By Jamie Jacobs

At Riger, we talk to a lot of non-profit fundraisers who prefer spending their time with us thinking and talking about what goes in their ads, what goes in their direct mail pieces, how their event materials look. A bunch of us are creatives, so we like that, too!

But sometimes, the “what comes next AFTER they see the ad or direct mail” step gets far less attention – and that’s got to change. That’s where the money changes hands.

We know it’s not as exciting as the catchy headline or the perfectly chosen visuals, but the experience your donors have as their NEXT STEP from the ad, the mailer, the event piece is still SO important.

Here are some questions to think through as you assess how much friction is in your donors’ digital experience:

• How did they get to your “Donate” page? Is it obvious how to give WITHOUT SCROLLING once they are there?
• What percentage of that page’s visitors bounce within a few seconds?
• Where else do they go on the site from that page? Were you able to give them engaging options to learn more about your organization so they would have even more reason to hang out on your site longer?
• Did you ask them to sign up for a newsletter or like your organization’s social accounts once they showed initial engagement?
• Did you thank them for their donation with a landing page that can be tracked to prove they got there through an ad campaign or a certain mailing? (Otherwise, agencies like ours can only prove they came to the door, not that they walked through it.)
• What pages on the site or ad campaign sources were the top ones that pointed them there? That’s how you learn where to put your limited resources to add more fresh and engaging content in the future.

If any of these questions have answers you wish you could change or you’re not sure how to even answer them, a third-party audit of your website and learning even just the basics of Google Analytics might be a good next step.

There might be a treasure chest of valuable information that might be the difference between meeting your fundraising goal for the quarter or for the year…or not.

Jacobs is a managing partner with Riger Marketing Communications, based in Binghamton. She can be reached at jjacobs@riger.com.