All About Data

Data informs our communications and engagement strategies making touchpoints more relevant and effective through thoughtful segmentation. Data points allow us to measure and attribute impact of marketing activities and mission delivery so that we can make better decisions.

Data management is complex. Is your data secure? Do you have privacy safeguards in place? Is your data accurate and complete? In laying out the groundwork for your technology ecosystem, consider how you are connecting data across different systems.

Creating Exceptional Audience Experiences

Reliable trustworthy data and relevant information about your supporters are prerequisites to accurate personalization and effective segmentation. Today, people expect marketers to understand who they are and even to anticipate their needs. Nonprofit organizations, too, are getting more sophisticated to deliver exceptional experiences. Is your organization keeping pace? Are your communications resonating with your audiences?

Here are just a few reminders to help you approach interactions in a thoughtful way.

Establish key objectives - what are you trying to achieve and what data points are salient?
Bad and inaccurate data can be costly to your credibility, jeopardizing important relationships. How are you ensuring the integrity of your information? Here are a few ways you can protect and improve the quality of your data: establish data standards and business processes, tap address completion and verification services, form validation, and design fields to minimize input errors.
Solution coordination is vital to ensure you have a complete view of your audiences.
Sharing data across departments can help you find ways to deepen supporter relationships. Donors are often great advocates, while volunteers and advocates are likely fundraising prospects.
Finally, don’t overcomplicate your segmentation. It is easy to create a multitude of microsegments, creating unnecessary and unwieldy complexity. We recommend identifying the most meaningful variables.

Leveraging Social Media Data to Improve Constituent Interactions

Social media is a treasure trove of information about constituents. It can provide a window into what your audience cares about and who they know. Folding this data into your CRM can help you supplement your existing data and use your data more effectively.

Integrating social media requires effort, the right technologies, and clear governance around privacy, but it may be well worth it. This information shared by individuals themselves can give you deep insights that lead to bigger fundraising, marketing, and program delivery success.

A World Without Cookies

With changes coming from companies like Apple, customer privacy features are having huge impacts on nonprofit marketing campaigns and reporting metrics. It’s now critical to rely upon first-party data instead of third-party data. Having a sophisticated CRM in place to manage your first-party data (like Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics) will future-proof your technology investments as you continue to evolve to meet privacy requirements.