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Miriam Brosseau: Storytelling II
Building on last week, Miriam Brosseau has on-the-ground tips for digital storytelling that break down your internal silos and resolve organizational frustrations. She’s like your storytelling therapist, from See3 Communications. (Recorded at the Nonprofit Technology Conference)
Nick Garcia & Jack Hilson: Test Quest
Email, landing page and digital ad testing: What it is; how to do it; and what to do with your results. Nick Garcia and Jack Hilson are with Mal Warwick Donordigital. (Also from the Nonprofit Technology Conference)
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Oppcoll hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of our throw piau sis, if we issued a joint statement that you missed today’s show storytelling too, building on last week mirriam brousseau has on the ground tips for digital storytelling that breaks down your internal silos and resolves organizational frustrations. She’s like your storytelling therapist from c three communications that was recorded at the non-profit technology conference and test quest email landing page and digital ad testing. What is it how to do it? And what do you do with your results? Nick garcia and jack ilsen are from now warwick donordigital responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled tony dahna slash pursuant radio by wagner, cps guiding you beyond the numbers wagner, cps dot com and by telus durney credit card processing into your passive revenue stream, tony dahna em a slash tony tell us here is storytelling, too, with mirriam brousseau. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntc non-profit technology conference in new orleans. We’re wrapping up our coverage of day two with mirriam brousseau welcome mirriam hey, tony, great to be here. It’s a pleasure to have you. Thank you. This interview with mirriam is sponsored by network for good is the use easy to use dahna management and fund-raising self where for non-profits mirriam is chief information officer at sea three communications it’s e three and her workshop topic is going to be talking about you like you’re not here. Your workshop topic is bust those silos exclamation mark how your digital storytelling khun build internal collaboration welcome again hey, uh, what? Uh, what’s, the overarching lesson that we should be learning like what’s the give us the take away the biggest takeaway about digital storytelling and non-profits not collaborating as well as they might internally. Yeah, absolutely so the way that a lot of our non-profit organizations are structured is intended to be convenient for the organization itself. How convenient for you built around efficiencies and and all of these more easy to manage things that don’t necessarily lead to a whole lot of trust or collaboration. And we’re living in an age today where everything is built around the u customer around the user around that individual person and so storytelling is a great mechanism for humanizing our organization’s overall and starting to build that that supporters centris ity and thinking about how we can shift our operations to be more about the people that we serve in the people who might make our impact possible very articulate. I do it again because we’ve been talking about donor-centric city for i don’t know, ten years or something on there still organizations that may feel they’ve mastered it, but i think our our yeah deceiving themselves, they’re still built around themselves and their saddles. How do we know? Okay, how do we know if we are one of the organizations? And i’m talking about the things we’ve mastered mastered it? We think we’ve broken down silos and we’re donor-centric but we’re not out of one of the symptoms we might be experiencing. How do we know? Yeah, well, you definitely feel it internally if there’s hierarchical management that, you know, really a sense of of control slowness of tackling the same kind of issues over and over without really getting at the root problem. It was like the first time we’ve done this thing. And we’ve done it a hundred times. Yes, yes, precisely so that and then you can also see it in your messages, of course. And so something that c three does a lot with our clients is will calculate what what we call a supporter inclusion score where you look at a single piece of messaging and basically tally up the number of times that you have mentioned the organization in some way, the name of the organization, the ceo, the name of a programme, whatever it is on dh, then you tally up the times that you’re using the word you or you’re referencing the word donor or volunteer or using their name, for instance, and you divide one by the other and see how closely you get two one for so, which would represent more of a partnership. Or if you’re if you’re above one, then you’re really demonstrating that that donor, that person you’re reaching out tio is the center of the story represented through that through that language. You and your yeah, very good words. Yeah. Working in your promotion and marketing. Yes. Shifting that book, it’s just a little bit. Okay. And now how is digital storytelling going to help us. So, there’s, we recommend sort of three step process for thinking about this. Ok, s o the first part of it is a three step process is like click candy for radio. Oh, yeah, you were goingto neo-sage okay, i got you click bait, ready and raring to go for you. So the three steps or the following, first of all, be sure that you are telling the whole story because a lot of non-profits focus on telling the story of the direct beneficiary and not a whole lot else. But when you zoom out and you think about who are all of the characters in our story, who are all the people that we really need in order to make our impact possible? It’s the volunteers it’s, thie, it’s, it’s the donor’s themselves who were usually talking to. But we could also tell their own stories. Their engagement with our missions is impacting them as people in a way more holistic storytelling. Yeah, absolutely. I’m putting a different word on it not but the whole story totally zoom. I’ll get a picture of all those characters on dh. Then think about if you were to position one of those characters as the center of the story is the hero. What would need to happen in eternally in order to gather that only one of those characters and the volunteers? Yeah, the programme. The programme officer? Yeah, doing deliveries up. Ok, so yeah. Ok. Andi, what do you got? Elsa? Right. So first of all, it zoom out, put that right. So zoom out until the whole story and think about it. Think about what are the what are the how do you support that story by through whatever internal processes and that’s that’s the really the clincher there? Because when you’re in