Who ARE You Trying to Reach? -- Create Personas to Bridge the Gap with Target Audiences

I'm a big fan of developing fully-fleshed-out fictitious characters (aka personas) to understand your base and other groups your org wants to engage. As Wikipedia so aptly puts it, "a user persona is a representation of the goals and behavior of your [target audiences]. Each persona is captured in one to two page descriptions featuring behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and environment, with a few fictional personal details to bring the persona to life."

Shaping personas is a practice that enables you to "know" your target audiences far better than simple audience segmentation, which is limited to demographic definition in most cases. Most importantly, personas are a great lead-in to audience research, and a useful ingredient in product/program/service development and testing. Use them to hone your approach as precisely as possible before you dive in with pricey and hard-to-find focus group participants or testers.

Learn how in my just-updated guide to developing personas that will increase the impact of your nonprofit marketing.

PS While you're strategizing how to get to know your constituencies better, read Getting Great Audience and Stakeholder Feedback, at Little Cost (Case Study)

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New Research Unmasks the Wired Wealthy -- Connect Better with Middle and Major Donors

What makes people give online, and how can you motivate them to give to your organization?  Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research recently answered these questions via an in-depth study of some 3,400 wired donors who make four-figure or higher gifts to one or more causes. And get this -- "or the nonprofits who shared data, this segment of donors represents just 1% of their active donor file, but 32% of their annual revenue," says Convio founder and Chief Strategy Officer Vinay Bhagat.

The results, available here in full, offer some useful guidance on closing the gap between your org and your donors and here are just a few of the findings you can use to refine your strategies. The wired wealthy are:

• Very generous givers
  • Give an average of $10,896 eachyear to various causes, with a median gift of $4,500
• Notably wealthy
  • More than twenty-five percent (25%) have household incomes above $200,000 per year. More than half have annual household incomes above $100,000.
• Mostly boomers (born between 1946 and 1964)
  • With the center of gravity falling right in the middle of the baby boom cohort.
• Extremely wired
  • Have been using the Internet for an average of 12 years
  • Online an average of 18 hours per week
• Give online and via other channels
  
  • Like the speed, efficiency and instant gratification of online giving
  • Will be shifting more giving to online over next few years.

Clearly, you have to be online in a sophisticated way that engages boomers to succeed in this competitive arena.

Here's another vital finding: There are three main ways in which these donors want to relate to orgs they give to -- all business; relationship seekers; casual connectors.

"The three clusters offer some important clues about what kinds of communications your wired wealthy constituents...value, and might also help temper organizational expectations. Moreover, [the clustering indicates] that most organizations have a long way to go to fully satisfy even the most modest donor demands and expectations. And, it argues strongly for implementing some sort of psychographic segmentation so that you can cultivate relationships with the very different, yet equally valuable...clusters."

You'll find lots more data to guide your marketing and fundraising efforts in the full report.

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Don't Throw $ Away on the Wrong Message to the Right Audience

Yesterday's mail brought this glossy, 64 pp. magazine from the Alzheimer's Association. It went right into the recycling bin.

Wrong strategy to the right audience, nonprofit marketing people. The Association got my name when I sponsored my friend Stuart in the NY Chapter's fundraising walk for two years running. Stuart's story -- of caring for his close friend struck with Alzheimer's at a young age -- drew me (and my donation) in.

But, instead of following up with me post-walk, and subsequently, with stories like Stuart's (and those are how most walk donors are pulled in), the Association blasts this expensive but useless promotion out to its entire list.

Two takeaways here, marketers:

1. Match the message and channel to the audience. Otherwise, you alienate them, and waste valuable resource (this magazine was printed on heavy, high-gloss stock, yikes).
2. Keep in touch with event audiences following the event and then periodically till the next one -- to keep them engaged -- but do it in a way that reinforces their initial way in.

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Increasing Visitors and Donations in the Shadow of the Great New York Museums -- Newark Museum Case Study

Back in the fall of 2003, when Mark Albin, Newark Museum deputy director of marketing and public relations, started his new job, he faced what seemed like an overwhelming challenge.

Museum visitors were few and far between to this incredible art and science resource with a planetarium, a restored 19th-century mansion, representative works of American art, historical galleries and much more. But low visitation wasn't the only issue. The low number of visitors capped funding (many funders gauge gifts on visitation, among other factors; and most major donors evolve from the visitor base) and, ultimately, the Museum's impact.

