15:56.07] spk_1:
like, where? Which

[00:15:57.17] spk_0:
I think, And I

[00:15:57.93] spk_1:
didn’t really think about this

[00:15:58.96] spk_0:
when I put it together. But

[00:16:00.14] spk_1:
that’s actually a really good question. Because when you look at all the things

[00:16:03.04] spk_0:
that you can test with your

[00:16:04.08] spk_1:
nonprofit, it’s like, what makes the

[00:16:05.89] spk_0:
most sense to test? Like where do

[00:16:07.48] spk_1:
we have the most data? Where are we getting the most

[00:16:09.60] spk_0:
traction? Maybe it’s a social

[00:16:10.80] spk_1:
media post. Maybe we have a good

[00:16:12.25] spk_0:
audience on social media.

[00:16:13.75] spk_1:
So, let’s test

[00:16:14.95] spk_0:
some of our posts

[00:16:15.76] spk_1:
there because

[00:16:16.98] spk_0:
we know we have a bigger sample

[00:16:18.41] spk_1:
size that we can work

[00:16:20.84] spk_0:
with. Okay. All right.

[00:16:21.40] spk_1:
Well, so your host

[00:16:23.74] spk_0:
is uh, chosen to start

[00:16:24.62] spk_1:
with the homepage

[00:16:25.72] spk_0:
because it’s ubiquitous. Everybody has one.

[00:16:27.98] spk_1:
But with the

[00:16:29.06] spk_0:
caveat that it may not be the right place for you to start your testing.

[00:16:32.63] spk_1:
If you have if

[00:16:33.92] spk_0:
you don’t have a lot of traffic to your homepage. Alright,

[00:16:36.02] spk_1:
let’s stick with the homepage. You got another, you

[00:16:40.24] spk_0:
got another one or two ideas. The homepage, and then we’ll move on. Yeah. Some other

[00:16:41.27] spk_1:
Ideas for the homepage. one

[00:16:44.54] spk_0:
would be, um,

[00:16:45.28] spk_1:
the, like the light box.

[00:16:46.53] spk_0:
So when you come to a website and

[00:16:48.89] spk_1:
people call

[00:16:50.06] spk_0:
them light boxes, they call them pop ups,

[00:16:52.17] spk_1:
Interstitial,

[00:16:53.66] spk_0:
you know, there’s different names for them. Kind of the common name. Yeah. That’s

[00:16:57.06] spk_1:
the more technical. Yeah. Which I never used

[00:17:02.89] spk_0:
Exactly. 100%, 100%. Because you say that like the, you know.

[00:17:13.34] spk_1:
Exactly, Yeah. The bigger words

[00:17:16.14] spk_0:
aren’t always better.

[00:17:17.14] spk_1:
And when I

[00:17:17.97] spk_0:
talked to my, my tech and

[00:17:19.67] spk_1:
my developer friends and they’re

[00:17:22.54] spk_0:
telling me what it is, I’m like,

[00:17:22.94] spk_1:
okay, how can I take what they

[00:17:24.31] spk_0:
said and translate it

[00:17:25.39] spk_1:
just to everyday common

[00:17:26.58] spk_0:
terms. And sometimes I’m like, I

[00:17:27.98] spk_1:
have no idea what you’re talking

[00:17:29.24] spk_0:
about,

[00:17:30.62] spk_1:
but we have drug in

[00:17:31.55] spk_0:
jail on nonprofit radio

[00:17:33.93] spk_1:
I don’t know if I have no idea what you’re

[00:17:35.25] spk_0:
talking about. You know, I’ll stop

[00:17:37.31] spk_1:
you. So if you had

[00:17:38.28] spk_0:
introduced it with

[00:17:39.57] spk_1:
traditional

[00:17:40.10] spk_0:
transitional, you know,

[00:17:41.59] spk_1:
yeah, whatever.

[00:17:45.54] spk_0:
But like, yeah, you see,

[00:17:46.23] spk_1:
I didn’t introduce,

[00:17:47.54] spk_0:
Yeah. Because you

[00:17:48.25] spk_1:
got to know who the audience is, right?

[00:17:50.11] spk_0:
So if this was

[00:17:51.11] spk_1:
like for a tech blog or

[00:17:52.33] spk_0:
something, I’m like the interstitial.

[00:17:53.97] spk_1:
But no, we’re talking about just non profit let’s start with the base like, you know, um,

[00:17:58.57] spk_0:
let’s just

[00:17:59.56] spk_1:
the basics here. So yeah,

[00:18:00.58] spk_0:
pop up a

[00:18:01.67] spk_1:
lightbox testing

[00:18:03.24] spk_0:
that. And I say tested and, and

[00:18:04.53] spk_1:
a lot of these things I’m saying test,

[00:18:06.28] spk_0:
but in my

[00:18:07.98] spk_1:
own way I’m saying

[00:18:14.64] spk_0:
do this, I’m not saying tested because like light boxes are so effective. Like pretty much no matter how you’re using if using them for email acquisition,

[00:18:17.96] spk_1:
if you’re using them to

[00:18:19.08] spk_0:
promote a campaign

[00:18:20.07] spk_1:
to increase your donations.

[00:18:21.53] spk_0:
Um, what I find

[00:18:23.35] spk_1:
though is a lot of

[00:18:24.32] spk_0:
nonprofits

[00:18:25.23] spk_1:
and I say that a lot, a lot

[00:18:26.49] spk_0:
of non profits, but

[00:18:27.40] spk_1:
it is true,

[00:18:28.61] spk_0:
um, that they’re

[00:18:32.54] spk_1:
like, well I don’t like pop ups, so I don’t want to use them, you know, But it’s not really about what you like because your

[00:18:35.06] spk_0:
donors and your website visitors

[00:18:36.84] spk_1:
probably don’t

[00:18:37.64] spk_0:
like a lot of pop ups

[00:18:38.63] spk_1:
either. But the data

[00:18:40.42] spk_0:
doesn’t lie. Like

[00:18:41.60] spk_1:
these things do work.

[00:18:42.84] spk_0:
And the reason they work is

[00:18:44.17] spk_1:
there’s nothing else that you

[00:18:45.26] spk_0:
can do on the homepage when that

[00:18:47.44] spk_1:
pop up comes on the screen other

[00:18:49.05] spk_0:
than click it and turn

[00:18:50.20] spk_1:
it off or do the

[00:18:51.90] spk_0:
action that it says there’s

[00:18:53.06] spk_1:
two choices. If someone goes straight to your

[00:18:56.24] spk_0:
website, they’ve

[00:18:56.39] spk_1:
got probably 20 different choices, click on your,

[00:18:58.92] spk_0:
contact us, click

[00:19:00.10] spk_1:
on an image,

[00:19:01.16] spk_0:
submit an email, click on any of your menu items. Like there’s so many different choices

[00:19:06.21] spk_1:
that you can make. But that pop up is like A or B. Do I

[00:19:09.66] spk_0:
close this and look at the website or do I hit the donate button or do I put my email in and submit it and now I’m a subscriber. So

[00:19:17.04] spk_1:
they’re extremely

[00:19:17.69] spk_0:
effective. Yeah, 100%. So

[00:19:22.73] spk_1:
yeah, so they

[00:19:24.13] spk_0:
work. But I’m saying tested because the thing is like, I’ve never seen it not work. So maybe your nonprofit is different and maybe you can test it with running with the campaign and if you didn’t raise any more money, which if that happens, like

[00:19:37.14] spk_1:
I’d love for those people to reach out

[00:19:39.44] spk_0:
to me because I want to

[00:19:39.94] spk_1:
know who those organizations are

[00:19:41.40] spk_0:
because it’s like,

[00:19:42.34] spk_1:
well I’ve never heard of that but

[00:19:44.12] spk_0:
here’s maybe some other

[00:21:16.84] spk_1:
things that you can strike. 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. It’s the buffet of I. T. Solutions because you pick what you need and you leave the rest you needn’t hire them for all the services that they can do. They’ve got this I. T. Infra in a box for you to choose from like overall I. T. Assessment whether you want to implement multifactor authentication which a lot of people are saying is a very good idea. We’ve had guests saying exactly that um there might be other security for your site for your devices those mobile devices that are in people’s homes. Now cost analysis help desk. Do you need help that way with tech with like tech support and there’s more in the I. T. In for in a box you choose what’s right for your current I. T. Status. What’s right for your budget? Yeah leave the rest behind fourth dimension technologies tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant D. Just like three D. But they go one dimension deeper. Now back to many ways to test your digital fundraising with jeremy hazelwood. There are variables within the pop

[00:21:18.78] spk_0:
up that you can test how

[00:21:20.68] spk_1:
long a delay

[00:21:21.65] spk_0:
how long is someone on your homepage before it before

[00:21:23.93] spk_1:
it pops up?

[00:21:25.14] spk_0:
Of course what’s the text that’s in it again.

[00:21:28.40] spk_1:
What’s the button that’s

[00:21:29.43] spk_0:
in it. You have to have a button labeled that’s in it,

[00:21:32.14] spk_1:
Right.

[00:21:34.14] spk_0:
Yeah. What’s the offer?

[00:21:35.26] spk_1:
You know? So it could be

[00:21:36.35] spk_0:
$10 equals this or

[00:21:37.95] spk_1:
$50 equals that.

[00:21:39.17] spk_0:
So yeah, there’s

[00:21:40.14] spk_1:
probably a whole other

[00:21:41.73] spk_0:
15 different tests

[00:21:43.11] spk_1:
that you can run just within that. But let’s

[00:21:45.17] spk_0:
start at the basics. Okay. Give us one more for the homepage.

[00:21:49.74] spk_1:
Yeah. One more for the home page. And this is

[00:21:51.37] spk_0:
really simple. But um what

[00:21:53.54] spk_1:
about a donate button at the bottom of your

[00:21:55.59] spk_0:
page? Um And the reason that I say

[00:21:58.00] spk_1:
that is when people scroll

[00:21:59.98] spk_0:
pasture

[00:22:00.81] spk_1:
donate button, if your

[00:22:01.73] spk_0:
menu isn’t like what they call a

[00:22:03.09] spk_1:
sticky menu meaning when you scroll that top menu stays there

[00:22:06.11] spk_0:
and the donate button is

[00:22:07.05] spk_1:
always there or your

[00:22:07.94] spk_0:
menu is always there.

[00:22:09.29] spk_1:
Um If you don’t have that

[00:22:11.04] spk_0:
then you’re

[00:22:11.69] spk_1:
scrolling and that donate has come off

[00:22:13.45] spk_0:
of of the homepage off the

[00:22:15.66] spk_1:
top. So as you scroll down, you’re reading about who we are, what we do, why we do

[00:22:19.51] spk_0:
it. Um It’s just kind of a

[00:22:20.99] spk_1:
natural, here’s the next step,

[00:22:22.65] spk_0:
you know, donate.

[00:22:23.86] spk_1:
Um So it’s

[00:22:24.93] spk_0:
just right in the user flow. The user doesn’t

[00:22:26.55] spk_1:
have to scroll back up

[00:22:27.70] spk_0:
and find the donate or click the donate or

[00:22:30.68] spk_1:
even if they didn’t

[00:22:31.74] spk_0:
like if they kind of psychological or mentally

[00:22:34.20] spk_1:
blocked out that donate button when they came to your

[00:22:36.37] spk_0:
page? Is there

[00:22:37.43] spk_1:
scrolling through? Its in

[00:22:38.43] spk_0:
the natural progression

[00:22:39.60] spk_1:
of how they’re reading your

[00:22:40.44] spk_0:
page and that donate button is right there at the bottom. So

[00:22:43.67] spk_1:
um test that

[00:22:44.70] spk_0:
out, see if it’s something that you’re able to get more donations throughout the month. Um

[00:22:49.62] spk_1:
I don’t this is

[00:22:50.90] spk_0:
not something where you’re gonna earn like a ridiculous amount of conversions or donations

[00:22:55.94] spk_1:
From but even if you have like five

[00:23:08.34] spk_0:
more donations a month because you put a button at the bottom of your page, like wouldn’t that be worth the the 10 minutes it takes to put the button on your site And I think it would be, let’s go to the donation page. Okay cool. So donation and let’s say I’m looking at my my list over here. Okay, so donation

[00:23:17.47] spk_1:
page, one of the things that’s

[00:23:19.00] spk_0:
important to um

[00:23:20.42] spk_1:
a number of donors

[00:23:21.90] spk_0:
is is my donation secure and I don’t think it’s as much of a concern now as it

[00:23:27.06] spk_1:
was maybe even five

[00:23:31.14] spk_0:
years ago but there’s still people that are leery too uh do transactions online.