a silent organisation to get a siloed culture and culture will eat your storytelling strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner very well nourished someone recorded you saying that. Okay? I don’t know who was. I’ve done a lot of interviews, but someone said, you know, you know i’m not sure she remembered where she hurt you. One of the sessions i was in someone said culture will eat your strategy for lunch. Oh, yes. Cultures the hungry because you recorded you’ve been quoted on not brother radio. You know you made it i wish i wish you could have contributed. Well, now, the way now we have the attribution. Diego came from that’s great. So so the only the the peace of our arsenal that we have against culture, a culture and and shifting towards that that storytelling you centric strategy is process. Really. So how do we build it into our meetings and our interactions with everybody else in the organization? In order to move in that direction and sort of humanize on and then the final steps. So if you’ve named all of your you’ve gotten that holistic view, you’ve named all your characters you’ve centered one as a hero, building into the process internally, how you captured that story and then finally treating your colleagues the way that you would any good donorsearch a thank you, sell them, tell them the impact of what happened acknowledged that their contribution to this particular story had this had this effect on you personally or on the way that the story went out in the world or the impact of that story going further out. So, yeah, humanizing and putting those folks at the centre, it pays dividends altum i love the idea of thinking of your fellow colleague as a donor? I mean, how how would you treat a donor? Yeah, this search they’re making their character in that story. They’re making a meaningful investment in the work that you’re doing and should be acknowledged for that. Okay, all right, time for a break pursuant. Their newest paper is the digital donation revolution, thanks to amazon’s one click to buy and recommendations based on purchases you’re online donors have higher expectations of you when they give online doesn’t matter that you don’t have amazons budget and expertise you know you need to measure up, get the digital donation revolution it’s on the listener landing page tony dahna slash pursuing radio now back to storytelling too. So let’s see how we, uh, let me break this down too. Wait till i tell the whole story way got to get out of this mindset that it’s all just about the person who’s enjoying the outcome with the right. How do we do this in storytelling? We want to do storytelling in like three minutes. I’m think of a video. Yeah, am i being too narrow? First of all, we’ll use a digital. Storytelling? Yeah. Do you mean beyond video? Oh, for sure, for sure. Okay. Well, kind of kind of content. You’re absolutely any kind of content that your parents know that you’re capturing. Tio talk about your your mission in your impact. Okay, so then how do we what advice do you have for starting the starting to be more holistic in the storytelling? Yeah, so i think, first of all, just literally listening out all of the people that are required in order to make your impact possible and and thinking about one of the things that we also recommend organizations do is think about what’s the intersection between your mission and that person’s aspirations for themselves. So our missions are very forward facing. We’re trying to change something. We’re trying to tackle some injustice and make the world better. So it’s all about the future. And so when we think about those different characters, we want to think about what they envisioned for themselves, for their future and how what kind of person do they aspire to be? And if we can speak to that speaks to that intersection of like, how does engaging with our mission helped these? People become the kind of person that they want to be, then we’re going to have a winning formula in our storytelling very esoteric question, yeah, so let me let me bring it down worse than often example, yeah, so it can be so, but i think it actually makes things a lot easier on us because it’s not about developing necessarily a whole user persona and getting it demographics and like, i don’t care if they shop at target or if they listen to spotify, i care about who they want to be. So for instance, we’ve done a lot of work with the make a make a wish foundation, and some of the characters are in their story are not just the wish kid who’s, the beneficiary of their work, but for instance, thie social worker who was referring that child for a wish, what kind of person does he or she wants to be? Well, they they got into this business in order to serve children and make their lives better and be able tio provided it in a way that they that the family’s night might not be able to if the kids going through a tough time and so in what ways does engaging with make a wish, help them reach that aspirational goal? Um and so when you put that social worker at the centre of the story and talk about their lives and what they’re seeing every day and then saying and what they bring to your organization, how we overlook how we overlap exactly, yeah, and so when so then the story becomes, well, i’m a social worker, and this is what i deal with every day, and when i get to tell a child that i’m referring them for a wish and that this is going teo, you know, it’s it’s, it humanizes your mission, it’s it exponentially expand your impact because suddenly you’re not just serving this single beneficiary it’s absolutely everybody who’s touched by that experience has an impact there being affected by that and it’s changing it’s, changing and transforming their lives and in meaningful ways to and so when you tell that story, it not only bus up things inside, where suddenly i have to talk to the medical outreach team in order to capture that story in the first place, but you’re also opening up a brand new door for other social workers for other people who see themselves in that kind of aspirational role, tio walk through and say like and say, oh, well, i want to be that so you’re not you’re telling the story from their perspective from from the perspective of each of the people involved in this handing over the mike being authentic about it service chain, or if you if you will oppcoll tell me more way our next step, yeah, i think so. I’ll give you another. I’ll give you another exercise because the venn diagram overlap thing is kind of esoteric, so s so when you do have that that list of characters and just list as many as you can be as specific as possible, one exercise that we walk through people through is to do a very simple mad lib you space, which this so the first. So the first space is you take this particular