Today, visitors are at an all-time high. Read the complete case study to learn how Albin harnessed  straighforward, moderately-priced audience research to get a better understanding of the problems and how to solve them.

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How Big is the Gap between You and Your Audiences?

My husband is in the business of professional development for financial advisors. And every once in a while -- in fact more often than you'd think -- he brings up an issue he's thinking on that's incredibly relevant to nonprofit communicators.

Today's issue is --- the GAP. Knowledg@Wharton, a great, free e-news on knowledge management, last week reported on survey results from financial advisors and their clients. What's relevant to your nonprofit is that advisors and their clients have such different perspectives on what's important, and that gap is preventing satisfaction on both sides.

Advisors pinpointed personal factors like shared schools or church as being of major importance to clients, while clients valued an advisor's knowledge above all else; advisors identified responsiveness as a key factor, while clients expect responsiveness and take it as a given.
As a result, many advisors are trying to find new clients, and retain current ones, using all the wrong reasons.

So nonprofit communicators, what does your gap look like? Without ongoing audience research, your programs and services, and the messages you use to recruit and maintain donors, volunteers, participants and even staff members, are bound to be off base. As an old friend used to say, assumptions make an a__ out of you and me.

Ways to close the gap can be cheap and accessible, although some effort is a must. One of my favorites is the communications advisory board. You'll find several additional ways to close the gap here.

Mind the gap!

Photo Credit: CatchesTheLight

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Are Your Target Audiences Omnivores, Connectors, Mobile Centrics or...?

These are a few of the categories the Pew Internet and American Life Project uses to group users of technology communications tools, going way beyond the "traditional" categories of early adopters (geeks), followers (most of us); and luddites (still without cell phones). 

For you communicators, understanding where your audiences fit is critical to choosing the right online channels, and using them most powerfully. Pew reports that "85% of American adults use the internet or cell phones – and most use both... Yet the proportion of adults who exploit the connectivity, the capacity for self expression and the interactivity of modern information technology is a modest 8%."

Your takeaway -- think twice before jumping into a presence in Second Life for your nonprofit, and don't give up the print 100%.

The research defines three groups: 31% are elite technology users, 20% are moderate users and the remainder has little or no use of the Internet or cellphones. But Americans are further divided within each group. The high-tech-ers, for instance, are almost evenly split four ways into:

• Omnivores (8%, mostly men) are heavy tech users who communicate creatively via blogs or Web pages
• Connectors (7%) view the Internet and cellphones as communications tools (mostly women in their 30s)
• Productivity enhancers (8%) see technology as a strategy to stay on top of their jobs and personal lives
• Lackluster veterans (8%) use technology tools quite a bit but mostly because they have to. The thrill is gone for these folks.

According to Pew, moderate users are split into:

• Mobile centrics (10%) -- rely on cellphones for talking, texting and games; and
• Connected but hassled (10%) -- who use tech tools but feel burdened by them,and probably like to disconnect once in a while.

Then there are the 49% who are technology lite (or technology non-existent).

I swallowed hard when I read that 60% of adult Americans don't read blogs; but know that a significant percentage of Getting Attention's target audience does so. But how do I reach the others, beyond the Getting Attention e-newsletter?

Dig into Pew's complete analysis to understand where your target audiences fit in. And take this quiz to see where you live.

Pew's paradigm becomes one more angle for your to analyze your audience segments, and one more facet of your audience personas. Remember, the more you know them, the better they'll know you.

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3 Quick Ways to Hook the Survey Responses Your Organization Needs

Yep, you heard me right. Needs. Because your organization needs the ongoing feedback from your audiences, each and every one of them, not once but often.

Online surveys are a quick and dirty way to get it, but the problem is that everyone's caught on. And your audiences are probably suffering the same "oh, not another survey request" ennui that you are.

I knew I was diving into this dilemma when I asked Getting Attention readers to respond to our latest survey of nonprofit marketers (findings here). So made sure to hook folks by:

• Making the survey short, and telling prospective participants how long it would take them to answer; and
• Clearly articulating the benefit that they'd get from responding (their challenges and agendas would be more directly addressed in coming Getting Attention coverage.)

And there's one more approach recommended by Marketing Sherpa -- and relevant to every organization and foundation in the advocacy policy arena -- tell prospective participants that survey results will be used to help change, or reinforce, legislation.

