Hot Takes
Retention Solutions: Boost Donor Retention with SMS and Multi-Channel Strategies
How many times have you been reminded (or reminded others) that Acquisition is the lifeblood of any program? There’s certainly a lot of truth in that but ONLY if you can create a reliable retention strategy. Because there’s also a lot of unfortunate truth in the Leaky Bucket metaphor.
So how are successful organizations focusing on ever-improving retention strategies while email performance struggles?
One key area is to turn to texting (SMS or MMS) to augment their donor retention strategies.
There’s still a place for email, but texting has become a much more reliable revenue generator over the past two years. Nearly 100% of recipients view text messages versus less than 40% of email messages by some estimates.
Consider this example of the power of texting as it relates to sustainer conversion strategies:
Catholic Relief Services had long relied on email as a reliable channel for sustainer acquisition, but recent results didn’t match the strong conversion rates seen by texting 1x asks.
Further and CRS decided to send a sustainer invite text to donors just a few days after a lead-in email. The result was immediate with email + texts driving a 7% sustainer conversion rate.
Encouraged by early success, we dug in deeper by testing a new cadence: on day 1, CRS sent an initial email; on day 6, they sent a follow-up email; and on day 8, we sent a text message. Anyone who had already given via email was suppressed from the text message.
The results told a clear story: a coordinated, multi-channel approach drove more sustainers than email alone would ever deliver. Ultimately texting drove twice as many new sustainers as email.
Converting new sustainers is one of the most profitable means of donor retention and great marketers use all the resources at their disposal. There’s still more to come in maximizing the value of texting to improve donor retention and we invite you to reach out to Further to get even more ideas!