action, you do this thing which and then named the impact. So you, for instance, the social worker, you refer children to make a wish, which does you know all these wonderful things for that child and their family, and honing in on the u which language for each of those characters, is a really powerful exercise, because first of all, you don’t get to name your organization and you don’t get to say you, you don’t get to talk about your programs, you have to go straight from that supporter to the impact that they make and your organization is the witch it’s, the it’s, the means it’s, the facilitator it’s the mechanism by which that that person is making their impact in the world. There’s not even name. Yeah, yeah. So that’s that’s part of that that donor-centric city, that kind of shifting that perspective, you language. It always starts with a u and so an exercise of simple is that can be kind of the core of your messaging for that particular persona or audience segments. Okay, very that’s, great it’s, super fun and it’s. Great to kind of get out of the box with thinking about that for different, for different folks and to really, like, hone in on it and on give it some poetry about and there was this the way in which we make them the hero of the story it’s a it’s. A great way to start. This is the starting, you know, we don’t. Yeah. Okay. We’re not quite there. Yeah, okay. Yeah. All right. So let’s, let’s go to that way. So any one of these characters in the chain of service, any one of these important parts in that chain can now be the focus of the story and how they interact with our organization and our service beneficiaries? Yeah. Okay, give me give me another client story would make a wish or another one that this is you’ve seen. You’ve seen impact. Yeah, absolutely. All the love story of so many great stories. Well, i’m going to give you another make-a-wish example, just because that’s, they’ve got some great, powerful stuff and that’s the first thing that came to mind. So in some of this work there’s a minnesota chapter of make-a-wish made this beautiful video in which they positioned one of their volunteers is the hero of the story. And instead of necessarily focusing on the on the wish kid and it was this story in which the child himself had a condition in which he was unable to speak and really move around a whole lot. And his wish was to have a door really to be able to go out into his backyard and and see beyond the four walls of his house, which immediately just like tugs at your heartstrings. So but telling his story in a way, is not terribly relatable. It’s not i can’t. I can’t really empathize with that situation and it’s actually a little uncomfortable to even think about that and so repositioning story, they they put the hero as the contractor, the builder who actually came in and made that possible, and they talked to him. They talked to the people that he worked with, and i think it they showed the emotional and just sort of life affirming impacts of that being involved in this wish had on that person who’s like this, you know, fifty some year old contract huge e-giving door who’s just building a door, breaking a wall on drilling a door. But he’s the hero, you say he’s, the hero of the story and you watch that and it is so it’s, so emotional and powerful and just draws you in in a way that the story of the wish kid never could and part of what i think this this kind of mentality forces us to do is to recognize that everybody’s got a story everybody’s being transformed by these little moments. And what i love about about storytelling about shifting messaging in this way, is that it? It builds a culture of noticing and of paying attention. Yes. Being intentional. Yes. Paying e-giving attention to others. Yes. How did that story gets told? Was it was it through video that was through video? They had a video version of it. They also published it as as a block post. But it’s ah, yeah, they had a couple of different versions, but the video itself was was the most powerful representation. Okay, we, uh, just got a note that the whole point five o’clock and we were misinformed. So listen, i need another. I need another ten minutes. Can i get ten minutes from the security? You could see that we’re on camera. Right? Gonna get can i get them? Really? I mean, i got a fifteen minute, you know, we’re going to do this for another ten minutes, okay? I don’t know what the time of day is, but i know that. Mirriam and i have been talking for almost sixteen minutes, and i need another ten. Is that okay? Wait, don’t go anywhere, and i’m sorry, we we didn’t know that we were told that, yeah, okay, thank you, little side conversation. Just have the security, gentlemen. Thank you, thank you, sir. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m not cutting us off. Fundez live, live, live, recorded in every story, have to have that challenge that has to be overcome, so this is us on the other side. All right, so that was a video story that contract. I love that it’s. Just the guy. We just came to break the door. All right, build a door. Yeah. Let’s, keep going, let’s. Keep going, people. This idea of treating your colleagues the way you would treat a donor you said mohr. But that part resonated with me and we flush it out a lot more. Sure, we just lost the light. Okay, garrett, we’re losing the light. The hole is closing. Okay, it’ll come back. Garrett says it’ll come back on. Okay, there we go. All right. Non-profit radio perseveres. I don’t care what happens. Yeah. So we’re going nowhere going nowhere. Nobody’s going to take us that? Yeah. I mean, i think that heart of especially when you’re working in a silo toe organization. It’s very easy to get caught up in what’s wrong and focus on the tough stuff and want to fix all the problems and anybody who gets involved in non-profit work is a fixer, right? That’s, our that’s, our inclination. We want to make things better. And i think sometimes that we end up losing sight of what actually working. And it’s been shown in all kinds of organizational studies and with with regards to our the way that we change ourselves. The whole positive psychology movement, for instance, is built on this. Premise that if you start with what’s working, you can actually demonstrate more progress more quickly and, you know, put together these sort of lasting change efforts. And part of starting with what’s. Working is is acknowledging the good stuff and saying thank you and being appreciative. And it just changes. It uplifts the whole culture. Is there a client story that you can share that where you saw you saw this make a difference in our organization? Yeah, i mean, i think so it goes hand in hand a little bit with building that storytelling piece into the process as well, these three elements of kind of knowing