[00:23:33.12] spk_1:
Um We’re with

[00:23:33.97] spk_0:
the nonprofit. It’s like well I don’t know this nonprofit is going to take care of my data and hopefully your nonprofit is like your donation page should be the H. T. T. P. S. Meaning that it’s a secure page

[00:23:46.12] spk_1:
anyways

[00:23:46.87] spk_0:
but just putting some kind of

[00:23:48.83] spk_1:
Burbage

[00:23:50.34] spk_0:
or a visual indication that it is safe transaction

[00:23:55.19] spk_1:
on your website. So it could be

[00:23:56.44] spk_0:
something as simple as saying your transaction is secure like ssl security or putting like an image of a lock saying your transaction is secured. So doing that versus not having any language in there at all about a secure

[00:24:10.37] spk_1:
transaction.

[00:24:32.24] spk_0:
You can make a difference in someone going ahead and clicking that submit button on the donate because they could get as far as just putting all their information in. But they’re still kind of on the fence like, you know, if they’re nervous about giving online or giving because they don’t see any language that says their donation is secure because I’ve even experienced this to my house like myself personally, there’s some websites

[00:24:33.24] spk_1:
I’m not as

[00:24:36.94] spk_0:
familiar with and if I don’t see that language, then I

[00:24:37.58] spk_1:
may not actually

[00:24:38.55] spk_0:
include. I may not actually purchase whatever it is I’m purchasing and I’m not even talking about nonprofits. I’m talking about more like online retail. Um, so it gives the donor confidence in what they’re doing. So that’s something that you can test having that language on there versus just excluding it. Um, and seeing if

[00:24:55.04] spk_1:
that makes a difference in

[00:24:58.14] spk_0:
your conversion rates and you know, folks might say well, but people could look at the address bar and they can see if it’s https and, and lots of browsers have a lock when it is a secure site. I don’t know if all browsers, I use Safari

[00:25:12.79] spk_1:
predominantly. So

[00:25:13.69] spk_0:
I don’t know if all browsers do that, but, but

[00:25:15.73] spk_1:
even if they do,

[00:25:20.64] spk_0:
you know, think of older folks who are not so savvy they don’t know to look for https.

[00:25:22.05] spk_1:
So

[00:26:02.44] spk_0:
if you don’t, you know, what does it cost to put a sentence in with a little lock picture, it says, you know, it’s, it’s secured, encrypted on both ends, right? With 2 56 bit ssl technology or something, you know, something legitimate. I’m not saying make it up, but yeah, I remember you’re not doing it right. You know, I’m not, Yeah. Now this is the fraud how to test the fraud component of your donation. You don’t have to test for fraud. You don’t have to test fraud. Just don’t do that, don’t do it, you know? But if you’re, if yes, put put something in that’s reassuring to folks, especially older folks who may not know to look at the address bar. Right. Yeah. Alright. Alright. What else, what else for the donation pages? Um, one thing that I’ve seen more

[00:26:12.93] spk_1:
recently in the past

[00:26:39.54] spk_0:
Maybe 2-3 years and I want to say that there might even be specific, um, Tech companies that process donations for nonprofits and I can’t tell you who they are because I’m not sure which one’s doing and which ones don’t. Um, but highlighting like a certain gift that might say most popular gifts. So if you have like a $25 gift and $50 or 200 whatever that, you know procession of gift handles is There might be one

[00:26:40.24] spk_1:
that’s highlighted.

[00:26:41.34] spk_0:
Um, and it says most popular, but what it does and it’s

[00:26:44.91] spk_1:
usually not the lowest

[00:27:23.64] spk_0:
One because I might go to a site like I’m gonna give them $25, but then when I get there it has this $50 and it’s highlighted and it says most popular and so now there’s this social pressure to be like, well that’s the most popular. Like I don’t want to give less than what it is. So I guess I’m gonna give $50 instead of $25. Um So again, it’s, it’s, that’s kind of like a marketing trick if you will, but it does work. Um and you know, whether it’s the most popular or not, I mean again, that’s when you get into the ethics behind it, like, you know, um, you don’t necessarily have to say most popular, you could say, you know more

[00:27:24.31] spk_1:
impact or the

[00:27:25.12] spk_0:
most impact or something like that. There’s ways that you can word it, but

[00:27:28.99] spk_1:
the whole point is you’re

[00:27:29.88] spk_0:
drawing attention to a specific gift amount. Um that’s

[00:27:33.07] spk_1:
probably more reasonable. It’s not like you’re high

[00:27:35.46] spk_0:
like 500

[00:27:36.29] spk_1:
dollar gift, but it’s not

[00:27:37.37] spk_0:
Like you’re 10 20

[00:27:38.36] spk_1:
$5 gift either.

[00:27:39.60] spk_0:
Um, So

[00:27:42.24] spk_1:
what I found is that when you, when you do

[00:27:42.78] spk_0:
use some kind of language and highlight one particular giving level that it does result

[00:27:47.32] spk_1:
in higher conversions.

[00:27:48.53] spk_0:
Um, and again, this is my ash

[00:27:50.42] spk_1:
tricks with everything

[00:27:51.94] spk_0:
we’re calling it a test because this is what I’ve seen

[00:27:54.67] spk_1:
with nonprofits that I’ve worked

[00:27:55.86] spk_0:
with and research that I’ve done. But you have to test

[00:27:58.85] spk_1:
and see if this is the case

[00:27:59.82] spk_0:
for your non profit as well.

[00:28:01.44] spk_1:
That’s a good one. Like

[00:28:03.24] spk_0:
that average gift most

[00:28:04.85] spk_1:
popular gift. Most

[00:28:06.16] spk_0:
impactful.

[00:28:07.03] spk_1:
Alright. What else you got? Yeah.

[00:28:09.13] spk_0:
And the

[00:28:09.67] spk_1:
other one I have is kind of in the

[00:28:10.72] spk_0:
same vein as this and

[00:28:11.87] spk_1:
it’s really like your

[00:28:12.65] spk_0:
donation handles and your impact. Um

[00:28:15.59] spk_1:
So if you’re like an

[00:28:17.94] spk_0:
example of if

[00:28:18.09] spk_1:
you’re a nonprofit that does a few different things

[00:28:19.91] spk_0:
like for example, maybe like a rescue

[00:28:21.55] spk_1:
mission, like they do

[00:28:22.56] spk_0:
housing, they do food, they may do

[00:28:25.11] spk_1:
adult rehab

[00:28:26.98] spk_0:
kinds of programs. Um, so you can like test and

[00:28:30.76] spk_1:
there’s a lot to test in

[00:28:31.84] spk_0:
just these three different areas. You can test dollar amounts

[00:28:34.85] spk_1:
for these. So if you want to just look at housing,

[00:28:37.62] spk_0:
You can say, you know, $30 equals X. nights

[00:28:40.49] spk_1:
Of shelter, $60

[00:28:42.25] spk_0:
equals X nights. 100 equals

[00:28:43.71] spk_1:
X nights. You could

[00:28:44.83] spk_0:
test these against each other

[00:28:49.04] spk_1:
and have all of the gift channels at like $50, but $50 will help do

[00:28:50.12] spk_0:
X nights of shelter.

[00:28:51.43] spk_1:
$50 will help

[00:28:52.59] spk_0:
by X amount of

[00:28:53.40] spk_1:
Meals or $50 to

[00:28:55.04] spk_0:
send X amount

[00:28:56.02] spk_1:
of adults through rehab.

[00:28:57.55] spk_0:
And that way you learn about

[00:28:58.73] spk_1:
what your donors are more interested in. Um,

[00:29:01.69] spk_0:
so there’s ways that you can learn

[00:29:06.84] spk_1:
About that either way with, with that example, you’ll still get $50. But we, we test because we also want

[00:29:09.64] spk_0:
to learn more

[00:29:09.93] spk_1:
about our donors and more about what

[00:29:11.28] spk_0:
works. So if people

[00:29:12.24] spk_1:
respond better to a food offer versus the housing offer,

[00:29:15.62] spk_0:
then that might help us

[00:29:16.68] spk_1:
create a campaign,

[00:29:18.04] spk_0:
you know,

[00:29:18.98] spk_1:
in the calendar year at

[00:29:19.96] spk_0:
some point. That’s more around

[00:29:21.24] spk_1:
food. Um, and taking what

[00:29:23.00] spk_0:
we learned from this test.

[00:29:24.45] spk_1:
Um, so that’s one

[00:29:38.84] spk_0:
thing an NtC guest, uh, and he said they tested whether Children who are sick or Children who are hospitalized is has a greater impact. And

[00:29:41.68] spk_1:
intuitively you would think it would be the Children who

[00:29:43.54] spk_0:
are hospitalized

[00:29:44.63] spk_1:
because they’re the sickest of the among

[00:29:46.42] spk_0:
the sick. But

[00:29:47.56] spk_1:
turned out not to be

[00:29:48.19] spk_0:
true. They were getting more click throughs and more donations when

[00:29:51.52] spk_1:
they highlighted Children who

[00:29:52.66] spk_0:
were sick

[00:29:53.87] spk_1:
versus

[00:29:54.50] spk_0:
hospitalized.

[00:29:55.64] spk_1:
Intuition is

[00:29:57.83] spk_0:
not always correct. That’s why

[00:29:59.01] spk_1:
we test. Another

[00:30:00.05] spk_0:
reason, you know, like you said earlier, it doesn’t matter what

[00:30:03.25] spk_1:
you, the ceo

[00:30:04.88] spk_0:
or you, the chief fundraiser prefer. It matters what

[00:30:07.81] spk_1:
your donors

[00:30:09.08] spk_0:
and potential donors prefer.

[00:30:10.70] spk_1:
So you know, you

[00:30:12.54] spk_0:
have to ignore your intuition.

