In the fast-paced digital landscape, achieving quick wins can significantly impact your nonprofit organization's online performance.
This blog post will explore 17 digital wins you can implement with ease, covering website optimization, email strategies, text messaging and more. Let's dive in!
Website optimization
1. Exit Intent/Stall Lightbox: Implementing an exit intent or stall lightbox on your donation page can significantly improve conversion rates. In the last five months, this strategy has shown remarkable results. Here are some stats we achieved with the Animal Rescue League of Iowa:
- Rendered during 30% of all completed donation processes
- 64% of viewers completed their donation after seeing the lightbox
- 24% of those who saw it clicked on it directly to complete their donation
This tool is available for platforms like Luminate, DMC, Engaging Networks and Classy, making it accessible to many users.
2. SEO Tools: Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for increasing your website's visibility. Free tools like ChatGPT can help you generate SEO-friendly content and analyze your website's performance. Regularly updating your content with relevant keywords and ensuring your site is mobile-friendly is essential for SEO success.
3. Monthly Donate Button: Adding a "Donate Monthly" button to your navigation bar can boost sustainer gifts. For example, after implementing this change, one organization saw a 238% increase in sustainer gifts. According to the M+R Benchmarks, 39% of animal welfare online giving was monthly in 2023, highlighting the importance of making recurring donations easy for users.
4. Cover the Fee Option: Offering a "cover the fee" option on donation forms can increase passive online revenue by 1-2% monthly. If this option is prechecked, 70% of donors leave it checked, contributing additional revenue without significant effort. This small change can make a big difference in overall donations.
Email & media strategies
5. Triggered Email Campaigns: Triggered email campaigns, such as welcome emails, anniversary emails and re-engagement emails, are highly effective in maintaining donor engagement. For instance, a triggered email campaign focusing on recognizing birthdays resulted in a 113% year-over-year increase in revenue. This strategy included email, P2P texting, social media cultivation and paid media match extensions.
6. Birthday Campaigns: Celebrate your organization’s birthday by sending targeted birthday emails. Our work with Houston Food Bank showed a fourfold increase in revenue from a birthday campaign that included email, P2P texting and social media efforts.
7. One-Time Campaigns: Oftentimes, we prioritize campaigns that can be replicated year over year, to develop controls or conduct YOY testing. However, unique, one-time campaigns like Leap Day can generate significant results. For instance, various clients raised impressive amounts from Leap Day campaigns in 2024:
- Client A: $16,204 from 156 gifts
- Client B: Over $41,000 from one email with versioning to mid/significant audience
- Client C: $7,041 from a non-match campaign
- Client D: $28,116 from emails and Facebook ads
- Client E: $87,000 from a 4X match campaign
- Client F: $103,324 from 510 donations
Text messaging
8. P2P Texting Strategies: Peer-to-peer (P2P) texting is an effective way to engage donors directly. Unlike traditional SMS campaigns, P2P texting allows for more personalized communication without opt-ins. You can reach your audience effectively by appending mobile numbers to your existing database and crafting integrated messages. For significant campaigns, targeting recent digital donors can yield the best results, as seen with various animal welfare organizations achieving ROIs ranging from Animal Rescue League receiving a 2:1 to clients like Michigan Humane Society and San Diego Humane Society reaching as high as a 6:1.
9. Disaster/Rescue Campaigns: P2P texting is particularly useful during emergencies or urgent campaigns. For instance, the year-end campaign for Denver Rescue Mission achieved an 8:1 ROI, while an urgent cold weather campaign saw a staggering 17:1 ROI. These high-impact messages can mobilize support quickly and effectively during critical times.
Technical debt & miscellaneous ideas
10. Auditing Platform Choices: Regularly auditing your platform choices can significantly improve efficiency and revenue. For example, the Humane Society of Utah surpassed its 2022 email revenue within the first six months of 2023 by investing in email hygiene and switching to a new email deployment platform and fundraising management platform. This change also resulted in a 28% increase in average gift size.
11. Maximizing Your Links: Optimizing your URLs is crucial for tracking and performance. Understanding the anatomy of a URL, including root URLs, UTM tags and source codes, helps ensure that your links are effective and provides valuable data for analysis.
12. The Forgotten Few: Pay attention to smaller components of your digital presence, such as welcome series, autoresponders, triggered emails, thank you pages and live donation forms. Regular audits and updates to these elements can improve user experience and overall engagement.
Free tools
13. RivalIQ: This free tool provides head-to-head reports and benchmark data. This information can help you understand your performance compared to competitors and identify areas for improvement.
14. Responsive Viewer (Chrome Extension): This extension helps you test your website's responsiveness across different devices, ensuring a seamless user experience for all visitors.
15. Lighthouse (Chrome Extension): Lighthouse is an open-source tool for improving website performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO. It allows you to identify and fix issues that may be hindering your site's effectiveness.
16. Google Tag Assistant Tools: The Tag Assistant Companion extension works with Google Tag Manager to troubleshoot and optimize your tag implementation. This ensures that your tracking is accurate and effective.
17. Riddle or Interact: These tools allow you to create interactive content, such as quizzes and polls, which can engage your audience and provide valuable insights.
Conclusion
Continuous improvement and testing are vital in maintaining a solid online presence and maximizing your nonprofit organization's impact. Start integrating these tips into your digital strategy today, and watch your results soar.
We hope you found these tips helpful! Share your digital wins in the comments below.
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