4 Essential Metrics to Track in Your Text-to-Give Campaigns
Text-to-give is one of the most powerful fundraising tools at nonprofits’ disposal, helping organizations strengthen relationships with supporters and maximize giving. Whether it be a quarterly donation push, GivingTuesday, or an end-of-year giving campaign, using a text-to-give tool throughout the year can significantly increase your donations.
Your nonprofit might already incorporate text-to-give into your fundraising plan, but are you actively monitoring your performance to improve your content strategy? Metrics can tell you a lot about your text-to-give strategy, such as whether the type of content and the frequency at which you’re sending communications resonate with audiences.
In this guide, we’ll go over the top metrics you should track with the help of your nonprofit text messaging software. By measuring key performance indicators, you can adapt your text-to-give campaigns and tailor them to more closely target your supporters’ interests and preferences. Let’s dive in!
Text-to-Give Metric #1: Open rate
Similar to email open rates, text messages also have open rates—although text messages have an average 99% open rate compared to the average 28.59% open rate for nonprofit emails! In text-to-give campaigns, an open rate refers to the number of supporters who open your text messages.
By tracking the percentage of recipients who open your text messages, you can assess whether your campaign is engaging and capturing the attention of your target audience. A low open rate may indicate that your messaging or campaign strategy needs improvement.
Best Practices to Improve Open Rate
Part of your campaign success will be to analyze the data around your open rates. Are your supporters opening your text messages? What percentage of supporters are not opening your text messages?
If your text messages are experiencing a low open rate, use these strategies to better engage your audience:
Use an impactful subject line: The subject line is the first line of text your supporters will see and plays a huge part in whether users click to open your text. To make a compelling subject line, create a sense of urgency by adding a time-based element and invoking your supporters’ curiosity. For example, in advance of a year-end fundraising campaign, you might make a subject line that says “We need your support by midnight!” or “Donate Now, 6 Hours Left!”
Personalize your messages: A donor is much more likely to open a text that is personally addressed to them, rather than one with a generic greeting like “Dear Donor.” Tatango’s guide to text-to-give recommends working with a platform that automates personalized greetings to streamline your campaign and save your team time.
Send texts at the right time: Timing is everything, especially when it comes to sending your supporters texts. Avoid texting your supporters too early in the morning or too late at night. Sending your supporters texts at irregular times can even lead them to unsubscribe, so consider when they’re most likely to see and open your messages.
Strike the right texting frequency: In the same vein, texting your supporters too frequently can also be seen as intrusive and lead to lower open rates. Test out texting your supporters on a once-a-week basis and adjust your frequency accordingly.
Once you get your donors to open your messages, you want them to engage with your text and take the next steps. Let’s take a closer look at how you can optimize your click-throughs.
Text-to-Give Metric #2: Click-through rate
Click-through rates are also a key data point in your text-to-give campaign. Click-through rate refers to the number of supporters who click on links in your messages, such as to your donation page, event registration page, blog post, or other relevant resource. Getting supporters to convert is the ultimate goal of your text messaging strategy, so it’s critical that you have a high click-through rate.
Tips to Increase Your Click-through Rate
Use these simple tips to increase your click-through rates and the likelihood of supporters converting:
Insert a hyperlink to your text message: Rather than pasting the full URL of an important page in your text message, make it as easy as possible for supporters to navigate to that resource with a hyperlink. The right text messaging software will enable your team to include a shortened hyperlink that starts with bit.ly. This way, your link doesn’t take up too much space and supporters can simply tap on it to go to the intended resource.
Include a firm call to action: A call to action is a brief phrase that clearly directs supporters to their next step. For example, you might include a call to action to donate, sign up to volunteer, register for an event, sign up for your email newsletter, or take another pivotal action. Keep your calls to action short and sweet and add a sense of urgency. For example, you might provide a link to your donation page with the call to action, “Donate $10 by midnight to fight hunger in our community!”
Segment your texts: Supporters are more likely to act on requests that are relevant to their interests and involvement in your nonprofit. Segment your texts based on factors like demographics, donation frequency, recency, and amount.
Click-throughs are also a great indicator that your content is inspiring supporters and relates to their interests, so continue to add personalized elements to your texts to maximize engagement.
Text-to-Give Metric #3: Average donation amount
Your text-to-give campaign can help your nonprofit establish a steady flow of revenue. However, if your average donation amount is too low, you’ll likely need to update your content strategy in order to boost giving.
Strategies to Grow Your Average Donation Amount
Use these strategies to help your nonprofit increase its average text donation amount:
Offer greater suggested donation amounts: Instead of asking for a donation of $5 or $10, experiment with asking for larger amounts like $15 or $25.
Use storytelling: Storytelling can help connect suggested donation amounts to the tangible impact they have in the community. You might tell the story of a beneficiary you helped and how donations can help more people just like this individual. To keep your story brief within your text, you can always link to a blog post that tells the full story in greater detail.
Encourage gift matching: Your donors might be match-eligible through their employers. Explain how matching gifts work so you can essentially double their donations. Plus, Double the Donation reports that 1 in 3 donors indicate they’d give a larger gift if matching is applied to their donation, meaning you can easily increase your giving opportunities by putting matching gifts on your supporters’ radar.
By increasing your average donation amount, you can secure a sustainable future for your nonprofit, making it simpler to see your mission through and serve your community.
Text-to-Give Metric #4: Subscriber growth
In order to maximize your text donations, you need to get as many people subscribed to your texts as possible! Fortunately, nonprofits are not as closely subjected to the rules of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and can grow their contact list with implied consent. This means that you can grow your list in ways other than having your supporters text your keyword to the short code.
For example, if a donor gives their phone number on a donation form or when registering for an event, this counts as implied consent and you can opt them into your texts. Be sure that the text-to-give platform you work with is well-versed in TCPA compliance. They can work with your organization to ensure your text-to-give campaigns are legally compliant.
It’s also important to pay attention to the rate of unsubscribes, as an increase in this metric will slow down your growth altogether. Let’s take a closer look at how to tackle unsubscribes.
Strategies to Decrease Unsubscribe Rate
If your number of subscribers is decreasing, you might try the following strategies:
Show donor appreciation: Thank supporters after they give and highlight the impact of their continued involvement and contributions. Donor recognition could include a handwritten thank-you note, a place on your donor wall, or a video.
Vary your texts: Don’t only text your supporters’ donation requests! Send them updates about your campaign progress, how different projects are going, and stories from beneficiaries. For instance, an animal welfare organization running a text-to-give campaign might send updates about renovations to their shelter and volunteer appreciation events. Diversifying your content helps to prevent burnout and keep your audience engaged.
Ask donors their text preferences: Take the guesswork out of what kind of content you should send your supporters and how often by asking them about their preferences directly through a survey or poll.
By keeping your text-to-give content fresh, you’ll be more likely to sustain your audience’s interests and encourage them to stay subscribed and involved.
Wrapping Up
Undoubtedly, your text-to-give campaigns will require data analysis and refinement as you work towards maximizing your fundraising success. Be sure to work with a comprehensive text software solution so you can easily track these essential metrics and more. Then, adapt your strategy as needed to optimize results.
Eager to learn more about improving your fundraising strategy? Explore how Mission Capital can help you harness your nonprofit’s full potential.