[00:30:13.90] spk_1:
You have to ignore your own

[00:30:15.94] spk_0:
preferences and do what Jeremy is saying and

[00:31:41.74] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. I’m doubling down on the redox who can you share non profit radio with, please think about colleagues, friends, folks who work for nonprofits serve on boards of nonprofits. Maybe they’re even avid volunteers, it’s a possibility these folks will learn from nonprofit radio the same as you are, share the share the knowledge, share the good, non profit radio vibe, share the pleasure, share, what else is there? Um, double the enjoyment? No, well you could double, you can triple the enjoyment. So please think about who you can share. non profit radio with, connect them with me, you can connect them with one of my social posts. Uh, connect them to tony-martignetti dot com share this show this episode however you can do it. I’d be grateful. Who can you share? non profit radio with thank you. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for many ways to test your digital fundraising. I do like most of my work is with

[00:31:43.39] spk_0:
non province, but I do some, I have some clients that are in the commercial

[00:31:46.87] spk_1:
world and they were

[00:31:47.79] spk_0:
running a

[00:31:48.56] spk_1:
facebook ad recently and they provided me with copy and I was looking at it and I was like, oh, this is terrible, this is not. And

[00:31:55.12] spk_0:
usually if I see something that is

[00:31:57.28] spk_1:
like, I don’t think it’s going to work like I’ll say, hey, what if we say this instead of that? And even with

[00:32:03.14] spk_0:
that? I’m like, what if

[00:32:03.40] spk_1:
we change, it’s like, well we want to try to run this first and just see, I’m like, all right and I thought it was

[00:32:07.87] spk_0:
going to Bomb and it actually

[00:32:08.95] spk_1:
did really good

[00:32:09.83] spk_0:
despite what

[00:32:11.20] spk_1:
I thought was going to work. Um, so that’s why it’s like I’m saying

[00:32:15.12] spk_0:
these things and in

[00:32:16.10] spk_1:
general, like you’ll see in the majority of cases, what we’re talking about, there will be a positive impact. Um, but these are not guaranteed. I’m not saying like, here are all the things that you should do if you want

[00:32:25.16] spk_0:
your nonprofit to succeed,

[00:32:26.47] spk_1:
what you need to do to succeed is

[00:32:28.27] spk_0:
to test and then

[00:32:29.34] spk_1:
find out what works. But those things like, let’s give

[00:32:31.73] spk_0:
some ideas. Like

[00:32:32.67] spk_1:
we just don’t be stagnant. If we have the same website, the same emails,

[00:32:36.21] spk_0:
the same everything

[00:32:37.20] spk_1:
Over a 12-month period. We have learned nothing about what we need to do to better serve our

[00:32:41.12] spk_0:
donors and and

[00:32:42.38] spk_1:
really better

[00:32:46.74] spk_0:
enable the services that we have because if we’re not learning how we

[00:32:47.14] spk_1:
can better serve our donors and how we can

[00:32:49.14] spk_0:
generate more money for nonprofit

[00:32:51.01] spk_1:
and still take care of our

[00:32:51.97] spk_0:
donors, then we’re doing a disservice down

[00:32:53.89] spk_1:
the road for the people

[00:33:09.54] spk_0:
or animals or whatever environment, whatever our nonprofit is serving. We’re doing that in other realms. We’re making sure we have programs that are appealing to donors, making sure we have events that are appealing to donors. We make sure we have fundraisers who are appealing to donors, right. Your staff is turning your donors off. That’s bad. You’re gonna, you’re gonna remove the people from the fundraising role. So, you know, in

[00:33:20.67] spk_1:
your digital and your digital

[00:33:21.73] spk_0:
marketing and fundraising as well.

[00:33:23.17] spk_1:
You want to appeal

[00:33:24.48] spk_0:
to your donors and your potential donors, you’re doing it in other places.

[00:33:28.24] spk_1:
We’re here to. Alright, let’s continue with the

[00:33:32.34] spk_0:
donation page ideas. Okay.

[00:33:32.95] spk_1:
Um, other donation page ideas.

[00:33:34.93] spk_0:
And this is gonna

[00:33:36.45] spk_1:
be my bad recommendation of tests, but I’m gonna throw it out there anyway, because I think it’s probably not going to

[00:33:42.17] spk_0:
work, but I’m

[00:33:43.09] spk_1:
curious to see if it will still work. Um, and that is testing an image versus a video on your donation page. Um, and for the very savvy fundraisers

[00:33:53.24] spk_0:
that are

[00:33:53.53] spk_1:
watching or listening to

[00:33:54.50] spk_0:
this, they were probably

[00:33:55.61] spk_1:
going to discredit me all over the

[00:33:56.97] spk_0:
place and say that Jeremy doesn’t

[00:33:59.20] spk_1:
know what he’s talking about. Um,

[00:34:00.93] spk_0:
but several

[00:34:09.54] spk_1:
years ago when you had a video on your, your donation page and I think maybe it’s because maybe a more a newer medium, you could tell the story of, you know, why we need the gift and be this heartwarming story and you’d actually see the gifts go up. Um, what

[00:34:16.83] spk_0:
I’ve seen over time

[00:34:17.69] spk_1:
now is that

[00:34:18.83] spk_0:
the images

[00:34:19.78] spk_1:
seem to be more effective

[00:34:20.87] spk_0:
than a video. And the reason that we’re

[00:34:23.35] spk_1:
suspecting that happened

[00:34:24.44] spk_0:
just because

[00:34:27.54] spk_1:
when people hit your donation page, You’re now giving them a video to watch, which maybe 30 seconds to minutes. I don’t know however long it is. But you’re now asking them to watch this video and command the attention

[00:34:36.94] spk_0:
and then

[00:34:37.63] spk_1:
fill out a form after that. So you’re kind of asking the donors to do too

[00:34:41.99] spk_0:
many things when they get

[00:34:43.05] spk_1:
your donation page, it is a distraction because they can’t do a donation

[00:34:46.61] spk_0:
page. Most

[00:34:47.78] spk_1:
likely they’re ready to make a

[00:34:48.69] spk_0:
donation. Yes,

[00:34:50.11] spk_1:
exactly. Don’t distract them from that purpose.

[00:34:53.23] spk_0:
Right? Because now there’s another action

[00:34:54.94] spk_1:
you’re giving them watch the

[00:34:56.19] spk_0:
right watch the video,

[00:34:57.63] spk_1:
but you’re saying

[00:35:00.04] spk_0:
test it, Why?

[00:35:00.74] spk_1:
Why? Why do you believe

[00:35:02.16] spk_0:
that so that people don’t think this jeremy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Yeah. Well the reason that I’m kind of

[00:35:07.24] spk_1:
slick throwing this in here is for the

[00:35:08.89] spk_0:
people who have the

[00:35:09.81] spk_1:
video still on their page.

[00:35:11.55] spk_0:
So if that’s

[00:35:12.79] spk_1:
you like test it

[00:35:14.13] spk_0:
with an image on there instead

[00:35:15.59] spk_1:
of the video

[00:35:16.41] spk_0:
and see if

[00:35:17.50] spk_1:
your donations will go

[00:35:18.58] spk_0:
up a little bit. But I’m bringing this in here to recommend it as

[00:35:22.06] spk_1:
a test really to draw

[00:35:23.12] spk_0:
attention to it because there are still some

[00:35:25.36] spk_1:
organizations that

[00:35:26.68] spk_0:
are testing

[00:35:27.64] spk_1:
or not testing, but that have a video on their donation page. And I think if I don’t

[00:35:32.51] spk_0:
address it, then I’m not really bringing attention to that,

[00:35:35.69] spk_1:
that this is an issue. And,

[00:35:37.81] spk_0:
but what,

[00:35:38.78] spk_1:
what I’d also be curious is the people do that do have the nonprofits

[00:35:42.03] spk_0:
that do have a video on their

[00:35:43.10] spk_1:
page. Um,

[00:35:44.64] spk_0:
is that

[00:35:45.18] spk_1:
still working for them and how will, you know if it’s still working if you don’t test that against an image

[00:35:49.48] spk_0:
and if they tested against an

[00:35:50.61] spk_1:
image and the video is still really generating a higher conversion rate

[00:35:55.59] spk_0:
then then I’m

[00:35:56.45] spk_1:
wrong and I’m okay with that. Um I can only go by the data that I see and the research that I’ve done to

[00:36:02.90] spk_0:
say that

[00:36:04.00] spk_1:
was the best practice.

[00:36:05.27] spk_0:
But now not so

[00:36:06.10] spk_1:
much. But if you’re still stuck in that best practice,

[00:36:08.77] spk_0:
it might be time

[00:36:09.71] spk_1:
to test out of that.

[00:36:13.23] spk_0:
If you have neither are you better? Starting

[00:36:14.46] spk_1:
with an image and testing that

[00:36:16.43] spk_0:
and then trying

[00:36:17.96] spk_1:
a video and testing that

[00:36:19.42] spk_0:
in place of the image. Mm hmm.

[00:36:21.39] spk_1:
No. Yeah.

[00:36:22.44] spk_0:
And that that’s

[00:36:23.31] spk_1:
actually an interesting question to if you have neither.

[00:36:25.72] spk_0:
I would test the

[00:36:27.08] spk_1:
neither versus an

[00:36:28.51] spk_0:
image. Well, you’ve got that you have your baseline.

[00:36:31.43] spk_1:
You know what neither

[00:36:32.88] spk_0:
has been doing for

[00:36:33.67] spk_1:
you over however months

[00:36:35.58] spk_0:
years. Okay.

[00:36:36.73] spk_1:
So

[00:36:37.27] spk_0:
now you want to do

[00:36:38.31] spk_1:
an adequate

[00:36:39.29] spk_0:
test with enough

[00:36:40.00] spk_1:
clicks

[00:36:41.17] spk_0:
to testing your advice. It

[00:36:44.04] spk_1:
sounds like your advice would be testing

[00:36:45.16] spk_0:
image first

[00:36:46.62] spk_1:
because typically

[00:36:49.23] spk_0:
images pulled better videos,

[00:36:50.62] spk_1:
correct, correct.

[00:36:51.87] spk_0:
Because I’m not asking

[00:36:52.95] spk_1:
you to look at an image. I’m asking you to watch a video, but the image is just there to,

[00:36:58.16] spk_0:
it should have the same

[00:36:59.36] spk_1:
look and feel and

[00:37:00.12] spk_0:
reinforce the sentiment

[00:37:01.72] spk_1:
of what

[00:37:02.24] spk_0:
that donation pages. So

[00:37:04.04] spk_1:
going back to like a rescue mission like it’s going to be an image of

[00:37:08.11] spk_0:
probably someone

[00:37:09.03] spk_1:
receiving services, whether they’re um receiving housing or food or something like that because it

[00:37:14.13] spk_0:
reinforces

[00:37:15.25] spk_1:
what you’re giving to help out

[00:37:17.47] spk_0:
or giving to

[00:37:19.43] spk_1:
eradicate. Mhm.

[00:37:20.63] spk_0:
You

[00:37:20.75] spk_1:
got one more for the donation page. Um Let’s see. I know I was looking at

[00:37:28.62] spk_0:
this is I mean it’s in the same vein

[00:37:30.89] spk_1:
because a lot of these are like really nit picky. But even like testing the hero image

[00:37:34.74] spk_0:
for example,

[00:37:35.73] spk_1:
because we talked about testing

[00:37:36.85] spk_0:
an image versus the

[00:37:37.69] spk_1:
video. If you’re already doing an image, I wouldn’t

[00:37:40.51] spk_0:
test that against video. If you’re

[00:37:42.06] spk_1:
doing a video, I’d test that against the image. But if you have an image, I would test that

[00:37:46.46] spk_0:
against another

[00:37:47.78] spk_1:
image. Um using this rescue mission scenario. If you

[00:37:52.00] spk_0:
test a feeding

[00:38:04.12] spk_1:
offer. So maybe it’s a a man that is homeless and he’s receiving food. Maybe the next image that you test is maybe uh this gentleman um in the

[00:38:04.42] spk_0:
housing he’s sitting on his bed

[00:38:06.00] spk_1:
and so you actually see that what you’re giving is

[00:38:09.17] spk_0:
subconsciously tied

[00:38:10.13] spk_1:
to providing the shelter

[00:38:11.26] spk_0:
versus providing the

[00:38:12.30] spk_1:
food like someone in a cafeteria

[00:38:14.80] spk_0:
that’s eating a meal.

[00:38:24.02] spk_1:
Um So testing different images. If you’re testing like um cancer research or something like that, maybe it’s your showing a cancer patient, which I believe would be more effective than showing the actual research facility. Um But I’m sure that there’s cancer research nonprofits that are showing the

[00:38:32.55] spk_0:
facility on the donation

[00:38:33.81] spk_1:
page and not the

[00:38:34.97] spk_0:
end recipient

[00:38:36.16] spk_1:
who’s the beneficiary

[00:38:37.59] spk_0:
of that research.

[00:38:38.97] spk_1:
Um, so

[00:38:40.11] spk_0:
bringing attention to that

[00:38:41.52] spk_1:
is like, let’s test these images

[00:38:43.20] spk_0:
and see which

[00:38:44.50] spk_1:
one would increase the conversion rates for our

[00:38:47.22] spk_0:
heart donation

[00:38:48.92] spk_1:
page. Okay.

