Voice is the most powerful and effective way to connect and to clearly communicate tone and emotion, and yet it’s often our least used resource. A phone call will nurture and strengthen your relationships in a way emailing and texting cannot.
Today, because of the influence of the smartphone, getting the attention of people is really challenging, and making phone calls to each individual donor, both large and small, can be costly and time-consuming, if not impossible—that is, unless you take advantage of Voice Broadcast.
In fact, research has shown that the influence of voice calls is actually increasing due to the rise in smartphone usage, and unlike Facebook, text messaging and email, a Voice Broadcast phone call is the ultimate top of mind attention getter.
It can be easy to miss an email or a text (email open rates average only around 17-25%), but more difficult to miss a phone call or voice mail. And from an emotional standpoint nothing is as welcomed as a phone call.
Fact: Recent research has pointed to as high as a 90% attrition rate after an initial gift to a charity.
The Reason: Donors were not being acknowledged, thanked or kept in touch with. In fact, 46% of donors stop due to the charities’ “failure to communicate” meaning the charity has not kept in touch. This is usually due to having too many donors to call and not enough manpower to effectively reach out in a timely manner.
What Donors want most: An Emotional, Heartfelt ‘Thank You’
The ART Solution: If a Board member, Leadership Volunteer, Beneficiary, or other influencer simply sent a Voice Broadcast campaign out to say ‘thank you’ from a place of sincerity, honesty and humility, it’s been shown that 85% would support the charity again AND give a larger gift. It’s been said that a ‘thank you’ is the beginning of the next solicitation.
Voice Broadcast enables you to call every single donor you have a phone number for whether they’ve given a first-time $5 gift or a $100 gift. There’s no better way to build trust and a relationship with them than by showing how efficient and on top of things you are.
Bonus Strategy: If you have a record of your Donors’ Birthdays, you can schedule a ‘Happy Birthday’ call to automatically go out on the exact day. It’s a gesture that shows you remember them and care about them.
Fact: 74% of non-profits cite staff shortage as their biggest challenge.
The Reason: With the right personnel, an organization can achieve anything, but budget constraints often get in the way of successful hiring and recruitment processes.
The ART Solution: Free up staff resources by using Voice Broadcast to reduce the repetitive outbound calling load enabling you to redirect those resources to tasks like updating records, answering questions, soliciting donations, etc.
Bonus Strategy: Research has shown that one of the most effective uses of Voice Broadcast is for extending an invitation or reminding prospects or donors to attend a conference, seminar or other live event. In fact, reminder calls to attendees who have agreed to come can improve their actual attendance by 40%.
The Reason: When people donate their money to a non-profit, the gratification isn’t as tangible as in a for profit business.
What Donors want most: Assurance that their donations will be allocated properly.
The ART Solution: Use Voice Broadcast to lead your marketing messages with emotion in mind. More often than not, when someone makes a buying decision, it’s based on emotion and not logic. This becomes even more apparent with non-profits.
Since there’s often not a tangible reward for the donor (minus the satisfaction of helping someone), non-profits really need to speak to people’s emotions in their marketing messages, and again, the human voice is the best way to convey a message not only about your cause, but where a potential donor’s money is going. To sum it up, lead with powerful and emotional messages and make it crystal clear where donations will be allocated.
The Reason: Direct Mail still makes money but most mailers are thrown in the trash. Most donors who respond to print campaigns and direct mail flyers are over 55 years old. This leaves a huge segment of potential donors on the table and untapped.
What Nonprofits want most: An increase in Direct Mail Response
The ART Solution: By sending a voice broadcast alerting people to “be on the lookout” for a specific mailer, postcard, advocacy opportunity, newsletter, etc., readership response can increase by 3-5 times. A recent white paper found that fundraising as much as doubled when attached to an advocacy ask.
Bonus Strategy: Send a voice broadcast message alerting your supporters to be on the lookout for emails you send to them having to do with downloading pamphlets or issue guides, signing up for newsletters, or sharing stories and information about your work among their networks. This is critical seeing how the response rate from email marketing campaigns has decreased in the past few years.
If you want to create, and more importantly, maintain a relationship, use Voice Broadcast to send Nurturing and Informational messages to your Donors on a regular basis (about 7 times) throughout the year, or roughly every 2 months.
Once you sign up for ART’s Voice Broadcast, confirmation and activation of your account happens within minutes.
Call ART at 1-888-408-4222
Mon thru Fri, 7:30am to 4:30pm PST
