The handy guide to DRTV metrics – part 2
Howard Lake | 9 June 2015 | Blogs
Part two in a three part series from Gail Cookson, Fundraising Director at WPN Chameleon. Missed part one on How to ask and how much?
PART TWO: Turning a prospect into a donor
The digital world is forever evolving. This means that options are growing and becoming much easier to handle, which should mean that the process is simple? We need to choose carefully so we don’t overwhelm the donor.
Response mechanisms
A wide variety of response devices are literally at the donor’s fingers tips; mobile, landline, tablet, desktop. Each offering a different opportunity to engage with the donors.
• Premium SMS has opened up a big opportunity for charities. Providing donors with a quick and easy way to fulfil their need to help and make a donation in one easy step. One keyword and 5 digits mean job done and they can continue watching their favourite programme. It has become the electronic collecting can and has the additional benefit of opening up different media opportunities as well.
• Phone is still important for many charities, often with an older audience who are happy to have a conversation with another human being.
• SMS is a good half way house as it is a quick way to respond. Anecdotally, donors get confused and think they have made a donation already. So it is more typically used in hand-raising ads.
• Web URLs are sometimes featured in DRTV ads. Average donations online are often higher than by phone. However, rarely should it be the only response mechanism for several reasons.
• The navigation of the donation journey is unclear
• Conversion is low
• There can be a disconnect between the ad and what the donor is first served on the home page.
Given the increasing reluctance of donors to commit instantly, PSMS has transformed many DRTV campaigns by encouraging that small initial gift. It is, however, only half the story as the conversion to regular giving is where the real value lies. As a rule of thumb, the initial PSMS donations cover the cost of the outbound calling.
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Converting PSMS donations to regular giving
There are a number of stages and touch-points which all have an effect on the ultimate outcome of the campaign. Optimising each stage is critical to success.
• Response times
• Outbound contact rate
• Ask strategy
• Conversion to regular giving
• Gift aid level
When to call back?
A variety of strategies have been adopted from calling within 15 minutes to within 24 hours, within the week or even longer. It is a question of testing and sometimes seasonality. Christmas is a really busy time and so speed of call back may be later than on other campaigns.
Contact rates
This is defined as speaking to the person who made the text message. These tend to vary between 40% and 56%. Generally SLA’s are set at around 50%. Busy times such as Christmas can negatively affect contact rate. Call bureaux performance will also vary depending on workload, campaign size and operator training. Tip: It is useful to try and find out if your campaign is going to be a big or small fish in a small or big pool of calls.
Ask strategy
Typically this starts with an ask for regular giving at 3 different price points. If the donor does not want to commit to a direct debit, then a regular gift by text is an option or a cash donation. Text regular giving is still relatively new and experience of attrition is mixed, from behaving similarly to a PDD to significant attrition levels comparable with other “sales” channels. One thing is certain the value of a text regular gift is likely to be much less than a PDD and the data capture opportunities are limited to a telephone number.
Conversion rates to regular giving
For paperless direct debit conversion. These tend to vary between 7and 12%. Generally SLA’s are set at 10%. In addition conversion rates to regular text giving are between 15 and 25% but typically only 50% will activate their donation.
Given the relative newness of text regular giving, the jury is out as to whether this is a good option to offer donors. When first introduced, there was evidence that it provided an incremental opportunity as some donors do not want to give bank details over the phone. The challenge lies with the call bureaux. Operators may find it an easier sale as it is lower value and has the opt-out for the donor. This will impact on the ultimate ROI. Tip: If text regular giving is offered, it is worth checking that the agreed drop down strategy is being adhered to.
Gift Aid
Asking for gift aid has a number of advantages:
• Helps with data capture of name and address
• Gives an indication of affluence
• Provides 25% more income on the donation
Gift Aid declarations have been dropping over time. Most bureaux will ask if the donor is a taxpayer as a check to see that the majority of tax payers are being encouraged to make a declaration.
Generally SLAs have been set between 60 – 70%. These seem aspirational now as the more likely level is 40-50%.
So, now you now know the stages you need to take donors through in the giving process, with suggestions being made making this process flow more seamlessly.
Watch out for our last section on Metrics and DRTV!
Gail Cookson is Fundraising Director at WPN Chameleon, where a highly talented team of 55 people operates across all areas of digital, direct marketing and DRTV. We work with a wide range of charities and commercial organisations.
Image: as seen on TV by squarelogo on Shutterstock.com
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.