[00:38:50.02] spk_0:
I mean, I

[00:38:50.28] spk_1:
want to flush out something that you

[00:38:51.36] spk_0:
just said sort of in passing. I want to make sure we’re giving people the right advice. You

[00:38:56.45] spk_1:
said, If you have an

[00:38:57.29] spk_0:
image, don’t

[00:38:58.76] spk_1:
test that against the

[00:38:59.53] spk_0:
video, but if you have a video test that

[00:39:04.42] spk_1:
against an image, I would,

[00:39:05.09] spk_0:
that’s what I would say. Yes.

[00:39:07.09] spk_1:
I

[00:39:09.52] spk_0:
say that. Um,

[00:39:10.61] spk_1:
I think also

[00:39:11.46] spk_0:
non province. If they

[00:39:12.57] spk_1:
got the idea to say, oh, we’ve never tested a video. Like

[00:39:16.01] spk_0:
I know he doesn’t recommend it, but let’s

[00:39:17.93] spk_1:
just see if it works then have at it. I wouldn’t recommend it. Um,

[00:39:23.42] spk_0:
so yeah, you

[00:39:24.27] spk_1:
are correct. If you

[00:39:25.28] spk_0:
have an image

[00:39:26.30] spk_1:
tested against the

[00:39:26.96] spk_0:
video, uh, sorry.

[00:39:28.48] spk_1:
If you have a video tested against an image

[00:39:30.64] spk_0:
image. Yeah.

[00:39:31.69] spk_1:
Let’s test it against another image.

[00:39:44.92] spk_0:
Okay. Okay. Let’s move on to email. That’s, that seems ubiquitous. Everybody uses email most likely. Right. Right. Reading my notes. You’re reading

[00:39:51.94] spk_1:
my

[00:39:52.05] spk_0:
notes. Everything you said

[00:40:02.28] spk_1:
is great. And there’s

[00:40:03.56] spk_0:
basics of these,

[00:40:04.52] spk_1:
you know, time of day, day of week. Um,

[00:40:06.64] spk_0:
taking a step back though. Taking a step

[00:40:09.08] spk_1:
back. Um,

[00:40:10.13] spk_0:
when you test email, it’s more important

[00:40:13.35] spk_1:
in my opinion,

[00:40:14.16] spk_0:
like to test, like

[00:40:15.23] spk_1:
what they call, like

[00:40:16.12] spk_0:
the envelope, what’s on

[00:40:17.19] spk_1:
the outside before you actually

[00:40:18.52] spk_0:
test anything within the email. Um, so people have to open it before they can see your email. So to me, the most

[00:40:26.07] spk_1:
important thing is like, what can

[00:40:30.11] spk_0:
we test before people click into that email to get them to open the email? And those would be things like time

[00:40:34.17] spk_1:
of day and day of week. You know, that, that’s,

[00:40:36.20] spk_0:
that’s a twofer

[00:40:37.10] spk_1:
right there. There’s a time of day,

[00:40:54.71] spk_0:
there’s a day of week. So testing different times of day with the exact same emails, same subject line, same pre header, same everything. We’re just testing the time of day. Is that the text you see like some people call it teaser text, text you see in your, in your inbox before you’ve opened the message, correct? Yes.

[00:41:00.36] spk_1:
So you have like your

[00:41:01.55] spk_0:
subject line

[00:41:02.68] spk_1:
and then below that, like if you’re looking on your

[00:41:04.56] spk_0:
phone or even on your desktop Yeah, you’ll see a little bit of text under it

[00:41:07.70] spk_1:
and and that’s called your pre

[00:41:12.01] spk_0:
header. Yes. Um, so you know, I

[00:41:12.53] spk_1:
would look at testing that the

[00:41:13.72] spk_0:
basics time of day to day a week.

[00:41:15.71] spk_1:
You mentioned

[00:41:16.67] spk_0:
one like the sender

[00:41:17.75] spk_1:
name.

[00:41:18.81] spk_0:
So if you’re sending it and it’s like your organization’s name is the center,

[00:41:23.19] spk_1:
which is probably how

[00:41:24.31] spk_0:
most nonprofits send it and there’s nothing

[00:41:26.25] spk_1:
wrong with that. Um,

[00:41:27.51] spk_0:
what if we tested it using a person’s name. Like maybe it’s

[00:41:30.74] spk_1:
the executive

[00:41:31.91] spk_0:
director or ceo of a

[00:41:33.48] spk_1:
nonprofit. Um,

[00:41:34.98] spk_0:
the only thing that I would kind of

[00:41:36.03] spk_1:
caution with that

[00:41:37.31] spk_0:
is

[00:41:38.02] spk_1:
if you tested that

[00:41:40.31] spk_0:
one time, you’ll likely

[00:41:41.25] spk_1:
see a bump because people

[00:41:42.50] spk_0:
aren’t used to seeing it

[00:41:43.52] spk_1:
from that person. And

[00:41:44.63] spk_0:
if they don’t know that person’s

[00:41:45.90] spk_1:
name or even if they do, they’re like, oh, who is this? And

[00:41:48.00] spk_0:
they’ll click on it just because they’re not sure who it’s from.

[00:41:50.57] spk_1:
So I think if

[00:41:51.81] spk_0:
you only tested once you’re probably going to say, oh, it came that we changed the sender name so we’re gonna

[00:41:57.89] spk_1:
always go with the sender

[00:41:59.51] spk_0:
name and that, that may prove

[00:42:00.40] spk_1:
effective for the short

[00:42:01.40] spk_0:
term. You can probably send a

[00:42:02.41] spk_1:
few of them that way and

[00:42:04.13] spk_0:
it’ll be effective, but kind of baselining it over time.

[00:42:07.16] spk_1:
Like I, I don’t know which one will be

[00:42:08.63] spk_0:
more effective for you. I mean,

[00:42:10.18] spk_1:
and I honestly don’t have seen mixed

[00:42:11.95] spk_0:
results on that. Um,

[00:42:13.35] spk_1:
so that is something

[00:42:14.22] spk_0:
that you run multiple tests on over time.

[00:42:16.94] spk_1:
Not just like a one time we’ve made our

[00:42:27.20] spk_0:
decision Ceo or executive director after the person’s name. Yeah. I’m like putting their, not just their name but their title on right. Comma Ceo or comma executive director. That might, you know, that that seems worth testing to me. Yeah, might open, it might get a higher open rate was writing. Okay. Yeah, exactly.

[00:42:42.68] spk_1:
And that would,

[00:42:44.80] spk_0:
um, like that’s almost like a second

[00:42:46.21] spk_1:
level senator name

[00:42:47.26] spk_0:
because just starting out sender

[00:42:48.46] spk_1:
name. Um,

[00:42:49.61] spk_0:
I mean if you’re even the nonprofit’s

[00:42:51.90] spk_1:
name, if you have

[00:42:52.58] spk_0:
the in front of your nonprofit,

[00:42:54.01] spk_1:
like the

[00:42:54.43] spk_0:
Salvation Army, you

[00:42:55.98] spk_1:
know, you can’t test it against the

[00:42:57.04] spk_0:
Salvation Army, you know,

[00:42:58.64] spk_1:
but that would be a further

[00:42:59.95] spk_0:
test. That’s deeper into the center

[00:43:01.27] spk_1:
name. But yeah, the actual

[00:43:02.79] spk_0:
name of the executive director could

[00:43:04.51] spk_1:
be one test versus the

[00:43:06.32] spk_0:
person’s name. Comma

[00:43:08.05] spk_1:
Ceo or

[00:43:08.66] spk_0:
executive director. That

[00:43:11.10] spk_1:
that could be interesting as well. Trying to participate in the

[00:43:12.73] spk_0:
activity here in the conversation.

[00:43:14.33] spk_1:
Trying to hold

[00:43:15.99] spk_0:
up, hold, trying to hold up my side of the conversation. Oh yeah,

[00:43:18.71] spk_1:
no, you’re doing a great job. Yeah.

[00:43:23.25] spk_0:
Yeah.

[00:43:25.70] spk_1:
one thing that I think is, um, a good feature of the test is like if you

[00:43:27.67] spk_0:
are, if your

[00:43:28.49] spk_1:
email includes a

[00:43:30.50] spk_0:
video in it

[00:43:31.60] spk_1:
or a blog

[00:43:32.47] spk_0:
post. I mean you

[00:43:33.47] spk_1:
can’t have a video in

[00:43:34.48] spk_0:
an email, but it’s about maybe a video on your website. Um, and there’s a thumbnail

[00:43:38.58] spk_1:
of the video on your email or a blog post.

[00:43:41.05] spk_0:
Then I would

[00:43:41.68] spk_1:
include, um, like the word video, like in all caps and then like a sub colon or not slowed colon,

[00:43:48.12] spk_0:
like semi colon. And then whatever

[00:43:51.10] spk_1:
the video is, colon.

[00:43:51.57] spk_0:
Yeah. I’m all over the place

[00:43:53.10] spk_1:
with my

[00:43:53.50] spk_0:
grandma, right? That’s what you want to call it. You

[00:43:56.09] spk_1:
know what I’m saying? Yeah.

[00:43:57.38] spk_0:
You’re smarter than me. So you

[00:43:58.58] spk_1:
don’t, you understand that? Yeah. It

[00:44:00.52] spk_0:
took me two tries for video

[00:44:04.22] spk_1:
in all caps, I

[00:44:04.92] spk_0:
see that a lot. Yeah, yeah

[00:44:08.27] spk_1:
or blog

[00:44:09.05] spk_0:
because if you don’t have

[00:44:10.27] spk_1:
video and you just have like a subject line that’s maybe about the video or watch this or something like that. Like

[00:44:16.17] spk_0:
that’s one thing and it may

[00:44:17.36] spk_1:
work for you.

[00:44:18.39] spk_0:
But I think when you have

[00:44:19.33] spk_1:
like whatever that piece of

[00:44:20.44] spk_0:
content is and

[00:44:21.52] spk_1:
call it out and call attention to it now, it’s like, oh, there’s a video in here. Um and I see that first and foremost, I’m not reading like a title, I’m not reading a subject line

[00:44:30.50] spk_0:
per se.

[00:44:31.39] spk_1:
Um I know that when I open this, I’m going to see a video. I know when

[00:44:35.03] spk_0:
I open this, it’s going

[00:44:39.49] spk_1:
to be their blog post and and with this nonprofit like I like their blogs, you know, or I’m interested to see

[00:44:41.92] spk_0:
what they’re talking

[00:44:42.77] spk_1:
about and and so I

[00:44:43.96] spk_0:
know it sets my

[00:44:45.11] spk_1:
expectation

[00:44:46.16] spk_0:
as an email

[00:44:46.91] spk_1:
subscriber of what that

[00:44:48.12] spk_0:
content is.

[00:44:49.10] spk_1:
Um So I go in

[00:44:50.17] spk_0:
there and I’ll open it

[00:44:51.91] spk_1:
up. So I think that’s one thing too that

[00:44:54.39] spk_0:
um could help to sit

[00:44:56.04] spk_1:
down and see if it works for you. Give

[00:44:57.53] spk_0:
Us one more email.

[00:44:59.09] spk_1:
one more would be that pre header that we we we defined

[00:45:02.59] spk_0:
a couple of minutes

[00:45:03.53] spk_1:
ago is testing the language with the pre

[00:45:05.90] spk_0:
header and with this

[00:45:07.10] spk_1:
uh the day and time would be the same. The subject line would be the same, but the pre

[00:45:11.72] spk_0:
header would be

[00:45:14.89] spk_1:
something different and it could be

[00:45:15.49] spk_0:
a call to action.

[00:45:16.54] spk_1:
Um I do recommend that whatever you have in your pre header um and I don’t know the exact

[00:45:21.38] spk_0:
character count

[00:45:22.33] spk_1:
off the top of my head but just make sure that

[00:45:24.60] spk_0:
people can read the

[00:45:25.55] spk_1:
whole pre header um

[00:45:26.93] spk_0:
from whatever

[00:45:28.63] spk_1:
device they’re looking at it on. Um Some, some people may say well

[00:45:34.19] spk_0:
if you don’t include

[00:45:35.09] spk_1:
all of it then it adds

[00:45:35.93] spk_0:
this Mystique and people

[00:45:37.13] spk_1:
will want to open it up to see what it says and

[00:45:39.70] spk_0:
I think there’s some

[00:45:40.72] spk_1:
value to that. Um And I think maybe you can test that as well, but I think in general um that pre editor people should be able to read all of that.

