3 Ways List Segmentation Can Boost Your Non Profit Event Registration
Most nonprofits today are familiar with the for-profit business concept of list segmentation – the breaking down of a list of targeted customers according to any number of specific criteria.
And most nonprofits are not only familiar with this concept but also practice, to some extent, list segmentation of their electronic and print donor communications.
While actions taken by the donor and donation amount are the most common segments tracked by nonprofits, you can increase your nonprofit event registration and your event ROI with a little creative use of list segments.
To get your creative juices flowing, first you’ll need to import your own mailing and members lists or list segments into your rsvpBOOK Admin Dashboard. You’ll use these lists to create highly targeted email invitations for your nonprofit event. Registration takes place online; attendees just click the link provided on your invitation email. Direct other invitees to your online registration page from your print announcements, flyers, and direct mail invitations.
Here are just three ways rsvpBOOK helps you boost the response rate to your event invitations, using donor list segmentation:
1. Test, test, test
Let’s say you’ve used your donor management software to filter your in-house contact list by individual donors, corporate sponsors, and volunteers. Because you can create a fully customized email invitation for each of your list segments with rsvpBOOK, you then create and send a unique email invitation to your contacts for each segment.
rsvpBOOK tracks the open rate of each version of each email invitation sent and tells you if an invitee clicked the link on the email, which directs invitees to your nonprofit event registration page.
But you can go even farther than just tracking the response rate for each segment in your contact list. Before sending out all your invitations, test how well two versions of one email invitation perform in each segment, using two different email subjects and leads. Send the higher-performing email invitation to the rest of your contacts in that segment, for an overall higher event invitation response.
2. And the survey said…
As mentioned earlier, the most common segments tracked by nonprofits are donation amount and the actions taken by a donor. Not sure how or what else to do to track or further segment your donor list? Pre- and post-event surveys help get relevant data about your donors – from your donors.
And that survey information will help you segment your list more effectively.
While it’s vital to keep accurate contact information for each event participant, use surveys to gather a few new tidbits that can help give your event or next fundraising campaign precision focus.
Some typical data to gather during the event registration process are name, address, telephone number, and event-specific details like meal preference.
Other data you might try to gather through surveying invitees might include age, income, education level, geographic location, marital status, children and their ages, homeowner or renter, job title, and how they prefer to receive future communications from you.
Routine demographic data tells you facts about your donors. Then there’s this other thing called psychographics.
Psychographics – subjective information about what motivates and interests your donors – are collected using rsvpBOOK’s customizable surveys either before or after your event.
Survey your event attendees before your event to gather revealing psychographics about donor gift-giving behaviors, life values and attitudes, or their favorite news source.
Further analysis of survey results helps you develop detailed donor personas – that is then used to create highly targeted event communications for each segment.
Customized event invitations emailed for smaller groups that share a common element stand a greater chance of success – which means a packed house for your event – than generic invitations sent to a large group of invitees.
3. More segments = more custom event invitations = more response
Remember the earlier scenario where you used your donor management software to filter your in-house contact list and create several segments?
Drill down those basic segments even further to create additional list segments.
And each segment gets a tailor-made invitation that will get your event higher responses.
Further segment your individual donors by amount – those that gave less than $100 last year, those gave between $100 and $500 last year, or even those that didn’t give at all last year.
Segment corporate sponsors further by event or program sponsored. Smaller foundations, civic groups, and government entities or other partners are individual segments to group together for a special invitation (or two for testing).
Volunteers and board members (past and present) represent another segment of your contact list to send a unique event invitation and surveys.
With a little imagination and advance planning, focusing on segments of your contact list not only boosts response rates for your event, but helps you get to know event attendees better, too.
And the better you know your donors, volunteers, and sponsors, the better all your communications with your contacts will become.
Try rsvpBOOK today and see for yourself how list segmentation boosts your nonprofit event registration.