all your characters, building in the process to gather those stories and then reporting back on the impact and saying, thank you s o we had ah, ah, a little while back, we did a strategy engagement with hillel international, they have a they offer one of many versions of ah, trip for young jews to go visit israel and and build that a nation with it with the country and the people, and they were having a hard time differentiating themselves from the other providers and sort of saw it as a marketing challenge. And what we’ve learned in what we’ve learned that c three is that most marketing challenges are actually internal alignment challenges that can be that, like, with a few little internal tweaks, you can actually do a lot better. And so part of what we built into that strategy into their process. Was first of all regular story gathering moments between them in the united states and the trip providers in the inn in israel s o that they were getting those stories of these transformative moments that were happening for both the kid’s on the trips themselves, and for the and for the trip leaders on all of these different perspectives, right of all these different characters in the story, and as part of that it’s also there’s also an element of just reporting back on this is how we use that story. And this is the reach that that it had and like, thank you, keep it up. And so what happened after we worked with hillel international on that is made a few internal alignment shifts got them to kind of rejigger their messaging. So it felt a little less stock photo and a little less advertising on more story oriented. And they increased their recruitment for the trip by forty percent in a year. Outstanding. Alright, what what? What are some of the questions you got in? Uh, in this in this work in the workshop? Yeah, a lot about pushback from leadership. I’m interested in what was amazing in the feedback you got from non-profits oh, yeah, yeah, there’s in the audience yeah, i mean, we got we got some great little anecdotes of just like those tiny little shifts that people can start making in in order to start building this this more aligned human centric with the culture and some of them some of them are technological fixes, their great organizations out there that are using slack channels capture stories and to share back the impact of the work that they’re doing and the importance of everybody kind of being on the same page around storytelling and digital communications and all of that, which is wuebben so deeply through all aspects of our organization that it actually becomes this really great vehicle for tying everybody together. You said there were some leadership leadership pushback, yeah, so one of the, uh, some of the big questions were just like, well, what if leadership doesn’t? Buy-in, um, what do we do if i if i asked to sit in if i’m the marketing person and i asked to sit in on the development meeting and i’m ruffling somebody’s feathers because i’m on their turf? Then what do? I do about that. And our advice was really well, first of all, don’t make it about busting silos, that’s, that’s not an end in itself. There’s there’s, some other bigger mission and story to be told here on dh. Secondly, start from that point of strength. Start by asking their advice. No. And going there and and, you know, kind of making their idea if you can. But but going in with a with a sort of ah listening, learning, pasture, a supposed toe. I’m going to do this thing and knock down these walls and so it’s a little bit more of that appreciative stance. And starting again from the assumption that everybody has something to offer, everybody has a story to tell. Start with what you have exactly. Okay, start from strength and build from there. We still have another couple minutes left. It got very quiet. You notice there’s? No. Yeah, but in the din of the exhibit, flora’s has been eliminated. Not just gone. Not just quiet. Are quiet. Indeed. What else can we say about this? Er there’s. A couple more minutes. What more did you share in your your session? Yeah, i mean we shared a so there was the buses silas session. We also did michael hoffmann, founder of three, say, three communications and stroll before yeah, exactly s o he and i also let a session that we entitled digital minimalism, which is a which is a related kind of emerging idea that we have open that we’ve been playing with, which is really about this idea that s o thie middle melisa movement has sort of taken hold it’s gotten a foothold in the culture. People are excited about the idea of cleaning their closets and, you know, focusing in on the stuff that really matters and what does it look like? Applied to digital specifically for non-profits? And so what we talked about there was that you may associate minimalism with this idea of less stuff and that’s that’s important that’s definitely part of it, but really, the focus of the minimalist philosophy is that the stuff that you do have should be meaningful and should should be a connection to something t joy into purpose and all of this kind of stuff rather than getting in the way. Mission exactly, exactly commission for sure so is so four. Non-profits in the digital space thie equivalents, the digital minimalism is essentially this idea that, you know, the digital that we use should should thin the line between our supporters and the potential for them to make impact through our organization. There’s a lot of digital detritus out there where there’s a lot of sort of shouting about the stuff that we do and there’s a lot of things that we create just because that’s what? We’ve always weighed it, we need it. Yeah, and all this stuff. Yeah, okay, so did you get pushed back at that session to neo-sage from leaders or people questioning whether my leadership is goingto really be willing to shed? I mean, it could be you could be talking about zoho you’re shitting me, big parts of our communication, it’s challenging panels. Oh, for sure for sure it’s not serving, serving our greater need are serving our our mission. Yeah, it forces you to check a lot of assumptions and i think there’s there’s plenty. I mean, absolutely that there’s there’s plenty of organizations that are, for instance, you know, creating a dozen pdf reports that then go online because it’s written into the grants that they have to create a report and put it online. And so what do you do about that? Like theirs? That’s, that’s. A place where you have to kind of reevaluate whether this this philosophy is going to work in every area, or whether it’s just going to be something that focuses you in the places where it’s most plausible. Okay, uh, give us another two minutes of of the brousseau download. No man. Little community session. Maybe other questions that were asked. Yeah, well, i think a