[00:45:48.25] spk_0:
But testing what

[00:45:49.22] spk_1:
that is, whether it’s a call to action or um

[00:45:52.09] spk_0:
if it’s a

[00:45:53.49] spk_1:
video for example, maybe you have the person’s name that’s

[00:45:56.96] spk_0:
in the video. You

[00:45:57.96] spk_1:
know, bob’s testimony about blah blah blah versus

[00:46:01.21] spk_0:
here’s an easter

[00:46:02.30] spk_1:
message from blah blah

[00:46:04.02] spk_0:
blah.

[00:46:08.18] spk_1:
Okay, how about the,

[00:46:10.58] spk_0:
well it’s either search engine marketing or facebook

[00:46:12.94] spk_1:
ads.

[00:46:14.38] spk_0:
I’m pretty down on facebook,

[00:46:15.73] spk_1:
but I guess people are still doing

[00:46:16.86] spk_0:
a lot of facebook ads so we’ll ignore the

[00:46:20.63] spk_1:
the the hosts. Uh

[00:46:22.49] spk_0:
Predilection against

[00:46:24.21] spk_1:
facebook and

[00:46:27.78] spk_0:
let’s talk about facebook ads. Yeah

[00:46:28.17] spk_1:
facebook ads let me pull up

[00:46:30.57] spk_0:
my list here

[00:46:31.51] spk_1:
because I had a lot to say about that

[00:46:33.91] spk_0:
and actually like

[00:46:34.64] spk_1:
facebook ads is like one of those things where there’s

[00:46:38.88] spk_0:
I mean I

[00:46:39.37] spk_1:
could probably do 50 tests with

[00:46:41.00] spk_0:
facebook ads. There’s so many different

[00:46:42.31] spk_1:
things that you can test. Um,

[00:46:44.18] spk_0:
but for the sake

[00:46:45.53] spk_1:
of like maybe time and and quality

[00:46:47.60] spk_0:
of continent, what we

[00:46:48.73] spk_1:
talked about here. One thing that I do want to

[00:46:51.06] spk_0:
put out their first and

[00:46:52.11] spk_1:
foremost is

[00:46:53.25] spk_0:
testing

[00:46:54.58] spk_1:
um, link short ners within the ad copy. Um, so let’s take a step back and talk about kind of the anatomy of a facebook ad. Um and what I’m gonna talk about is more like the news

[00:47:05.77] spk_0:
feed ads. So if

[00:47:06.99] spk_1:
you’re on a desktop or on your

[00:47:09.07] spk_0:
smartphone and

[00:47:10.58] spk_1:
you’re just scrolling

[00:47:11.17] spk_0:
and you’re seeing what your friends

[00:47:12.24] spk_1:
post and then there will be an ad, they’re just kind of in your newsfeed. So newsfeed

[00:47:15.98] spk_0:
add the

[00:47:16.78] spk_1:
anatomy of it is you have like um text, which will be like your description and then you have the image below that and then you have a headline below that with a button that you can make me a

[00:47:26.77] spk_0:
donate button.

[00:47:30.88] spk_1:
Um, so one of the things that I would have nonprofits

[00:47:31.94] spk_0:
tests first and

[00:47:32.71] spk_1:
foremost is with the net description, which is that first

[00:47:35.56] spk_0:
block of content

[00:47:36.66] spk_1:
above the image where you’re writing that includes your ad copy

[00:47:41.08] spk_0:
is

[00:47:41.48] spk_1:
that you include a call to action with a

[00:47:44.26] spk_0:
link shorter at the

[00:47:45.43] spk_1:
end of your copy. Um for example, um,

[00:47:49.61] spk_0:
March is such

[00:47:50.84] spk_1:
and such awareness month here at

[00:47:52.44] spk_0:
X. Nonprofit.

[00:47:53.53] spk_1:
You know, we really believe X.

[00:47:54.75] spk_0:
Y. And Z. You

[00:47:55.88] spk_1:
can make a difference today. Um uh

[00:47:58.88] spk_0:
by donating

[00:48:02.37] spk_1:
$50. I don’t know, it’s very general um text or what

[00:48:03.57] spk_0:
I’m saying. Uh

[00:48:04.62] spk_1:
and then under that you have like make your gift here and then you have like a link shortening which

[00:48:09.67] spk_0:
would be like Bentley, B. I.

[00:48:10.90] spk_1:
T. Dot L. Y. You know, you can take a U. R. L. From your donation page, go to Bentley and it

[00:48:17.14] spk_0:
will compress it

[00:48:18.61] spk_1:
into less characters for your U. R.

[00:48:21.21] spk_0:
L. But

[00:48:22.48] spk_1:
include that within your um the description copy of your facebook ad. Um and the reason that I recommend that is

[00:48:29.75] spk_0:
Number one I’ve seen at work,

[00:48:31.10] spk_1:
you get a higher conversion rate but just thinking about the flow of a facebook ad. Like you’re reading the

[00:48:36.50] spk_0:
copy and

[00:48:43.57] spk_1:
let’s talk about the flow. If you don’t include this piece, you’re reading the copy and then you see the image or video and then you see a call to action

[00:48:46.10] spk_0:
and then over to the right

[00:48:47.14] spk_1:
of that call to action is a

[00:48:48.09] spk_0:
button. So

[00:48:49.27] spk_1:
what we’re doing with this

[00:48:50.07] spk_0:
essentially is bringing

[00:48:51.13] spk_1:
that call to action

[00:48:52.77] spk_0:
up

[00:48:53.11] spk_1:
quicker. Um, and eliminating

[00:48:55.39] spk_0:
some distractions to

[00:48:56.35] spk_1:
a degree. So I’m reading

[00:48:57.52] spk_0:
this wonderful

[00:48:58.51] spk_1:
ad copy that was written by this nonprofit

[00:49:00.75] spk_0:
and then they’re telling me

[00:49:01.75] spk_1:
what that next step is right here and there

[00:49:03.94] spk_0:
as opposed to

[00:49:04.77] spk_1:
like okay I have to watch this video or taking this

[00:49:07.40] spk_0:
image and I have to read this headline

[00:49:09.28] spk_1:
and then I have to click on this button

[00:49:11.67] spk_0:
so you’re you’re

[00:49:11.93] spk_1:
making that decision making process happen quicker. Um because

[00:49:16.12] spk_0:
by the time I read your

[00:49:16.91] spk_1:
copy I made tune out your image and the call to action in the button and I’m scrolling to the

[00:49:20.97] spk_0:
next piece of content

[00:49:22.51] spk_1:
so it just

[00:49:23.15] spk_0:
inserts that call to

[00:49:24.07] spk_1:
action a little bit earlier.

[00:49:25.28] spk_0:
So I would say

[00:49:30.47] spk_1:
test that out, see if that works. How about um what else? Facebook.

[00:49:32.00] spk_0:
Okay yep. So what else um

[00:49:33.84] spk_1:
I would test image overlays. So what I mean by that is like a

[00:49:38.77] spk_0:
text overlay.

[00:49:39.68] spk_1:
Um It used to be where with facebook you can only have a certain

[00:49:42.72] spk_0:
percent of

[00:49:43.74] spk_1:
your image and a image

[00:49:45.97] spk_0:
at be covered

[00:49:46.65] spk_1:
with text, but now you can put text all

[00:49:48.98] spk_0:
over it if you want to.

[00:49:50.24] spk_1:
So what I would recommend is like

[00:49:52.03] spk_0:
testing the image by

[00:49:53.48] spk_1:
itself. So let’s

[00:49:54.59] spk_0:
say it’s uh animal

[00:49:56.40] spk_1:
shelter and it’s just this picture

[00:49:58.22] spk_0:
of any animal, it could

[00:50:00.10] spk_1:
be a happy animal sat

[00:50:01.31] spk_0:
animal or whatever,

[00:50:02.48] spk_1:
but then you have a b version of the add

[00:50:04.84] spk_0:
and everything else is the same except the

[00:50:06.63] spk_1:
image. But

[00:50:10.86] spk_0:
over the image you actually have some text overlay that’s saying you know

[00:50:11.46] spk_1:
$50

[00:50:12.58] spk_0:
Or $10 a month

[00:50:13.93] spk_1:
can help save X.

[00:50:15.31] spk_0:
Animals X. Amount of animals. Um But

[00:50:18.54] spk_1:
seeing if that makes a difference.

[00:50:19.81] spk_0:
And honestly I’ve seen where in some cases it has, in some cases it has, you know, so that this is certainly one of those

[00:50:26.79] spk_1:
things where I’m like, I’ve

[00:50:27.82] spk_0:
usually see this happen, but I’ve seen mixed results with this. So I think non probably have to see what works for them.

[00:50:33.86] spk_1:
Okay,

[00:50:42.16] spk_0:
leave us with one more facebook made. You make your top one of what’s left. Yeah. What’s left is testing your audiences. So

[00:50:46.11] spk_1:
not even what the people

[00:50:47.35] spk_0:
see, but behind the scenes and facebook, whenever you’re

[00:50:50.21] spk_1:
building the ads,

[00:51:09.16] spk_0:
your audiences are so important. And I would test against your audiences and even within that I would break them into a few different audiences and won, I would take my email file of my donors and I would upload them into facebook and target them with ads separately from everybody else. Um, and then I would also target by

[00:51:11.58] spk_1:
age, I would have everything

[00:51:16.96] spk_0:
be the same except I would target different age groups because some

[00:51:17.28] spk_1:
nonprofits say,

[00:51:18.37] spk_0:
hey, we want to

[00:51:19.29] spk_1:
target ages 18

[00:51:20.53] spk_0:
and up because everybody, if they have money we want them to give. But that’s not always being

[00:51:25.01] spk_1:
a good steward of your ad

[00:51:36.56] spk_0:
budgets. So tests like 50 year old plus and then test maybe 35 to 49 see which one of those ad groups has a higher conversion rate because a lot of times when I talk to non profits, they

[00:51:38.51] spk_1:
have no idea

[00:51:39.71] spk_0:
what the age group is of people that donate to them on facebook. So I’m like we can find this out if we test

[00:51:45.35] spk_1:
enough, we’ll know that this

[00:51:46.51] spk_0:
is the age group that has a higher propensity to donate. Um So those are ways that you

[00:51:50.33] spk_1:
can test the audiences on the back

[00:52:00.45] spk_0:
end of it, you mentioned earlier that you have 100 ways to test. Is that something you said? I think you said it was on your website. Um it is, it’s you have to be a member of fundraisers unite

[00:52:04.38] spk_1:
to have

[00:52:05.07] spk_0:
access to that. Yeah, but it is

[00:52:07.37] spk_1:
available but

[00:52:07.99] spk_0:
yeah, just throw it dot com after that. So fundraisers unite dot com. Um and this is an online community uh subscription program for digital fundraisers. So there’s a lot of templates and trainings

[00:52:20.57] spk_1:
and tip sheets and

[00:52:21.77] spk_0:
resources that they

[00:52:22.87] spk_1:
offer to my

[00:52:24.75] spk_0:
audience. Thank you very much, jeremy hazelwood

[00:52:59.75] spk_1:
digital fundraiser. Next week we’ll take a break from 22. NTC with Don Gatewood on mentoring. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored

[00:53:00.33] spk_0:
by turn to

[00:53:00.90] spk_1:
communications pr and content for

[00:53:03.30] spk_0:
nonprofits. Your story

[00:53:58.25] spk_1:
is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. And by 4th dimension Technologies IT 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. Our creative producer is claire Meyerhoff. The shows social media is by Susan Chavez marc Silverman is our Web guy and this music is by scott Steiner. Yes, 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.

