The direct marketing agency Epsilon just released a new study by ROI Research revealing reasons why people most often unsubscribe from email lists, and the rates at which they unsubscribe. Not surprisingly, the most often-cited reason (67%) is irrelevancy of emails. The second highest reason (64%) was high frequency of emails, and the third most-cited reason (50%) was fear that their email addresses were being sold or shared. Conducted by ROI Research, the study is based on an April 2009 survey of over 4000 consumers in 13 countries.

Image courtesy of emarketer

Image courtesy of Online Media Daily

In essence, the reasons most email list subscribers unsubscribe boils down to:

• receiving messaging content that is irrelevant to the reader
• not understanding the needs of the customer
• mistrust of the company sending the email

If your company or organization uses email lists, then why not use social media to cut down those unsubscribe rates!

Social media platforms (Facebook, twitter, blogs, MySpace) create conversations, which tell you exactly what the readers want. Use the conversations with your customers/fans/clients/donors to inform the content of your email messaging.  Are certain blog posts shared frequently online, while others die the fate of the unseen post? Why is that? Do you receive lots of comments on certain topics or videos? Utilize the information you learn from your social media interactions so that email messaging won’t suffer from irrelevant content.

Social media relies on trust because it is incredibly transparent. Due to the nature of the medium, people search for information about you before following your blog, Facebook page, or joining your company’s social network. They’ll “out” you if your company’s activities are not completely transparent, and become your biggest fans if you are. Remember the controversy over the fact that some Twitter users have “ghost twitterers,” who post to Twitter under the actual user’s name? However, if they find value in the engagement, they will pass that value along and bring their friends to you as well.

Use social media to allay the fear, once and for all, that your organization will never, ever sell or share the names of its email list subscribers. Write a blog post about it. Create a conversation about why that isn’t your organization’s policies and how you value the privacy of all your subscribers. Refer to these conversations in your email messages and ask email subscribers to contact you directly online if they want to ask further questions about privacy.

Remember the “golden rules” of social media: Be Yourself. Be Transparent. Listen. Engage.

You can’t listen and engage in an email blast, but you can take the information from listening and engaging on social networks, and use that to make your email messaging relevant and valuable to your stakeholders.

Do you have other ideas about how social media can decrease email unsubscribe rates? Please share them in the comments!

image by 10ch

I’m at the NTEN 2009 Conference attending the session “What It’s Worth: The Value of Online Fundraising.” The session is presented by Allison Van Diest of Blackbaud and Clinton O’Brien, VP for Nonprofit Services with Care2. . Nonprofits use Care2 to recruit new donors and supporters and advocates for their organizations.

Goals of the session:

Why would you benchmark? How to make the case for fundraising tactics using measurements.

Purpose and value of benchmarking web metrics.

Review some 2008 industry benchmarks. from a March 2009 survey. What the data reveals, or doesn’t.

Case studies.

Purpose of benchmarking

Need them for goal-setting, comparison, prioritization, to make a case for resource utilization, forecasting results.

Sources that informed this benchmarking:

-1200 responders to State of Nonprofit Industry Survey 2008

-Blackbaud client data

-Care2 community data

-Q1 2009 State of Nonprofit Industry Survey: Return on Internet Investments:  93 valid responses. 97% of respondents had a website. 56% held email marketing or fundraising. 52% participate in social networks. 1/3 had revenue under $1mil, and 1/3 revenue over $10 million. Good mix of verticals in type of organization (largest group type was health care orgs at 17%). Most responders are fundraisers at the organizations.

Below is analysis of data from the Q1 Survey (93 responders), but integrated with other data from Blackbaud when noted:

Website benchmarks:

• 52% had a positive ROI on investment
• 26% made no investment
• 22% had negative ROI
• median amount collected through website transactions was $5,000 (this included organizations that didn’t collect any money also).
• Median ROI of website value was 110% (took the number in the center to get the median vs. mean number).
• From those that collected at least $1 in website transactions: $20K was median dollar amount collected through website transactions and 37% median ROI from website transactions .
• NOTE – Definition of “investment”: asked orgs to give a $ amount for website building and consulting amount and HR related website costs which was the self-reported “investment” from 2008

Need to consider the source: how did people get to the website?

• 63% of those with positive website ROI conducted email marketing or fundraising campaigns
• 46% of orgs with positive website ROI reported participating in social networks.

Note: these organizations may not have had a positive ROI of each channel, but did for the website, so reconsider how look at ROI for channels is a thought.

Email Benchmarks

Asked people to figure out value of an email: of those who reported doing email marketing, median number was 290,000 emails sent in 2008. Average return per email sent was $8.16  But-. average website return per email was $18.37.ISSUE:  How to differentiate whether email sent brought the money in or the website brought the money in? That is to be addressed. Most orgs aren’t sourcing if email drove the donation at the point of site.

(A side note: bulk of email campaign responses should be within 48 hours of email sent! However, it could different by audience, as an audience member notes. This audience member notes one of her clients receives the buik of return after two weeks! So there are exceptions.)

Median amount dollars collected as a result of email marketing is $1,000 (including those that don’t collect any money).

Median ROI from email marketing is 53%

Median amount collected from orgs that collect at least $1 from email marketing is $10,000.

NOTE:

• Only 18% of organizations credit positive ROI on email programs, but 63% of organizations with positive website ROI say they send email campaigns. Question is are they tracked properly?
• Orgs with positive website ROI who sent email campaigns brought in 2.8 times the website revenue -takeaway is that targeted asks might be more effective than just having a donate now but’ont.
  