lot of the i would i would almost summarize both sessions. You’re going to get the total download and like a sentence hold right. I would almost summarized both sons both sessions as being about this idea of it’s. Not what you do, it’s. What? What you do does. Okay, it’s, not it’s. Not about what? What it’s impacted exactly. It’s it. And they end that. That idea that you know, non-profits do amazing things. We deliver great programs. There are there’s, there’s, webinars and services and meals being serves, an animal’s being saved and all of that. But really, the and we want to talk about all that. Great. Stuff, right? And put it out in the world and say, like, look, please pay attention to you know, we’re living this attention economy, but when we, when we take a step back and talk about not what we do but what we make possible and what’s through our actions were allowing to happen that transformation, then first of all, like it’s got that more sort of visionary feel to it, it’s, more it’s, more welcoming and approachable. I can relate to it because it’s not like this thing that may or may not have something to do with me, it’s not sort of it doesn’t become a barrier at all, and it keeps us sort of keeps us mission focused like that’s what we’re that’s what we’re here for, and it keeps us kind of owning that those outcomes and realizing that, like with all of this stuff that we’re doing it’s not about the thing it’s, about what we make possible through that thing. And if that’s the message that we can keep coming back to you through the stories that we tell and the content that we creates and the people that we can actually, then there’s hope there is. We’ll leave it there and that’s a perfect place to leave it. Thank you very much. Mirriam. Awesome pleasure durney persevering through the we’re closing. She mirriam brousseau and she’s chief information officer chief innovation officer. I’m sorry, mate. No, you’re right, it’s. Just a innovation. What i say information. I’m a fan of that too. She’s mirriam brousseau and she’s, the chief innovation officer at sea three communications this interview is sponsored by network for good, easy to use donorsearch and fund-raising software for non-profits and you are with twenty martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen ntcdinosaur, thanks so much. Let’s. Take a break. Wagner cpas check them out at weinger cps dot com if you’re on a fiscal year, it may be coming to a close on the thirtieth of this month. You need an audit or just your nine ninety regular is it? Take a look at their sight, then use the contact form or pick up the phone and talk to partner eat each tomb i’m urging you go in real life after you check him out online. Wagner, cps dot com now let’s, go to test quest welcome to tony martignetti non-profit. Radio coverage of eighteen ntc that’s the non-profit technology conference twenty eighteen in new orleans this interview is sponsored by network for good, easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits my guest now are nick garcia and jack ilsen nick is senior account executive at mall warwick donordigital and jack ilsen is exactly the same senior account executive male warwick donordigital times two on dh nick and jack’s topic is the test quest optimizing your donor’s journey. Gentlemen, welcome to non-profit radio. Thank you. Thanks. Good. Have you, uh, okay, the donor journey let’s start with you, jack. What are what are donors not getting? I mean, i’m sorry. What are non-profits not getting quite right about this donordigital the experience. Yeah, well, you know, oftentimes when you’re in the poor poppet for-profit space ah, you’re thinking a lot about user experience, right? And where someone’s going to go, what they’re going to click on what they’re going to see, you know, and a lot of non-profits don’t have the time or think that they don’t have the time to capacity to really think through every little piece, so they’ll be not taking precautions or doing tests. And just rolling out what feels right to them. And so we kind of talk about how easy it can be and how simple it khun b to perform a p tests and rolled them out in your program in different ways. So we try to make it as easy as possible for as many different types of non-profits it’s possible. Okay, okay, so this s o jack, this does not have to say i’m sorry, nick. This does not have to be a complicated process, right? Exactly. Be testing is pretty simple thing. Exactly. Yeah, it is. And there are a number of ways that you can start, you know, very low level that doesn’t require a complex data management or anything like that. So i think we’re going to kind of run the full gamut of, you know, examples and things like that testing for for organizations that are just starting out, but also cem advanced testing concepts we really tried teo dig deep and and figure out some unique ideas of things that folks may not be thinking to test that we’ve seen in our work with our clients have some big impacts. Okay, well, we’re gonna do that here too. I don’t want you holding back on like we’re gonna describe what you’re gonna do talk about in your seminar. Sure you’re gonna do it here. I’ll do it. So you’re going. You were talking about the email landing page and digital ad testing. Yeah, let’s. Start with e mail. Is it one of you mohr expert in email than the other or equally fluent? I would say equally fluid. Okay, well, let’s, stick with you, nicholas. We’re there for now. Uh, what? What? Wait, what should we be testing? Yeah. What? I think when we think about email testing, we generally split that out into the email envelope the content of the e mail, which includes the copy, the design and then what’s the email envelope. So the email envelope is the centre name s oh, it’s, basically, what you see about the email before you open and a preview exactly when you’re so there’s the preview? Yes. So that includes the sender name. So you know, one example of ah really simple entry level test is whether you include the organization name in the from line of your email. You know, conventional wisdom tells you that, you know, you may want to include the organization names so that people know immediately who they’re hearing from. However, for a lot of our clients, we’ve tested out of that, and we are rolling out with just the ceo name because we show that that has had a significant lift in open rates, for whatever reason. So that’s that’s a really simple test. Another thing related to the way we exhaust everything that’s in the envelope. What’s on the envelope. Yes. So they’re sure we hit every. Yeah. Yeah. So what detail here? Yeah, absolutely. Do not hold out on us. So there’s the center name there’s the subject line, which is another important one bonem constantly testing that one another one. Is that that preview