Increasing fundraising with engagement messaging
The USA for UNHCR wanted to focus on the long game—spending less on acquisition, keeping opt out rates low, and still seeing high returns from fundraising texts.
2 min read | Illustration by Jorge Carvajal
A lot of organizations struggle to find the right balance between engagement and requests for action when building their marketing funnel. They will spend their resources building one or the other and end up burning their contact lists with useless content, or coming off as pushy. We worked with the UNHCR to find the right combination of both for their specific audience.
The Challenge
Extensive testing to find the optimal messaging mix
Sending fundraising messages alone is not enough—people tune out and unsubscribe if they feel like they’re not getting anything valuable. No one wants to be only asked for money week after week, even if they support the work you’re doing.
Engagement alone isn’t enough either—you need to pay for your SMS program, and grow your organization’s revenue.
Many organizations and campaigners only worry about the short term – fundraising now, and deal with churn rate later.
The Solution
Split testing campaigns to find the optimal messaging mix
The USA for UNHCR wanted to focus on the long game—spending less on acquisition, keeping opt out rates low, and still seeing high returns from fundraising texts.
Together with Banter, they designed an experiment to test whether engagement messages in addition to fundraising would get better results than fundraising alone.
We split a test universe into two groups—one who would receive only fundraising messages for a given period, and one who would receive an engagement message in addition to the same fundraising message the control group received.
The Results
60% higher response rate in groups that received engaging SMS
The group receiving engagement and fundraising messages had an 80% higher response rate, and a 60% higher conversion rate. Additionally, average gifts for the engagement group were 50% higher than the fundraising-only group. The engagement group also had more new recurring donors than the fundraising-only group.
The difference in opt out rates was statistically insignificant—meaning receiving double the number of messages a week did not turn people off. In fact, receiving more information meant better results!
Additionally, engagement messages signed by a real person, Alex, had a 7% higher response rate and brought in 57% more individual donations compared to texts signed”
— USA for UNHCR
Instead of treating supporters like ATMs, USA for UNHCR is able to build deeper relationships by providing members more content and treating them with respect. By mixing up their messages, and not deluging supporters with fundraising tasks they actually increase the number of sustaining donors and see higher gift amounts.