• Orgs that have 6 – 10 events “a-thons” a year averages $60K in online event revenue. All other orgs averaged $39K. Implications? Maybe affected by size or client reach of the organizations.

The amount of revenue earned TRIPLES if an organization engages in email campaign versus just offering the “donate now” button on the website.

Online Event Benchmarks

Only 15% of orgs offer online participation in an “a-thon” or “friends asking friends” type of event. But arts/cultural orgs are more likely to hold them. Median amount raised is $11,000 online.

Blackbaud additional data from its clients:

• friends asking friends  (FAF) emails have a 90% greater open rate.
• Average online gift size is $59.40.
• 32% of FAF emails resulted in a transaction.
• average participant sends 27 emails.

Social Media ROI

Remember: about half of those surveyed use social media. 17% of them put money into using the networks.

• Of the 17% investing resources in social media, 63% reported positive ROI.
• 92% participated in Facebook, 44% use Twitter, 33% use Linkedin, 29% use MySpace, 13% use other networks.
• Of organizations participating, they averaged participating in 2.4 networks each. Of those participating in only one network, all but one use Facebook.
• Median ROI was 125%, median dollars raised was $200, and AVERAGE revenue raised was $41K from those reported raising money.
• Orgs connect with a median of 600 individuals through social networks.
• Average value of networking individual was $1.60

Social Networks = Free Donors? (Clinton O’Brian from Care2)

The purpose of today’s session is to look at the monetary value of social networks, but we recognize there are other values.

Facebook Causes Report just published March 2009.

25 million users reached through FB Causes. It has raised $7.5 milion in 2 years.

179,000 causes participate. 46K participate. # people who have donated = 186K (.7%)

Only two nonprofits have raised more than $100,000 through Causes.

Average gift =$ 40.54. Less than 50 nonprofits raising more than 10,000.

From 2007 to 2008: Average money per user donated has increased from $.21 to $.31. Average amount per cause has increased from $31.25 to $41.

List of several case studies: Susan G. Komen Foundation, Save Darfur, and Birthday Causes. None of them raised a lot of money.

One interesting tool to help you figure out ROI of Social Network Investment is the Care2 tool. (Their blog is www.frogloop.com which engages with nonprofit professionals and share best practices.) It asks user to provide inputs on their social newtowrking and email investment and gives ROI for outputs, along with four-year ROI projections.

Commentary by Care2′s Clinton O’Brien- most organizations aren’t going to see a positive ROI from this calculator. The thing you need to think about is the opportunity cost by investing employee time in social networks. Question: What aren’t you doing?

Audience question about choosing among the different social networks:

Answer: MySpace is for a younger group, Facebook has the numbers and users, and a good activ base. One audience member offers that alumni groups are using Linkedin very effectively.

My Takeaways:

1. Email campaigns (and email related activities for raising funds) are still the most proven and effective investment an organization can make.

2. Don’t rely on social networks for fundraising, but they may very well drive people to donate on-site.

3. Track where every person comes from and why they decided to donate on the website. Are they a network member? Could this have raised their awareness and encouraged them to donate on the website?

image by borman 818

Attending NTEN”s National Technology Conference Session called Best of the Best: Integrated Fundraising Case Studies. Presented by Jeff Patrick by Common Knowledge. I’ll be live blogging this event.

Overview: a medium-sized national veterans’ organization test campaigns. Which type of appeal will be most effective? Ran a controlled test.

Used three types of fundraising appeals for three test groups: divided into Direct Mail, High frequency Email and Low Frequency Email groups with same number of people per gorup. Direct mail group received mail in home at about same time as the email groups received mail in their inboxes.

Organization worried about asking too much and worried about exhausting the recipients. But not true – can cultivate donors and do a “soft” ask. Plus, email cost is minimal.

High frequency email group donated more money than any other group! $32,000 vs. $26,000 from low-frequency email appeal. Because asked more often they got more funds. Low frequency group only asked monthly. But if ask more, you begin to get less and less return. Low frequency appeals outraised the high frequency each time low frequency group was asked to donate, but the difference is that the high frequency group also donated other times they were asked.

One Takeaway: if you ask less frequently online, you will get more per email.

Average open rate: higher with low-frequency group. They also clicked through more often but conversion rates were the same as low-frequency group. Average gifts were 9% lower in the high frequency group. But, total revenue was 23% higher in high frequency group! Average rate of unsubscribers was slightly higher than the in the low frequency email group, but this rate was more than offset by higher revenues. Why? If you cultivate people and give people meaningful information at same time then they are interested in getting your mail.

The Takeaway: You can raise more money from donors if you contact them via email more frequently.

Who would have thought?

Big Takeaways:

Asking more often is fine as long as it includes donor cultivation.

Average gift stayed the same.

Total revenue went up.

Unsubscribers went up a bit, but not enough to offset total value of campaign.

Audience Question: can you get rid of the paper direct mail appeal?

Not if your demographics are 65 and over, which represents cutoff of when people didn’t use computers at work.

Consider it if you are an organization as part of the cost of fundraising and build email list as you are going. Get rid of direct mail with testing, and slowly “dial down” the direct mail. Possibly think about shifting to telephone solicitations. Think about sustainable giving.

Anyone over the age of 38 has a higher tendency to donate via direct mail. Source: Craigslist bootcamp. There is a podcast entitled “Dirty Sexy Money” you can listen to about this.