Put these tactics to use to ensure you get as many survey responses as possible, this round and in the future.

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Five Ways to Get the Clearest, Most Useful and Greatest Number of Responses to Your Online Surveys

I learned a lot in this last survey of Getting Attention readers and other nonprofit marketers. BTW, if you haven't responded yet, please take 5 minutes to do share info on your current marketing challenges and frustrations. I'll report back and the results will be a useful guide--promise.

The results to date are incredibly useful, and I'll report out to you in April. But right now I want to share some tips on generating the best online survey results possible:

1. Be extremely clear about what you're looking for, and don't include any gratuitous questions.
2. Minimize the time required to complete the survey by following #1, structuring questions to be answered as easily as possible (e.g. check boxes rather than open ended questions when it makes sense) and no more than 10 questions at most. Don't make the respondents spend more than five minutes, or you'll lose them.
3. Lead with the questions for which answers are most critical (the inverted pyramid structure strikes again). Some folks always fall off.
4. Be consistent in the way you ask -- if 1 is the worst and 5 the best, those rankings should stay consistent throughout the survey. Confused readers flee, asap.
5. Offer an incentive to increase survey participation. We're all too busy to do everything that's asked of us, even if the asker is someone or an organization we like and support. Make it more attractive to respond to your survey, and make the offer from the get-go. A drawing for an I-pod for survey respondents is a popular incentive of the moment.

So even though there are more organizations than ever surveying your audiences, these are a few ways to make sure your survey gets the greatest number of responses. Any strategies to add to the list? Please comment below.

Get to Know Your Audience Via Your E-News Welcome Email

Subject Line: A Quick Question
"Thanks for joining the blogging tips newsletter and grabbing an excerpt of Blogwild.
I was wondering what is your biggest question about blogs?
Let me know.."
Andy Wibbels
___________________________________________

This is the welcome email I received today after confirming my subscription to Andy's blogging tips e-news. More importantly, this is a great model for nonprofit and foundation e-news welcome emails. 

Research tells us that your audiences are highly engaged just after they subscribe to your e-news. After all, they are opting to receive email from your organization on a regular basis, which shows a significant level of interest. And, at the moment of subscription, your organization is top of mind.

Andy capitalizes on that short-lived attention focus to ask his subscribers what is they're most pressing question on his core expertise. Here are a few audience research strategies your nonprofit can put to use in its e-news welcome email:

• Discover what your audience is most interested in learning about in your e-news or RSS feed, like Andy does
• Develop a better profile of your readers, by asking them to complete a brief reader survey
• Ask your readers' opinion on a current conflict or topic in the issue area in which you work.

One tip -- and a way Andy can increase his responses: Ask for an immediate response and include an email or form link. Make it easy for your readers, and catch 'em while they're paying attention.

BTW, don't forget the other key element in your e-news welcome email: Ask your readers to 'whitelist' or protect the email address used to send the e-news. otherwise, they'll never get it and you'll have lost one interested prospect.

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Pew Study: One in 12 Blogs, Four in 10 Read Blogs

There's lots of buzz online on the Pew Internet & American Life Project's recent release of Bloggers: A portrait of the Internet's new storytellers. And these figures tell all. Of folks who are online (and I'd assume that's 95% of your nonprofit audience), 8% (12 million) blog and 39% (57 million) read blogs. That's a lot of people -- your people -- who are hooked into blogs. 

Yes, the sample size is small (only 233 bloggers were interviewed). Yes, most of the bloggers write about personal, not business or organizational, blogs. Yes, most (slightly) bloggers are under 30. But it seems the "traditional" communicators are all too eager to throw what is important here away.

Here's my take on what's critical for nonprofit communicators:

• Your audiences are blogging and reading blogs.
  
  • Yes, only 1 in 12 blog, and 4 in 10 read blogs right now but that number is growing fast. And even those folks can't be ignored. Look at it like this--10% of your audience blogs, and 40% reads blogs.
  • Cut the stats another way and you'll find that the numbers are much higher for folks under 40, who are your donors, members, volunteers of the next decade or two. Embrace, don't ignore, them.
• Organizational blogging is still small, but evolving faster and faster.
  • It's the perfect time for your nonprofit or foundation to jump in. Experiment. It's low-cost and low-risk.
• Easy, instant publishing is what draws bloggers to the medium.
  
