Optimising fundraising with DRTV: Fundraising Media DNA 2016/17
Howard Lake | 28 September 2016 | News
With research revealing DRTV to be highly engaging, attention-grabbing and memorable, it has the potential to be an extremely effective fundraising channel. The Institute of Fundraising and fast.MAP’s Fundraising Media DNA 2016/17 report provides a source for this insight, presenting findings on how donors perceive and interact with DRTV. Here’s some of what the report reveals.
(UK Fundraising readers can download the report for free using the code: UKFU16)
Donors’ Engagement with DRTV
While fundraisers correctly predict how engagement with DRTV varies with age, they also underestimate just how much all age groups engage with DRTV.
Source: IoF/fast.MAP Fundraising Media DNA 2016/17
Findings reveal DRTV to be a highly engaging channel across all of the profiles studied, with all groups indicating that they engage with this channel at above average levels. Those aged over 55 in particular, engage with DRTV the most (Engagement Index; 55+, 169).
Donors’ thoughts on DRTV
The report also provides a look into donors’ attitudes towards DRTV. All profiles rate DRTV highly for being a memorable, attention-grabbing channel with a strong appearance. While donors tend to share these views on DRTV, there are some attributes which prompt mixed perceptions.
For example, while all of the age groups studied find DRTV attention-grabbing and memorable, 55+ in particular, associate these attributes of DRTV to a much greater extent than 18-34 and 35-54 year olds (Attention Index; 55+, 208 vs. 136; 18-34, 123 vs. 35-54, 151).
Source: IoF/fast.MAP Fundraising Media DNA 2016/17
Differences were also found amongst donor types. For example, high value donors were found to trust DRTV as a fundraising channel more than low value donors (Trustworthy Index: High Donor, 102 vs. Low Donor, 85), implying that more can be done to build trust when asking for low value donations via TV ads.
It’s also interesting to see that DRTV generally ranks highly for being seen as authoritative. This is useful to know as it indicates that it can be used for the purposes of cut through by both small and large charities.
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Donors’ Response to DRTV
Fundraisers tend to overestimate donors’ likeliness to respond immediately to DRTV. Findings show that the most common response to DRTV is to donate or respond later. (Donate/Respond Later Index; Overall, 96). This raises the question about whether more can be done to raise the sense of urgency in charity DRTV campaigns. Tools such as DRTV Optimising Benchmarks can be useful in figuring this out, providing a way to evaluate the potential performance of TV ads before their launch.
Source: IoF/fast.MAP Fundraising Media DNA 2016/17
Industry views on DRTV
“DRTV remains one of the most effective and emotional media for engaging new donors. There is no other channel able to tell such moving stories to connect supporters with causes. Both our experience and the survey show that’s where the channel excels; DRTV grabs people’s attention, they are powerful and memorable. If the creative execution is right of course.”
Gail Cookson, Fundraising Director, WPN Chameleon
“DRTV is an important mechanism for charities to reach a wide range of supporters in order to raise awareness of and support for their causes. Because of the nature of TV adverts, it will always be hard for them to feel ‘personalised’ or to be ‘shared’, but as the research shows, DRTV fundraising can do a great job of getting people’s attention and being memorable. To achieve that, the content and style of the adverts must be compelling, interesting and engaging.”
Daniel Fluskey, Head of Policy and Research, Institute of Fundraising
“One of the most intriguing results from conducting the research was confronting the reality that people will not necessarily respond immediately to an appeal. Understanding what influences donors’ response is key to understanding what can be done to prompt more immediate action. DRTV Optimising Benchmarks is handy for this, providing a benchmarked indication of how a TV ad is likely to perform amongst audiences.”
David Cole, Managing Director, fast.MAP
To find out more about how people view and interact with various fundraising channels, download Fundraising Media DNA 2016/17 – free (normally £50) with the following code: UKFU16.
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.