#IFC2017: best conference ever?

Just got back from the effing awesome #IFC2017 fundraising conference. If you get the chance, get that in your professional development plan (or if your org has no budget, you can volunteer too).

Here are some of my key takeaways that are applicable to all of us:

With technology, power dynamics are changing

Jeremy Heimans talked about the old power vs new power dynamic in the opening keynote, and that set the tone for the whole conference. It’s worth a watch.

We’re not structuring our organisations for success

Some of the organisations who have had the biggest impact recently have been structured to:

Be flexible
Empower BIG change by asking people to do something big in exchange for something big
Empower change agents within your organisations (and if you’re a manager, run defence for them!)
Be OK with not taking the credit for the victory
Offer value beyond data collection and being someone’s direct debit

I feel like people are underestimating digital

Power dynamics are definitely changing, and it’s more clear than ever that flexible organisations with a culture of taking risks are taking advantage of key moments when they matter. Take ACLU – when was the last time someone raised $42 million in a single weekend through DM*?

They had all of their ducks in a row (culturally and technically) to take advantage of some of the world’s biggest fundraising and activism moments. All they needed to do was be prepared.

Any of our organisations can be taking advantage of key moments like the ACLU (or countless other US-orgs have done).

Through the sheer number of people at Paul de Gregorio and Jo Wolfe’s mobile session, there’s also clearly still a mental separation between mobile and digital (and as Paul said, digital = mobile, mobile = digital). We’ve gotta rethink this stuff.

*Just as a total side note, the only people I’ve ever heard saying “direct mail is dead” are consultants complaining that people are saying “direct mail is dead”. Direct mail is very much alive, it just serves a different role.

Good fundraising is good fundraising

The core elements of what makes a great fundraising offer don’t change, no matter what the medium. Whether you’re talking itch & scratch; fluff & bite, or the Four Whys, it all comes down to making a credible offer to the right person at the right time.

I disagree with Tom Ahern

Shit, I’m going to stick my neck out here and say I disagree with something Tom Ahern said. He said there are no best practices in digital – that’s not true. The single best practice in online fundraising: test everything. I’m going to write a post about that soon.

The ratio you need to know for fundraising email success

The ratio? 1:1(:1)

Spend as much time on subject line brainstorming as you did on writing the whole email. And then test the shit out of them to see which one performs the best (remember: you’re measuring action rate).

If you’re using a box (like this), then spend as much time writing that text as you did writing the email body. You’re looking to condense your message into 2-3 short sentences that tell the entire story, and they need to answer the top three of the four whys.

If you’re using an image in your box, spend as much time finding that image as you did writing the email body.

Then test, test, test.

You have a responsibility to your organisation and the people you’re helping send the very best email you can and raise as much as possible to help them!

Super simple stuff.

The unmissable opportunity for measuring email engagement

One of the reasons I like email so much is because you can instantly figure out how good (or bad) it’s performing.

But you can only really do that if you’ve got some sort of measurable action.

Luckily, forcing yourself to put a measurable action into an email is a great way to ask yourself “what am I trying to achieve with this message?”

For some messages, it’s easy: you want people to donate. Or you want them to add their name to a petition. Those are easy to measure.

And then you could (should) be reporting back on how you spent their donation.

There’s a simple opportunity there: in the report back, provide a way for them to engage with you again. Provide a link for them to share their accomplishment with their friends. And put a passive donation ask in there too, because people will want their donations to achieve more of the same or continue the fight*.

It doesn’t really matter what kind of message you’re sending – if it’s a quality message, people will want to engage with you. And it’s up to you to provide that opportunity for engagement every time.

Do this a few times and you’ll quickly figure out your baselines. Then test and optimise.

*Don’t expect this to be a driver of significant income – think of it as a reward for a job well done.

Email: the metrics that matter

I’m a pretty massive nerd, and one of the things I like the best about digital-first fundraising is the fact that you can measure and analyse all sorts of data.

If you’re running an email program, there are only a couple of metrics you really need to be looking at.

Action rate
For me, this is the metric I look at to judge an email’s performance.

It’s better than click rate – through the action rate, I can see how many people were driven to take action, but I can also figure out pretty quickly where in the chain something is going wrong if my email performs badly. If your click rate is high and your action rate is low, it usually means something’s up with your landing page.

Amount donated (if it’s a fundraising email)
It’s up to you whether you choose to look at average donation or total amount donated, but this can help you see if your email is inspiring people to give a higher or lower gift than normal.

Unsubscribe rate
Establish a baseline unsubscribe rate and just keep an eye on it. Unsubscribes aren’t always bad anyway [link] but if they suddenly spike, you should definitely look into why.

A quick note on open rates
I don’t really even look at open rates when I’m assessing email performance, because ultimately I don’t want people to open my emails and then do nothing with them. Generally, look at open rates if your email is deeply underperforming – it could be an indicator of deliverability issues.

Otherwise, just keep your focus on the action rate.