When your organization is presented with new ideas or opportunities; are you asking the question, “What’s it going to cost us?” As a non-profit organization pursuing stability, or more importantly growth and the ability to change the world through your mission, it is critical to ask a slightly different question that will provide a much greater impact: “What is the value of what we are getting?”

With this question, I am not just referring to the amount of impressions, clicks or conversions. This type of data should only be the starting point in your data collection. Just because your new awareness campaign resulted in thousands of new names does not mean that these new constituents will result in dollars toward your cause. It is critical to understand how much money a name in your online file brings toward your organization. Simply divide the total amount raised online by the amount of names you have in your online file. This data becomes substantially much more valuable if your organization is able to target specific segments of your file. With proper segmentation you have the opportunity to assign financial value to names acquired through mediums such as social media acquisition, pay per click campaigns and banner advertising or based on specific campaign performances.

While this metric absolutely cannot be viewed in a vacuum because of many variables, it can provide a realistic look at how your file responds financially once they have come on. What is so exciting about this metric is how unique it is to your organization. Not only will this metric help define the value of acquisition for your program but, it also demonstrates the current state of your communication and fundraising efforts and will help identify the next steps to take in the development of your program.

Many organizations are reluctant to spend money into developing campaigns that focus on acquiring new names. To invest in a campaign where the direct focus is not on donations, often will illicit concern from individuals leery of the investment, particularly with interactive mediums. Having visibility on social media, search engines and throughout the Web has significant branding value, but at the end of the day, providing a specific value to each name acquired can really make acquisition campaign decisions easy.

An organization we work with was presented the opportunity to acquire new names at $5 cost per name by expanding their campaign through additional channels. This name acquisition campaign had begun less than a year before, and had seen excellent results. Though the names had been on the file just over 6 months, we were able to pull data on this segment to associate a value through 6 months for each name. Utilizing a targeted Welcome series, a strategic communication plan, an engaged social media plan and a Web site optimized for fundraising, we were able to quickly turn these newly acquired names into donors. A segment that consisted of 9,223 acquired names resulted in $124,390 in donations. In this case in just 6 months, each name acquired had a value of $13.49. Keep in mind the 6 month timeframe is shorter than we would prefer to use, but this price point makes the decision to invest $5 for an email address very simple. Needless to say, the campaign continues to be successful, and new names continue to be converted to donors. With our new data we can begin to project and model the LifeValue® of these new donors, but we will save that for another discussion.

Are you looking for more opportunities to increase your donor file? Let us help you!

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Tags: acquire, acquisition, awareness, banner advertising, branding, campaign, clicks, communication, conversions, donations, fundraising, impressions, lifevalue, metric, non-profit, nonprofit, nonprofit marketing, organization, pay per click, search engines, social media, valuable, value, visibility

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