to pre header? Yes. Head of pre header. Yes. Oh, one of one of our recommended tests there is that we’ve been seeing a big lift with folks who are actually including a blank preh header. So if you notice when you’re when you’re scrolling through your inbox, you know, almost every e mail you received has pre header text. Those that do not now are standing out more. So so. We’re seeing, you know, just little that white space may exactly right. So and things like emojis and the subject line just, you know, things that really make the email envelope pop out. Nine box. Jack, do we assume that people are scrolling through this inbox on their phones? Now is most female is read by phone? Absolutely. You know, i think it’s been depending on the organization, you could estimate anywhere from thirty toe. Fifty percent of your donations could come in through mobile. So it’s, really important to not only be looked thinking about maybe your email envelope and how that appears on mobile, especially as you’re scrolling through very quickly, but also making sure that everything is mobile optimized and works well for for those folks who are looking at their phones. Ok? Eso we exhausted the envelope. Yeah, let’s. Stick with you, jack. Go inside the envelope now to the message itself. What should we be testing in that? What can we test in? Oh, so many things. Well, and we talk a little bit about a few different things, so we will go from maybe email format. Tio general design tests. Template tests that sort. Of thing copy tests weighs a email format. What what? Different formats? I’m sure i know, but i can’t think of them sure and sing them, but i was sure, yeah, and it may be going from plain text message tio ah, regular template that you might use every day kind of thing to see, and maybe the results of your tests between those two things is that you don’t get a significant lift for one over the other grand, and that may tell you that you don’t want to use plain text or it may tell you that you want to use it interchangeably at different times when it seems effective. So ok, i guess use of use of graphics embedded video do we? What do we know about how embedded video does in a female vs there’s a link to click through? Wei have research on that? Well, it depends on what you’re trying to get. If you want someone to donate video doesn’t help all that much. Of course it may influence click through, but it it probably won’t up your response rate very much it may actually, you may see a decline as faras response rate. Because people are just trying to go to your donation page to view that video and then immediately going okay, okay. It’s. Great for cultivation, though. Great. Very getting folks too. Bedded video abetted video. We’re talking about video eyes great for cultivation. I’m sorry. Yes. Yeah. Video is great. Okay. Okay. I was just trying to draw a distinction between embedded where you do. We have to do what you can watch video in an e mail. Can you? Yeah. You have it. Yes. It’s possible. Although there’s specific types of coding more more complex five and that’s. What made it? So i made him work. So if you get into technology issues with right versus just providing a link and it doesn’t work across all browser’s. Okay. Okay. That’s. Hesitation. All right. So you gotta be very circumspect about that. You’re not okay. All right. Uh, what else? What else in the message hyre in the inside the message itself. Jacket should be so, so designed. Tests generally, it may be, you know, like we had talked about overall template. But it may be something as simple as maybe black and white photos. More stark kind of imagery. Sad versus happy, that sort of thing that, you know, many children let’s, say your international relief organization. And and you have lots of folks of single children alone or lots of children. Together. I’m trying to see what’s more effective. If focusing in on one individual is going toe, actually pull at the heartstrings of your owners. Anything else in the e mail cell for we we met our way to the landing page? Um, i think a couple other things that we’ve seen valuable in-kind email testing is just the length of the copy itself. I think this is this is an area where a lot of organizations hesitates sometimes because they have been messaging with a similar length for a long time, and they meet they may feel hesitant to move away from that, but i think it’s important, especially were scared. Exactly. Yeah, on and it’s not an easy thing to test necessarily, you know, taking the same messaging and boiling it down from, you know, six long paragraphs to a really, you know, small bite-sized email is not an easy task. However, you know, i think it’s an important one, because especially in today’s environment and just the way people are used to processing information now is in much smaller chunks, right? So we’ve been seen, you know, a good degree of lifts with just, you know, testing short message versus long message, you know, just things like that about the time of day. Yeah, exactly. Right. Eso there’s yeah. Time of day. Day of week. You know, some some of our clients, are you there even segmenting out, you know, certain folks that are more responsive to messages at different dates and times, things like that. So, you know, they’re they’re so many, you know, complex options for testing and segmentation. Ok, ok. Are we on the landing page now, cheryl? Goodwill that okay? Okay. We’ll stick with you for a minute. Okay? What should we start there? Yeah. So, i mean, we talked about video for a moment. You know, that was one test that we ran on a landing page where, you know, one of our clients felt like they had a really captivating video that had a donation ascot the end, and they thought it would be much more compelling. And this this was at a time when, you know, video was really hot and a lot of non-profits were using that to dr engagement, so they thought, okay? Let’s test video versus a static image on a donation page and it actually suppressed response video did significantly on the donation page, you know? So i guess what the lesson there was that you know, you don’t want to necessarily distract the destruction was in my mind exactly. I mean, the weather is so video rich now visual in rich video, especially, but, you know, people go there for a single purpose. You don’t want them distracted. Exactly. And i think i think that that guy has a lot of our thinking around. Landing page optimization to is that you know you’re you’re breaking up the information on the page into a very concise headline. A very concise subhead. You have to keep in mind that most people are not going to absorb all of the content all the copy on any given page. So you want to, you know, really think about how to structure the page so that all the information is there for