# Audience Segmentation: how personalised can your fundraising get?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/11/01/audience-segmentation-how-personalised-can-your-fundraising-get/
- Published: 2012-11-01T10:33:03+00:00
- Author: Vicky Reeves

Are you segmenting your audience types thoroughly in order to communicate with them
in a truly personalised way?

 

In a seminar produced by Chameleon last week, a straw poll showed that most fundraisers
in the room believed they had between one and 10 separate audience groups. We reviewed
the audience research we’d done for 10 charities last year and the average number
of audience segments was 39.4.

## Advertisement

 

Why the huge discrepancy? We were given an example to show how far it’s possible
to drill down to create multiple segments, starting with the catch-all title, ‘fundraiser’:

 

 ⌊Fundraiser flowchart⌉

 

By segmenting your audience to this level you can now start to personalise the communication
to them. For example, the ‘**first time challenge event fundraiser**’ has two categories:

 

• ‘**Successful**’ – so this person or group has hit their fundraising target three
months before their trek in Peru. To this person you want to say thank you and congratulations
on hitting your target already, but how about stretching yourself and hitting 125%?

 

• ‘**Unsuccessful**’ – this person is new to this, and is struggling to hit his 
or her fundraising target, so you want to send a different message, of encouragement
to continue, with fundraising tips and links.

 

Similarly, the ‘regular challenge event fundraiser’ who signs up every year without
fail needs different communication, to acknowledge her regular support and to help
her fundraise when it may be more of a challenge to repeatedly ask for money from
friends each year.

 

What this example shows us is that it’s important to break down audience groups 
in order to communicate with them in a personalised way and to maximise income generation.
Sound daunting? The great thing is, the technology is available to manage and optimise
this level of personalised communication. And that should probably be the subject
for my next blog – how to get all your systems to talk to each other and provide
an integrated, personal supporter journey. Off I go to start writing! And if you
want to see the context for my musings today, the slides from the event I mentioned
are available to view on Slideshare, take a look – [Fund Raisin Digital Pops](http://slidesha.re/Pr0A7X):

 

 ** [Fund Raisin Digital Pops breakfast event with Charles Russell – 24.10.12](http://www.slideshare.net/Chameleon_eu/fund-raisin-digital-pops-breakfast-event-with-charles-russell-241012)**
from **[Chameleon](http://www.slideshare.net/Chameleon_eu)**

 

_Vicky Reeves, Founder & MD – [Chameleon](http://www.chameleon.eu) – The Digital
Experts for the Charity Sector_

 

 * **[Insight in Fundraising SIG to hold event on segmentation](https://fundraising.co.uk/2008/04/18/insight-fundraising-sig-hold-event-segmentation/)**(
   18 April 2008)
 * **[What’s the collective noun for a group of bankers (and why didn’t we think of it sooner)?](https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/04/24/whats-collective-noun-group-bankers-and-why-didnt-we-think-it-sooner/)**(
   24 April 2009)
 * **[Why do so many segmentation projects fail to deliver the goods?](https://fundraising.co.uk/2009/11/17/why-do-so-many-segmentation-projects-fail-deliver-goods/)**(
   17 November 2009)