  • It's incredibly useful (and cost-effective) for organizations, as for the everyday Joe or Jane.
• Only 56%  of bloggers spend time trying to verify facts, and only slightly more post corrections when received.
  
  • That means that there's probably lots of misinformation about your organization out there. Make sure you're tracking coverage of your nonprofit, and responding appropriately. You don't want to hear it from somebody else.

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How to Connect With Over-50s -- More Emotional, More Hopeful, More Focused On Making a Positive Impact

Fundraising blogger Jeff Brooks points to a compelling research report in Science News Online citing that the over-50 crowd "handles life's rotten realities and finds life's bright side more effectively than whippersnappers do...In contrast, people under age 50 experience negative emotions more easily than they do positive ones."

Well, that's good news for all of us (something to look forward to), and, as Brooks points out, probably one of the key reasons that most nonprofit donors are older. But, as Brooks  suggests, these findings have some very real implications for nonprofit marketing and fundraising copy. If older folks are more emotional, connected, likely to see hope in a bad situation and more interested in having a positive impact, then adjust your communications accordingly, he says.

I'd like to take this one step further, with these recommendations:

• Keep in mind that these findings are just that, findings. Just 242 people were studied. Hardly ironclad.
• Nonetheless, my gut is that these researchers have something here. I could swear that the 80+ folks I know have more perspective, and thus are more hopeful and engaged. Why not 50+?
• In reaching the 50+ crowd, focus on narrative and graphic content to motivate those emotional connections:
• Feature case studies, since real life stories about real life people will facilitate emotional connection, and, you hope, the desire to make that positive impact through giving, volunteering, or....
• Integrate photos of people involved -- staff members, program participants, etc.
• Provide testimonials from stakeholders on all sides.
• In reaching the under-50s...
• Don't count on generating the emotional connection as easily. This audience is very sophisticated (online, on-cell, all the time).
• Make sure you do good audience research to test what messages and delivery modes resonate best.
• Never, never, never sugar-coat. Your nonprofit will lose all credibility. If the research is right, these folks don't want to believe the best. Your job, marketing wise, is to make it impossible for them to believe anything but, and to act accordingly.
• Double the importance of the recommendations made above when reaching under-30s. Talk about skeptical. Your nonprofit really needs to earn their trust and interest.

Read more about reaching under- and over-50s here:

• Generations XYZ: Piercing the Veil of Skepticism
• Do AARP's Findings on Boomer Selfishness Hold True? And What Do They Mean for Your Nonprofit's Marketing Messages?

Any thoughts? Please comment below.

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Online Survey Case Studies Showcase Value and Best Practices for Nonprofits

I was tickeled to see a recent article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, crowing about the value of online surveys for nonprofits. I, and many other nonprofit communicators, have been using and promoting online surveys as an efficient, affordable and effective audience research tool for over five years now.
I guess that's validation when the "mainstream media" catches up.

Anyway, reporter Marilyn Dickey cited some useful nonprofit case studies:

• The Association of Fundraising Professionals has for a few years now used an online survey for their annual research on fundraisers' salaries and benefits:
  
  • The old way, a hard copy survey mailed to 4,000 fundraisers, took months for printing, mailing and waiting for replies
  • With the online approach, most responses are received within 48 hours of distribution.
  • Since results can be downloaded into database or spreadsheet software, no keying is required
  • Annual survey costs are now $5,000, instead of $30,000.
• San Francisco's Family Caregiver Alliance(FCA) uses online surveys to get feedback from its consituencies.
  • FCA could never have afforded "traditional" audience research
  • Use Zoomerange to create and deliver online surveys on customer satisfaction
  • Good response rate as audience members seem motivated to answer then review results (that's usually an option, FCA says that their audience is interested in what their peers think too)
  • Challenge in that some audience members
    • Don't have online access (especially seniors)
    • Have disabilities
  • Critical to choose an online survey tool carefully, and to review how its accessible to those with disabilities.

Thanks Marilyn for these instructive lessons learned. Go to the article for more.

More information on how to choose an online survey tool here.

Are You Using Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts or What?

ny take five minutes to answer NetSquared's web-based survey on nonprofit use of new online tools and gadgets. The results will tell us all a lot about where we should be focusing our efforts, and our budgets.