Nonprofit Radio for November 29, 2021: How Much To Spend On Ads In 2022

My Guest:

George Weiner: How Much To Spend On Ads In 2022

“The Nonprofit Advertising Benchmark Study” will help you decide what’s the right amount for you to spend on advertising if you want to be comparable to your peers. At the very least, it’s a place to start your research on ad spending. George Weiner explains the study. He’s chief whaler at Whole Whale. Does that make him the Captain Ahab of nonprofit tech? Listen to find out.

 

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[00:02:18.04] spk_1:
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. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer with odo toxicity if I heard that you missed this week’s show How much to spend on ads. In 2022, the nonprofit advertising benchmark study, we’ll help you decide what’s the right amount for you to spend on advertising if you want to be comparable to your peers at the very least, it’s a place to start your research on ad spending George winner explains the study. He’s chief whaler at whole whale. Does that make him the captain ahab of nonprofit tech. Let’s find out on tony state too. It’s the holidays and fourth quarter sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s a pleasure to welcome George winner to nonprofit radio He is the chief whaler of whole whale, a digital agency that leverages data and tech to increase the impact of nonprofits and for benefit companies. He’s also a co founder of power poetry, the largest teen poetry platform in the US A safe creative free home to over 500,000 poets. George was chief technology officer of do something dot org. He managed the site overhaul twice. Winning a webby award and helped build a community of over a million and a half young people taking action. He’s an evangelist for democratized data and measuring success. The company is at whole whale dot com and at whole whale. Welcome chief whaler. How are you George

[00:02:21.24] spk_0:
wow, incredible intro. Thank you so much. tony Thanks for having having me on

[00:02:26.63] spk_1:
my pleasure, my pleasure. What’s what’s behind the company name? Whole whale which which leads you to be whole whaler. What’s that about?

[00:03:23.44] spk_0:
Yeah, we found it a decade ago and at the time the thought that struck me was ultimately the way that the nan, you know the Nantucket whalers in the massachusetts whalers in the 18 fifties would look at a whale and they would basically bring back lamp oil and throw the rest away in times of abundance. We tend to be a touch wasteful instead of using everything from the bluebird of the bone. And I took that lens and said, I felt like many social impact organizations weren’t looking at the opportunity to leverage data and technology and the rising web in that way. And they simply said, hey, hey, here’s the internet and the most powerful tool we’ve ever been given. Let’s put a donate button on it and call it a day. And so I kind of gave rise to how we view this time of abundance with an eye toward the best ways of leveraging data intact to increase the impact.

[00:03:57.64] spk_1:
Very interesting, very interesting. Uh you uh you drew that analogy between the two interesting. All right. Um, so are you the captain? Ahab, do you have a deep revenge? I’m trusting you know the story of Moby dick. Do you have anything deeply uh hurting you that you need revenge for? That’s going to drive the the ship of what was it the uh um The pick, watch the pick what it’s going to drive your whole whale peak watt into the ground.

[00:04:11.14] spk_0:
I’ve got a few white whales. Maybe I chase, you know, I got a few white whales maybe that I chase. Yeah. The other reason I found it all whales. Because of the nautical puns. I mean, you’re virtually swimming in them anywhere you turn and with regard to the things that chase, you know, the nonprofit ad study is one, but we like we go after interesting projects along the way. In addition to our our day to day work as consultants. We also develop products and try to put things out there in the ecosystem that help others do their jobs better. Or learn more about whatever field they’re wandering and so I can get distracted by a white whale or two.

[00:04:48.64] spk_1:
Okay, I see the navigate your helping folks navigate. Yes. The of course, the nautical you’re right. The uh nautical puns are are abundant.

[00:04:52.84] spk_0:
Yeah, they have to be they have to be

[00:05:05.44] spk_1:
navigate navigate the waters. All right. All right. So, we’ll see if your captain Ahab flush that out. See if you’ve hopefully you’re not going to do to uh to hold whale. What what the captain did too

[00:05:07.82] spk_0:
Made it 10 years so far. But I think that’s mainly because of an amazing team that basically just puts me in the right direction. Okay. It’s

[00:05:18.64] spk_1:
very gracious of you. All right. What is this this uh, nonprofit advertising benchmark study? What’s this thing all about?

[00:06:18.54] spk_0:
We wanted to answer a simple question and you know, never underestimate the power of a simple question because it can lead to, you know, a lot of, you know, threads essentially how much should a nonprofit spend on ads? This idea of advertising and promotion, it’s available technically informed nine nineties and with the help of cause I. Q. Which is a, you know, been a great partner in this. We analyzed seven over 7000 organizations to get that answer. And we chose organizations with a number of filters because clearly, you know, there’s 1.8 million nonprofits out there depending on how you’re sort of measuring the five oh one C threes and they’re like, oh that’s too many. And also, uh, you know, a third of them are not necessarily even over the threshold for reporting to the I. R. S. So we wanted to find 1 to 10 million in revenue organizations between one Million and 10 million and also met other certain criteria. And then we just sort of just, we dove in headfirst to to answer that question, how much should non profit spend on paid ads.

[00:06:36.34] spk_1:
Okay, so among your sample size of 7100 or so you you were you looked to see there’s I guess there’s a, there’s a line on the 9 90 that where folks where organizations report advertising expenses and that’s what, that’s what you were looking for,

[00:07:08.64] spk_0:
correct. It’s, you know, publicly disclosed because that’s, you know, the game and we look at that. So, you know, there are certain assumptions there that, you know, we note in the study of what that line is and what it isn’t. So it isn’t necessarily saying All right, this is the amount that people spent just on facebook ads or google ads. It’s advertising and promotion of the organization. So, you know, that could extend to people Paying for print ads. It could even in some cases, but we filtered it out for the most part include the cost paid to advertising firms to run ads. Uh, though many according to, I think the analysis, we didn’t hear only about like five or 10% in that range actually incorporated in there. And those are the outliers.

[00:07:43.14] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. And this specifically, thank you. Cause I was going to ask you about, you know, how, how we define advertising or how you define advertising this study and it specifically doesn’t include google ad grant money. Right? That’s, that’s different.

[00:07:58.84] spk_0:
Super important. Thanks for bringing that up. And it’s one of those sort of, you know, expert pieces there that it’s an in kind amount that doesn’t get reported on that line. Right? The google ad grants and you 10-K per month in money spent is something that would show up on your in kind value, not actual dollars out the door.

[00:09:03.04] spk_1:
Okay. Right. So it’s captured elsewhere. So it’s not part of the study here. Okay. Um, and so I was struck, you know, I’ve I’ve known that these that the vast majority of nonprofits are are smaller, you know, smaller revenue amounts. But I guess just reading it again, reminding me refreshing my recollection that uh, 93 a half percent of nonprofits are under $1 million dollars in revenue and and only 1.5% are over $10 million dollars in revenue. So that this this, you know, our universe of nonprofits, that this is not related to advertising, although, I mean, it is in terms of big words spend more on advertising, but that’s not my point. My point is just it just drives home that so many of our of our colleagues in nonprofits are organizations that are under $1 million dollars in revenue, 93 93 a half percent are under a million dollars, vast majority. Again.

[00:10:11.74] spk_0:
Yeah. And it’s important to note that, you know, because I think maybe in our minds or because of the narratives, we see large organizations and assume that they’re all like multimillion dollar, but like, this is the truth of it and that’s Yeah, that 1.44, exact five oh one c three nonprofit organizations and, you know, there’s a very, very small fraction of them that kind of live above that line, You know, like roughly speaking the same is kind of true in business ecosystems as well. You know, it’s hard to get to a million dollars. You realize that. But also when you look at the market how, how much of a long tail there really is. And we wanted to sort of remove that and say like once an organization has kind of, I mean not saying you’ve made it, but you were in rarer air, certainly after crossing $1 million you were running something that certainly has enough residents to to reach that level. And then we also filtered by age to be like, well, wait a minute. Maybe they’re like one night, you know, overnight successes or pieces like that. So we looked at organizations over under this century funded founded in uh, and and took a look at that as well. But it is, it is a curious point. We wanted to start with that context because I don’t think it’s given enough in the sense of nonprofit industry and you like immediately sort of have this availability heuristic meaning like I remember the last thing I saw and either it’s the red cross or you know, you know, pets down the corner saving one pet at a time.

[00:10:41.44] spk_1:
The availability heuristic. Thank you dropping that tech guy. You know, you have to, uh, well you, I’ll keep you out of jargon jail because you you explained it immediately

[00:10:47.03] spk_0:
go to

[00:10:51.64] spk_1:
The availability heuristic now it’s a good one. I love it. Uh huh. And you uh you flushed it out so folks understand what you’re talking about.

[00:10:56.23] spk_0:
I still will probably end up in jail though, won’t you

[00:11:10.64] spk_1:
didn’t do it? Well that could be we’ll see how we’ll see how the conversation goes. But you didn’t do it pretentious li like you know the all you would have available, all you, all you would have within your within your thinking at that point would be subject to the availability heuristic.

[00:11:13.34] spk_0:
Yeah. And then just leave it. Didn’t just leave it

[00:11:47.74] spk_1:
there and then make me ask and then make you flush it out. Which would have put you in jargon jail. So all right now because your availability heuristic. Thank you. This is a technology guy. Data data data guy, expect those things. I have a book like that. What’s that way out of this cool book from college. Alternative interpretations of data based conclusions. I think availability is in there. You know, uh confusing correlation and cause and effect. That’s a very common one. This is cool book. Can you show it to you

[00:11:50.24] spk_0:
what’s strong? I like that

[00:12:07.34] spk_1:
rival hypotheses. That’s what it is, rival hypothesis. Alternative interpretations of data basically. Okay, so enough pretense for now let’s talk about the study a little more. Yes. What stood out for you uh findings. What what what was most informative to you that and you think our listeners need to know?

[00:13:12.84] spk_0:
Yeah. The top line, I feel like we have that that cliffhanger is like how much should number I would spend. It’s like how much should we spend already? What’s the number? So I felt like we owed it to the audience to give them a number with a lot of asterisks and the number which is the median spend for our sample was basically $12,070. Which roughly equated to 5% of the median revenue as a as a ratio. So you know, knowing nothing else turning off the podcast right now you’re like, all right, we should be like at least considering that. and 60% of This sample, 60% were actually spending on ads or spending on advertising and promotion. I’m going to use that interchange of advertising and promotion and add but advertising activities 60% did and 40% did. Not. That actually surprised me. I actually really believe that there would be a lot more organizations spending. So you know that that was a bit of a surprise to me.

[00:13:16.87] spk_1:
Okay. Right. Not even not even 2/3

[00:13:20.04] spk_0:
are spot on your Yeah, exactly. Exactly on

[00:13:22.59] spk_1:
Advertising. Okay. And the median spend is 12,000 between friends. We can around the 70 away.

[00:13:29.35] spk_0:
So 12 spot me 70 12,000

[00:13:31.94] spk_1:
dollars. There you go. That’s that’s your

[00:13:34.30] spk_0:
feet for being option.

[00:13:48.14] spk_1:
Um uh And the average was, you know, it was interesting. The average was quite the average of like 4.2 million wasn’t the average was very highly skewed. Do you remember that? Right? It was it was something very huge.

[00:14:37.04] spk_0:
Oh yeah. I mean you had to throw out the average because of these outliers. There’s like these massive positive outliers and there’s some nonprofits out there that are spending quite significantly. And you know, you sort of begin to touch on lobbying. There’s like um, you know, there was a pro life America group up there and the millions of dollars and you know, that’s that’s not data that necessarily is going to help you, right. If Bill Gates suddenly walked into your boardroom, you’d all be average billionaires. Not helpful. Right. That that kind of insight is not helpful. So that’s why we chose the median. I’m sure it’s in your book of trying to avoid those mistakes. And you know, we we went through and tried to explain why we chose the numbers we did and also give access to the full data dashboard if people are interested in it.