folks who want to absorb it all. But also that at a glance, they’re getting what they want so that they can, you know, move on and convert. Okay, okay. Um, jack, anything else about the landing page we should talk about? Yeah, i mean, more toe next point. And you brought up a good point as well. Tony, that, uh, and perfect host shot out. People are on their phones often doing these sorts of things. So making something inaccessible in that way, not just design wise. I i say this all the time and maybe it’s just being in the industry. But if i go on a web page and it is not mobile optimized, i will just leave. And so you you absolutely have to make sure that sort of frustrating. Now twenty eighteen, you have to scroll the sea, though, to see so much and it and it jumps and bounces and windows are not windows, but pictures disappear. Yeah, yeah. Don’t do it, please. Yeah, well, in in one test that that i’ve done with a few clients is adding tap oppcoll buttons to donation pages or action pages. So let’s say you go and there’s a tiny radio button and you have to zoom into the page to try to click it. And you’re clicking the wrong thing and it brings you to another page. So we tested somewhere else. Yeah, exactly. We call them fat finger buttons at some points to make sure that, you know it’s. Easier for folks to decide. I want to give you twenty five dollars instead of ten dollars, you know? Okay. All right. So that’s the landing page? Yeah. You were going to talk about digital ads, okay, testing digital ads. We’re nick. Where were all these digital ads? What kinds of retesting we’re talking social media ads. So facebook ads? Definitely. I would say that’s, where we start with most of our clients and definitely the google network is probably the thie biggest platform that we use for digital advertising. Okay, got to take a break. Tell us you’ve heard the talis moughniyah lll from lee elementary school, where they’re getting a monthly donation from tello’s for credit card processing of a parent owned company. You know you need more revenue. It can be recurring revenue every single month. Ask the people close to your organization who owned businesses to switch to tell us for their credit card processing. It started at tony dahna slash tony, tell us for the video now back to test quest with nick garcia and jack ilsen how do we tell testing with digital ads? They’re really two components, right? So you have the creative and you have the copy associated with an ad, so in most cases, we’re testing multiple versions of both. The image and the copy at a given time on and then essentially combining the two once you have a winner in each category to roll out the absolute best image and the absolute best copy you can to the widest audience, i think that’s the simplified version of okay, well, we can we can go into more detail, but what, you don’t hold out? What what percentage of your audience would you would you test with? I mean, you gotta have against tens of thousands of fans on your page to make this worthwhile. Yeah, well, i mean, we’re no, not fans know, but you’re mean, depending on the dollar amount, right in-kind so yeah. So when we talk about percentages for testing, we usually start with the budget number composed to the audience. Yeah. So for instance, you know, if it’s the first foray into testing and we’re looking at a budget of ten thousand dollars, then i would say, you know, dedicating at least three thousand of that to the initial testing before the final roll out would be, you know, a decent amount, you know? So you wantto probably dedicate in the neighborhood of twenty five. To thirty five percent of your budget to that initial testing. Otherwise, everybody only a thousand duvette appropriate, right? Exactly. So you want you want you want it to be scaleable, right? Okay, how about let’s? Go back to my erroneous question, but i’ll find somewhere it fits and let’s, go back to email a percentage of your email lists would you test with before you roll out the ultimate to the white fulwider story in when we actually have a tool for this on dh. This will work with ads as well. But we have a fruit free tour online on a website. The bell warwick it’s m double d agency. Dot com slash lab w d agency dot com slash lab. Okay, crack receding. Yeah, and there’s there’s a bunch of different tools on there, but one of them is a sample size calculator. So you can and put the numbers of folks that you have to test from it. And i’ll let you know if if it’s how difficult it might be to get a statistically significant result from that kind of test. Okay. Okay. Can we generalize? Tow? How big an audience. How big a list? You need teo be ableto do successful test. I mean, is a thousand enough? Or is a thousand to small? Well, it depends on what you’re testing. And we thought you could just go to the tool. All right, i put you on the spot. I thought maybe they were generalization, but just if it were not a drastic test, then it may take a long time t get that kind of a result. Also latto the toll just use. Yeah. Don’t pay attention of the host question. Okay, so now we’ve got all this data from our email. You know, the envelope, the message itself landing page our ads. What do we do with all this? All this data in each segment, it’s, not just a simple has male the best one or you know what we do with it. All right? Yeah. That’s a that’s. A great question. And you know, we give a few examples that aren’t as simple as okay. Here’s the winner. So we roll out with that all the time, right? For example, we ran a test. That was an email designed test. So we had a very pared down text on ly no. Images designed template for an email versus the kind of standard template where you have the call to action, photo, etcetera and the results there were actually inconclusive, which in most cases is a worthless test. However, to take away their for us is that we can use both of these templates interchangeably, right? So, you know, since one of them is not impacting negatively or positively the performance that gives us two options to choose from s o that depending on the message, if we have a very compelling image, then we use that template if it is more of a text heavy message or, you know, just something where we want to mix up design versus no design that gives us options so it’s important, teo, you know, be able to assess your your test results to and figure out, you know, how to use that effectively, okay, i think i think, yeah, they’re different circumstances for every organization, which is something that we kind of tried toe andi and people say that a lot, but we try to use a lot of different examples in our presentation toe to showcase the different ways that these things and go and really, what what we’re trying to teach is the thought process, right? Like, how