Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Is your school ready? The season of giving is a competitive time of year. Your school will not be the only business asking your community for a financial contribution. Whether it’s a holiday sale or a nonprofit looking for a donation, email inboxes, physical mailboxes and voicemails are flooded this time of year. Let’s look at the three best ways to effectively reach and engage with your school community for Giving Tuesday.
Do Your Research
Start your Giving Tuesday planning by conducting an analytics report of last year’s performance. Understanding how donations were being made by different audience segments will help your team craft the perfect message in the most engaging way that will drive donations. When analyzing last year’s performance, you should consider the following questions:
- Which communication channel drove the most donations? (i.e. email, text or call)
- Which email(s) had the highest and lowest open rate?
- What time of day were those emails sent?
- Which audience segment (i.e. current families, faculty or alumni) made the largest and lowest contribution?
- What messaging and call-to-action drove the highest engagement rate across all channels?
Timing is Everything
Planning Giving Tuesday ahead will allow your school to stay top of mind when the moment is right. Each communication should be perfectly timed and delivered in the most convenient way possible. For example, the first communication about Giving Tuesday should be sent out before Thanksgiving Break starts. Once students have left campus for the holiday break, your school is not going to be top of mind for families or faculty. You would also want to make sure your digital communication is split between east coast and west coast to optimize performance across the U.S. If you mistime your digital communication, your email will be pushed down too far for anyone to find or take the time to open.
Tell A Story
While you want to keep your communication short and concise, what you are asking for should tell a story about the immediate impact the donation — large or small — will have for the students at your school. A mistake schools often make is using general messaging that goes out to everyone all at the same time. While the end goal is generally the same for all audience segments, the story or the reasoning should be slightly different based on who you are talking to. Personalized communication improves click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by another 10%. The reason a current family might donate is so their child has a better experience. Whereas, faculty might donate to improve the daily lives of their co-workers. Your school should aim to tell a story that personally resonates with each member of your school’s community.
With over 20 years of combined experience in admissions and marketing, Katava Marketing can build your school a marketing and communication strategy that will have a positive impact on your school’s advancement. Contact Us to get started!