[00:14:51.34] spk_1:
Alright, so, well, since you mentioned access to this, how do how do folks get the summary and I’ll be sure to say at the end, you can remind me if I don’t, how do you get the, get the, get the summary of the study.

[00:14:55.14] spk_0:
So it’s at a whole whale dot com slash advertising tried to make it pretty simple. We have a nice infographic there and the ability to download the entire report.

[00:15:05.74] spk_1:
Okay. And there’s a little fee there’s a $5 fee if you want if you want

[00:15:08.89] spk_0:
All this. So yeah the full data and dashboard if you want to go digging into it. Um and getting access to that. Yeah that’s the $5 fee. But you get the whole study which is you know 21, pages of awesome. That’s you know that’s available

[00:17:05.14] spk_1:
right? That’s free. That’s absolutely free. Okay. Hold well dot com slash advertising it’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Are you making your plans for 2022 for fundraising? Marketing communications. Do you need help Look at turn two? If you’re like if you’re thinking about fundraising you need to raise more money in 2022 marketing and communications. Your content, the stuff that goes out all that that you’re creating for your donors for general awareness. If you need help with it, think about turn to because that’s what they do. They have a background in non profits. They understand the nonprofit community so you’re not you’re not hiring an agency that only works with you know cos they understand the nonprofit space. They can help you develop your content, help you hone those messages, Get those messages out like you’ve been hearing me talk about, right? So if you need to raise more money or if you need to go to the next level in marketing communications In 2022, think about turn to because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C o Now back to how much to spend on ads in 2022. uh, the, the 80 20 rule applies here is one of your, One of your takeaways that uh, the top 20% spend about 80% of the ad revenue. Yeah.

[00:17:06.54] spk_0:
It always seems to happen and I always seem surprised when I find that power law, right? The 80 20 shows up on like

[00:17:21.64] spk_1:
how again does it keep happening time after time after time for in a wide variety of applications, 80 20 applies. How is our world,

[00:17:57.74] spk_0:
especially in actually, especially in financial distribution. But I was actually, I did the analysis. I was like, it probably won’t in this case show and I was like, you gotta be kidding me. So it wasn’t exactly 80 20 it was 24 76. So that’s about 24% spent 80% of that ad spend coming back to your point on average is being like much higher than in a potential bit misleading. So you do have that handful of organization spending quite a bit and the top 13 organizations in our study spent over a million dollars. So you kind of see that heavy, heavy waiting. And if it’s like, all right, you know, the purpose of our organization is the public awareness of this particular issue. And the way we do it is just turned donations into advertising and they’re nonprofits that just do that And they skirt the line awful close to lobbying, but they stay this side of fair.

[00:19:23.04] spk_1:
Okay. All right. Um, and you know, it occurs to me to this is, um, you know, you’re stuck with a lackluster host who is, whose thinking is not, uh, completely linear at all times, uh, if ever on that. But, uh, this is not, this is not a survey. So we’re not, we don’t have biases across people giving what they think is a good answer. You know, we don’t have those. So that just goes back to my book, the rival hypotheses, you know, self reports, not self reported data. Um, you do have the problem, like you said, you had to correct for whether people use agencies to produce their ads, but you were able to sort that out. So there’s, there’s some potential differentiation in, in the way people report organizations report advertising on their 9 90. But overall this is more reliable than survey data.

[00:20:13.84] spk_0:
Yeah. And I’m glad you brought that up. This is, you know, reported. So, I mean if you get back down to it, Yes, there is a human somewhere in the financial department of this non profit making that decision, but they’re doing that at a very macro stage and we’re pulling raw data were not wandering in and saying, Hey, how much do you spend on ads and you know, looking at, You know, 250 random nonprofits that decided to randomly fill out a survey with limiting information or you know, not being wanted to be fully transparent for whatever reasons. This is you know, this is source data from the organization according to the I. R. S aggregated by cause I. Q. And then we analyzed it to really find those answers and it’s something that we just felt was lacking. We felt like there was a lot of uh, we’ll call it a qualitative As opposed to quantitative type of research out there being like, Oh, here’s the official number. And then you look at the fine print and realize it was the opinion of 60 people not problems. And I’m like, I don’t know

[00:20:33.14] spk_1:
a lot of the answer. A lot of times people say, well it depends, it depends. So you’ve drilled down more than it depends.

[00:20:58.94] spk_0:
We’ve drilled down more and also been able to look at individual cause areas. So not just lumping one of my, one of my watchwords is being careful of lumping together the entire industry into one tidy bucket and assuming they all behave the same way. And if you know one nonprofit, you know one non profit and so we actually have, you know, in one of our findings divided up The type and cause focus of the organization to kind of get a better idea in that distribution, which tells, you know, another different story, which is all the more to say. I, I hesitated but knew we dessert we we owed the audience an answer of $12,000. But even that can be misleading depending on the industry and sub industry weren’t

[00:21:34.94] spk_1:
well, like arts organizations for instance, spend the most right. That’s what you’re, you’re, you’re teasing us a little bit. But I don’t do that to nonprofit radio listeners. You can, you can attempt it, but I won’t allow it. So, uh, let’s, uh, so arts organizations spend the most on advertising, right?

[00:22:15.54] spk_0:
Organizations were the highest spender. Again, surprising to me because I actually thought it would be health, I thought would be the health industry spending, you know, more to research awareness and pieces like that. But you know, frankly at the end of the day, you need to get people to attend to show up to, you know, go to these, you know, one time events to museums on location and so these, these were the highest highest spenders for sure. And promoters of performing arts sports and similar events were at the top and then the lowest, you know, because you look at the high and low, we’re less surprisingly the grantmakers and giving services like if you’re giving grants, guess what people find Jack, If you’re writing checks, people, people

[00:22:42.04] spk_1:
find you events, you, you you, you teased out what ad spending does too event income and I’ll let you, I’ll let you reveal what was found.

[00:22:46.44] spk_0:
Yeah, this is a bit of a nothing burger on the face of it because I had, here’s a case where I went in with maybe a touch of an agenda. I had an agenda. I’m going to admit it that I thought if a nonprofit was spending research, going

[00:23:03.00] spk_1:
back to my book, researcher bias.

[00:23:38.74] spk_0:
Yeah, this was researcher bias. But I left it in because I was so surprised that the ad spend of a nonprofit did not correlate. Uh, mind you even causation that didn’t even correlate in any meaningful way to hire event income. So event income is another thing technically reported by non profits in the 990 that you can pull aggregate and analyze. I’ll put an asterisk there, there are problems with that reporting which may be impacted this. But ultimately there was no correlation at all with this idea that or eggs without ads and with ads had any meaningful difference in the amount raised with event fundraising.

[00:23:56.54] spk_1:
Okay, Alright. Clearly you had, you had a hypothesis because that’s why you pulled the event income Data off the 1990s.

[00:25:03.44] spk_0:
Yeah. I mean, my hope was to show like I had, I had to hope that we would show that guess what if you’re spending to promote your event, your event does better And therefore an aggregate. They should be the folks that are making more money, you know, when in fact, you know, the of our, I can give some context with the data size. Uh, about 68% of our group had listed event fundraising expenses and 58% of that group reporting event fundraising revenue from their form nine nineties. So right in there, you’re like, wait a minute. They didn’t all make money, nope, just events that happened. Right? So I think it’s important. Not all events have maybe the purpose of fundraising, but that’s where they get listed. There’s also the question of in the accounting department, did that gift of $100,000 that came in five days after the event? Did that go to the capital campaign or did that go to the fundraising event? There’s a lot of mushiness there. So, you know, I’ll blame it on the data, but I wanted to report it because it was something that sort of keep us honest moment.

[00:25:09.32] spk_1:
Yeah. Okay. But it’s valid. You reported as a finding. So

[00:25:13.12] spk_0:
like we. Did you believe it? Believe it. Ok.

[00:27:30.84] spk_1:
It’s time for Tony’s take two. It’s the holidays and it’s the fourth quarter. The holidays. I hope you enjoyed your thanksgiving time with family, friends. Time for yourself. These things are important. You’ve got to take time to rejuvenate yourself to relax however you you know what’s best for you, however you do that for yourself. However you relax. It might be some people, some people relax by, you know, adrenaline rushes and uh, you know, zip cordon however you relax. I hope you did it over thanksgiving and I hope you will continue it throughout the holiday season. We’re in the midst of Hanukkah right now christmas coming up whatever your holiday is. I hope that you will be good to yourself as well as of course your family, loved ones and friends that you’re getting together with and it is the fourth quarter. So there’s a lot of pressure. I know vast amounts of, of fundraising revenue come in, not only the fourth quarter, but even in just in december. I know. So I know you’ve got those pressures. What am I talking about? Balance, balance, take care of yourself so you can take care of your non profit Please do both please for the holiday season this year. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for How much to spend on ads in 2022, the older organizations, older organizations spend more then then I’m sorry older organizations spend, uh, less likely to spend. I was thinking of larger. I was thinking of size, not age, older organizations spend less. That that seems to make sense. There are, when we presume that older organizations have have greater, uh market awareness because they’ve been around longer.

[00:27:59.74] spk_0:
I guess the, I love this take away, this was actually, I have to give credit to Kobe on our team who ran the ranch and manage this analysis. He just, he was like, I would love to look at the date funded because the underlying hypothesis here is that older organizations that were incubated and created in a time frankly pre web 12. Oh, would see less value in their operating less value in paying to play in creating ads and creating advertising. Oh, that’s

[00:28:14.34] spk_1:
the hypo that you think that’s the car. They haven’t adapted to our digital ad environment.

[00:28:15.80] spk_0:
I mean it’s, we call the rising generation digital natives. Right? How much time do you spend on Tiktok? Like there’s, I think there’s a fundamental reality.

[00:28:24.88] spk_1:
I’ve never, I’ve never been there. But they can hire people, I don’t need, I can hire somebody to do Tiktok for me to watch you George. That’s so cynical about older organizations. But let’s all right.

[00:28:40.44] spk_0:
You’re right. Let’s, can we, we can tell them the numbers though. It wasn’t that massively off. I will always say that. Um, the,

[00:28:41.84] spk_1:
alright, let’s start with, what’s an older organization. How did you, how did you group or cluster or how did you define age?

[00:28:48.66] spk_0:
How did I unfairly categorize this poor lined group of nickel. They

[00:29:03.74] spk_1:
Are capable of even hiring people to do something post 1950. I mean these these folks are still watching black and white television and some of them are still listening to silent movies in your mind.

[00:29:07.04] spk_0:
Uh, that side, the set with this century. So it’s over under year 2000, which I thought was an interesting inflection point and also it’s nice and round. So

[00:29:17.86] spk_1:
There’s a whole bunch of before 2000. Okay.

[00:30:20.54] spk_0:
Oh yeah, no, no, I think That, I mean it’s a long swath of time to look at and you know, the difference is really that this uh in last century 41% had no ads versus in this century 37%. So you know, 4% points total difference in just the binary decision. Should we have that ads, advertising and promotion? Um and then the median spend of this century was not that much higher, but it’s about 400 ISH, $400 higher uh simply by nothing else controlling for everything else, right? Like nothing else. You just, you’re just going to spend a little bit more if you are going to spend and you’re more likely to be spending on that. So it wasn’t mine, I kind of wish there was a bigger differential. So it’s actually much tighter than, and I have to, I have to say the counter narrative here is that do something dot org, one of my alma mater’s uh what Founded in 1993 and still had a well well above average as fund. So they are like the outlier that I didn’t even have to take that long to find.

[00:30:38.34] spk_1:
It’s impressive that you were the chief technology officer and do something that’s uh that’s a, that’s quite a renowned organization for What, what’s their sweet spot, 14-17 or 14-18 or 14-20 year olds taking, taking action and all the data that you gathered from them. That’s uh that’s quite a, that’s quite a job to have had. It’s impressive.