can i use this to my advantage? What can i do with these results? Do we need to test again? Where can i go from here kind of thing. So maybe you test using the colors black and red against using blue and white, and you’re finding that black and red is is a statistically significant lift for you for click through rates. For instance, maybe you just want to rule that out during your end when you really care about getting those dollars in and hitting your goals because if you’re using black and red constantly, people are going to get tired of it. It’s not going to be effective, you lose, you lose that lift. Okay, okay. Your description. Talk about unconventional unconventional but practical testing idea. These the ones we’re talking about this is these don’t sound unconventional today. My wrong are they may be they are unconventional. Yeah, no, i think you know, we try to provide ah list like a take take home list essentially at the end of our presentation of of things that we’ve come up with that we didn’t necessarily that aren’t considered conventional in the world of test. Yeah, start talking about okay, pick us off. All right, so in terms of ah, email, copy testing, one thing that we found have a significant lift is highlighting the call to action in an email with, like the simple yellow formatting, like what you’re used to in microsoft word, right? Because it automatically draws the attention people are, you know, programs for lack of a better term to to automatically go to that, right? So we’ve seen big lifts there similar similar thing is ah, increasing the font size of your call to action in an email things like that really simple, something simple like that? Yeah, just really, really simple things. Another one where we saw, you know, like over a thirty percent lift in our email response rate is changing the color of the button, you know, just things like that button formatting, another one that we’ve been doing a lot, ok, last one because i want to see some projected yeah, okay, one more is ah, making a dynamic button so you’re on the donation page, you select to donate twenty five dollars. Monthly, the button automatically updates at the bottom of the page to say, give twenty five dollars monthly or process my twenty five dollars monthly gift. We’re seeing much hyre response rates with with dynamic button testing like that is that when you mouse over, it actually changes automatically when you selected on the page. So the button goes from saying donate or something generic to to the customized amount so it’s kind of confirmation for the donor within the process that they are giving exactly at the level that they want teo and what’s, the difference you’re seeing with that we’re seeing we’re seeing significant lift on that. I think the last time we ran over one of my clients, it was ah, fifteen percent hyre completion rate. Oh, so some people, after they click the donate button some people don’t complete. Exactly. Okay. That’s what? I was missing? Yep. I thought some people back out after clicking. Well, it wouldn’t be. It would be after they select the gift amount. Right. So you come to the page and when you start filling out the field information, there is a gradual drop off in there in the completion people. Having second thoughts as they’re filling in their credit card number and their address, and write some people back out at that point, yeah, so whatever it is, it, it helps. It helps the process along. Okay, write that that changing of the button. Yeah, after it’s, click exactly it’s and confirms the donation amount. Yep, okay, jack, you got some. Yeah. Ah, similar kind of dynamic aspect is bringing in. Ask amounts from an email tio the donation page so let’s, say, or maybe even heis previous contribution, right, you have that information on file, maybe it’s listen, you’re sierra, you have it dynamically pull in from that person’s record onto the donation page, so that may be it selects immediately their highest previous contribution say that’s twenty five dollars, and then uses an algorithm tio go from there and calculate other likely of amounts that they would get if the ask string is the track. Ok, ok, alright, so thats awesome, okay, you got another one? Sure. So, like clicking kapin offgrid click candy for radio when we’ve done that similar on donation and advocacy pages is and and also also an email actually testing the call to action on language on buttons. So if you could use a more generic donate now or match my gift or something that you might use across your program generally, or we’ve tested that against more mission based colston actions. So, you know, help animals right away or, you know, stop trump or something like that that that actually has increased not on ly conversions on pages, but also click through is on e mails. Okay, okay, we just have about a minute or so left. So, nick, i’m going to give you the wrap up. Just remind us of the motivation. I mean, there’s so much we contest what remind us of the value of doing all this, i think the value for the donor for the dogs, the donor journey don’t write mirriam yeah, i think, you know, it provides it, provides them with a personalized path. Right? So it makes them feel like what they’ve done in the past eyes being acknowledged and that things are as easy as possible for them. And ultimately, you know, they’re here to support the cause is and we want teo enable them to do that in whichever channel they choose. Andi, we want to be able to show them their impact as quickly as possible and in his many ways as we can. Okay, we’re gonna leave it there. Thank you. Alright. Thank you. There are nick garcia, jack ilsen. And they are both senior account executives at mall warwick donordigital, thanks very much. All right. Thank you. My pleasure. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of eighteen. Ntc on this interview is sponsored by network for good, easy to use dahna management and fund-raising software for non-profits. Thanks so much for being with us. Next week, trust me. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com, responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits, data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuant radio wagner, cps, guiding you beyond the numbers. Weather cps dot com and tell us. Credit card and payment processing, your passive revenue stream. Tony dot, m a slash tony tell us our creative producers, claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows social media is vices and chavez on our music is by scott stein. You with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. You’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get a drink. Nothing. You could. Hello, this is bruce chamlong, host of the web design and technology coach. 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