[00:31:17.44] spk_0:
It was an interesting time to have that role. I’ll say that for sure because there was a lot of, you know, a lot of tech being just sort of introduced web to, oh, just becoming of age, you know, you look at facebook pages and that existing for the first time in that period of time being like, what do we do with this now? I don’t know, what do we do? Like there was a lot of like, have you used this thing, you’re like, oh God, what is this thing now that I have to go figure out and then building our own platform as well and then sort of, you know, data privacy and protection and jumping in? I’d say the biggest piece we figured out was SMS in that period of time, the power of text messaging, which is still, you know, widely under appreciated, I’d say in the social impact sector. I do take, you know, huge nod of the hat to twilio dot org and what they’re doing out there, but it’s a, you know, it was an interesting time to be the cto

[00:31:49.34] spk_1:
and what was the the prime age group for? Do something? I was trying to guess, I was like 14 to 18 or something. Yeah, it’s

[00:32:15.14] spk_0:
extended, you know, I think they would extend it to through college age, but there’s like different sort of calls to action along the way. While I was there, we were predominantly focused on teens and tweens and that sort of intro level to volunteerism and engagement to foster a lifetime of social engagement. And and since then they’ve really evolved because guess what? You know, if you know, if you have half a million people that are of this age, it’s silly to say like, all right, goodbye, Good luck. I’m like, yeah, we can still provide services. We can still provide ways for them to engage. So it’s kind of an interesting quandary. I think for a lot of youth focused organizations to be like, where do you draw that line?

[00:32:53.54] spk_1:
Well, and because eventually those folks are gonna turn over 45 and then they’re just gonna be dinosaurs. Like like you hypothesized about the older organizations so you better get all the data you can now or you know, do something better because once, they once they turned 45, I mean they’re practically dead and they can’t adapt. Their their minds

[00:32:55.86] spk_0:
are impossible.

[00:32:57.15] spk_1:
Yeah. Their brains are neck roast it.

[00:32:59.63] spk_0:
Well actually, no, not completely, but maybe 4% more of them. Like 4% points. four

[00:33:04.59] spk_1:
percent. Alright. Yeah. Good. Thank you for bringing us back to the survey study. So we’re not a servant to the study, definitely

[00:33:11.63] spk_0:
stepped in it. I’m sorry.

[00:33:22.84] spk_1:
So uh let’s talk about what I what I had confused with that larger larger organizations. What did you find out about that? That’s that’s it.

[00:34:56.04] spk_0:
Well, I think the interesting thing is not that hey, surprise larger people with more money, spend more money. This just in from things you probably already knew uh is that it’s the same ratio. So that sort of golden ratio of 5% of revenue just paired out for small and large organizations. My assumption there that I went in there with a sort of hypothesis was that The smaller organizations would probably disproportionately spend at a higher ratio, but it didn’t turn out to be true. So in fact, that sort of 5% of revenue held across large and small organizations, albeit yeah, large organizations spent more. So if you do like if you just take away a quick thing, you could accidentally assume that oh, large organizations got big by spending more. You’re like, well no, they’re larger and they still spend at that ratio, which is in and of itself interesting because it is a much bigger number. And between those two groups where we divided it between large and small, which was over under I should note small organizations being 125 million. So small and 5 to 10 million. So we just basically through the line down the middle and it just equated to the large organizations had a median those three X. In terms of revenue three X. The amount that the 1 to 5 did and that was the same ratio three X more in ad spend. So you know, if you were doing lazy reporting, you say like large organizations spend three times the amount you’re like, Yeah, but that’s just a symptom of numbers. Okay, okay.

[00:35:04.24] spk_1:
And employees, you also, you also tracked the number of full time employees at, at organizations.

[00:35:06.54] spk_0:
Yeah, this was a bear. Would

[00:35:08.42] spk_1:
you find related to? Why is it a bear?

[00:35:17.44] spk_0:
It was a bear. It was just really difficult to do to like segment based on, you know how many employees and they’re simple.

[00:35:18.71] spk_1:
Isn’t there a simple question on the 9 90 I’m not an accountant. So I don’t

[00:36:07.13] spk_0:
know the total number of employees is technically available. So we were able to grab that number and then parse it out. It’s just parsing it between under 55 to 9, 10 to 14 employees, 15 to 19 employees. Uh and sort of scaling that up. The biggest jump happens really from, you know, organizations with less than five employees just aren’t really spending on ads. And the hot take there is that, you know, surprise, it takes people to run the ads running ads and promotions takes dedicated, you know, person or part of a person to truly run. And then as you sort of scale up, you have like random ebbs and flows, but the biggest jump really is that like if you have an organization with under five people, um, they’re really, they’re nowhere near that median ad spend because they come in at like uh 500 bucks versus immediately get to $2000. Um, once you get 5 to 9 and then the next biggest jump, you know, happens once you’re over 24 people, just larger organizations

[00:36:42.33] spk_1:
acquaintance with what goes into this, what why it takes you just said it takes a person or at least a part of a person for organizations that aren’t doing this for the, for the, Well for the 60% that that aren’t spending, what what did they have to devote time to?

[00:36:47.93] spk_0:
It is the most valuable asset of nonprofit has its not the revenue, it’s the time of the people working and to run an ad on facebook to place an ad in the paper. Let’s say if you’re running to place an ad on this very podcast, it takes time for someone to email setup, established the price, manage and test the R. O. I.

[00:37:34.53] spk_1:
It’s not create uh an obstacle where it doesn’t exist. All you have to do is email tony at tony-martignetti dot com. If you want to be a sponsor of nonprofit radio it’s quite a fluid process. George’s referring to George is referring to a university is not that well acquainted with right. This study is not on podcasting advertising When, when he does that one. I hope I will be a part of it. But uh, the, the, I don’t know about the podcasting universe, but if you want to be a sponsor of nonprofit radio it’s a very fluid, easy process. You’re talking directly to the host of the ceo. Just

[00:37:44.47] spk_0:
email you, do it right now. We can do it right now.

[00:38:00.62] spk_1:
Yes, you can do it right now. Whole whale. If whole whale was a sponsor, you would know how fluid and simple it is. But you haven’t taken, you haven’t taken that leap. So all right, let’s not go outside the bounds of the study as we’re, as we’re trying to draw conclusions. So

[00:38:16.22] spk_0:
We take, you know, we sort of take it as sort of maybe a core number that, Oh, you know, we can spend $12,000. A median number, but it doesn’t happen by itself. I mean, nothing simply does. So that that type of ad management was in the back of our mind saying like, you know, you have to track the R. O. Y. You have to create the report for the boss. You have to set up the landing page or whatever it may be that you’re running ads for. It’s not just as simple as saying like, oh cool, no problem. You know, through your credit card over there and you know, let it run. So that’s the thought that it takes labor to implement ads

[00:38:39.72] spk_1:
and your study makes the point that even if you’re hiring someone to do the ads for you. You need someone to oversee the work of the consultant or the firm.

[00:39:07.32] spk_0:
Yeah, I mean the numbers bear out that, you know, it definitely tracks as you go up in a number of employees, um that you’re, you’re able to see a higher spend. Now. That’s also corollary to the amount of revenue. But we also show that along the way, which, you know, incrementally increases but doesn’t necessarily follow along with the differences that you see. So, you know, I don’t purport that this study will show you how to set up your advertising department. But it will tell you that you can’t assume this thing happens in a vacuum and without labor.

[00:40:03.11] spk_1:
Yes. Okay. Well, and you’re a digital uh, advertising agency in at least in part, how much of a full time employee would you do you estimate it would take for? Well, it doesn’t really well for a smaller organization, let’s say they let’s say someone has just 10 employees or fewer like what, how many, what percentage of a full time employees time would that size organization Spending on ads if they were gonna move themselves from the 60% that don’t advertise at all to the 40% that do

[00:40:20.81] spk_0:
an interesting framing there. If you had 10 employees according to a study, you’d have an average revenue of roughly call it 2.3 million your median ad spend for that cluster would be $2100 and You know, oh, that doesn’t require a full time employee. But it’s gonna take about, you know, 2100

[00:40:28.61] spk_1:
That’s in a year. That’s 2100 a year. Yeah. So you’re just spending a little under $200 a month.

[00:40:40.21] spk_0:
I mean, Yeah, I mean and and and 2000. Yeah,

[00:40:42.12] spk_1:
22,000, exactly. 200 a month will be 2400 a year. So you’re saying 2100. So

[00:41:49.21] spk_0:
Yeah. So for that number that’s, that’s easily managed in 10% of somebody’s time depending on the type of Advertising activity that you’re doing. The hope is that that allows you enough to test where there’s value and increase that number, ads can be spent for a number of different reasons. And this is getting back to maybe why my assumption on fundraising was so flawed is ads may be spent to spread awareness of a topic a theme to increase public awareness. I don’t know for vaccines for health research, it’s not necessarily direct 1-1 ratio with fundraising. However, and if you are able and you are trying to turn one ad dollar into two donated dollars and you figure out a way to do that. It’s the hope that spending that and having somebody paying attention to it may figure out a way to get a bit of a little bit of a money engine going for you, spending adds to increase donations to the organization. And that Is a hope of this study. It is a hope that you’re saying, you know what it is worth, frankly 20% of someone’s time to play around with some amount of money that would let us learn and then do more of what works.

[00:42:29.30] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. That’s a pretty good wrap up actually. But I’ll give you a chance to to make it official because we’ve, you’ve covered all your explicit findings in the, in the study which folks can get at whole whale dot com slash advertising very appropriately named simple. Uh, simple U. R. L. Whole whale dot com slash advertising. What would you like to leave folks with George?

[00:42:33.10] spk_0:
I think that point lands hopefully. Well, and I haven’t offended any older organizations out there from which only only older,

[00:42:41.44] spk_1:
only older people. You haven’t offended any organization, not just the older people

[00:42:45.18] spk_0:
For 4% of them. Right.

[00:42:48.60] spk_1:
Well, that was, that was a differential, but it seemed

[00:42:51.50] spk_0:
Like it was 100% of those people were offended before.

[00:42:56.31] spk_1:
No, no, no, no. The way you did it, it was, it was wider.

[00:42:59.55] spk_0:
It was

[00:43:00.19] spk_1:
good

[00:43:00.78] spk_0:
differential. I

[00:43:07.30] spk_1:
understand the differential was 4%. You didn’t offend only 4% of People over 45. Now you offended most of us.

[00:44:35.79] spk_0:
That’s, that’s pretty good. Well, I’ll be joining you shortly so I can, I can join in the offending club. I uh, I will say that there is a lot to, to dig into here, but it is really meant to be an asset for anyone making the case in an organization to say, Hey, why don’t we try this? Why don’t we try to spend? It seems like our counterparts that are in this field are doing so in learning and so if you’re not spending, you’re not learning. And when I look at platforms, social platforms, that purport to be, you know, ways for you to get this organic traffic that will magically come to your site. So if you are posting, for example, on facebook, on instagram, frankly on most social platforms, you are losing money because the platform truly for for non profits for companies. Social media platforms are advertising platforms first and social platforms. Second, one more time. If you are a company, if you are a non profit Social Media is an advertising platform 1st And in an organic social network. 2nd, possibly distant second. Depending on which one we’re talking about. And so it’s like sending somebody in your communications remarketing department to work without a computer by not saying, hey, here’s a bit add money to play with and learn what might be possible for us. So that’s, that’s the thought I want to leave you with. I think.

[00:45:10.89] spk_1:
All right and not just me. All our listeners. Thank you. He’s George wegner He’s the chief. Well, at whole whale, whole whale dot com hotmail dot com slash advertising for the nonprofit advertising benchmark study. If you’re on twitter there at whole whale, thank you, George. Terrific. Thanks for sharing and thanks for being a good sport captain. Ahab. Mhm.

[00:45:11.69] spk_0:
Thanks Tony. Thanks for having us

[00:45:42.49] spk_1:
next week purpose driven marketing. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you 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 let me remind you how simple it is to be a nonprofit radio sponsor. Just email, tony up, tony-martignetti dot com. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff

[00:45:57.79] spk_2:
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

[00:46:15.59] spk_1:
ideas for the However, go out and be great.