 Welcome to all of you thank you so much for joining us for another fantastic episode of the nonprofit show today we have Lynn Ruby with Ruby Marketing Agency and she's going to share with us the thing that most donors expect and most nonprofits are not delivering so stay with us to hear what Lynn's going to share with us on this topic and if you haven't met us yet Julia Patrick is here of course CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom your nonprofit nerd CEO of the Raven group and we also want to thank our presenting sponsors that keep this show going and growing. So thank you to Bloomerang to the American nonprofit Academy fundraising Academy nonprofit nerd your part time controller staffing boutique nonprofit thought leader and the nonprofit Atlas. So thank you again for that continued support so that we can have guests on with us like the one we have scheduled today, Lynn Ruby again CEO and president at Ruby Marketing Agency. Welcome. Hello, it's fantastic to be here. Hey, Lynn we're really excited to have you. I first heard you speak. Years ago, years ago, years ago about email marketing and at the time. I would say most people in the room did not have any connectivity to email marketing. I mean, you were really starting. I mean you were a pioneer of even talking about this. And it was fascinating I remember at the time, and I was thinking about this. Some of the words you used we didn't even know what that what the vocabulary was we were like, you mean it was just such a unique thing. And now flash forward we've, if we're not doing this, we're not going to be in business. No, and isn't it amazing that we're still doing it. I mean there has been predictions of the demise of email marketing for years and years and years and years and yet it is still the number one preferred method of communicating with donors volunteers customers clients across all organizations and nonprofits. It is just amazing to me that it's still that powerful and the statistics show it. So that's awesome to me. You know, questions I have and again, there is no script these are all shoot from the hips. But I'm thinking about, you know, I have an 11 year old son, he has an email address so I'm curious the amount of email marketing that is happening and has grown globally, because like, you know I just mentioned he has an email address I think I have five right Um, and so really our population are our audience has grown exponentially is that correct. It really has and study after study after study in spite of the rise of social media in spite of the rise of texting in spite of the rise of all other kind of digital communications. Receivers of email say that's their preferred method of communication in spite of I hear so many times I talk to people they say oh I can't stand email. Oh I can't I get so much spam I can't stand it, but yet study after study proves that this is the preferred method of communication. When we're talking about loyalty to an organization or loyalty to a brand or loyalty to a company. It's. Yeah, it's amazing. I think we need to be. Now, we're going to have you talk to us about the differences between segmentation and personalization. And I think, and I'm going to, you know, level up to this I'm not supposed to say man up to this, but I'm going to say level up to this. I think that I've used these words interchangeably. Yes. I would have no doubt. Yes. Okay, so set me straight sister because I'll set everybody straight because there's a lot of confusion between these two. A lot of people think they're the same thing, and they're not they're very different, and it's really important to understand the difference. And let me tell you why first of all, the sales force in 2021 came out with their seventh annual report on the state of nonprofit marketing. If you can get yourself, if you're a nonprofit marketing, you need to read this report, it has a ton of fascinating information in it. And the one thing that I saw in this report, the state of nonprofit marketing by sales force was that by far the preferred method of communication on behalf of donors, volunteers and beneficiaries is email. In fact, 70% prefer email communication. The next statistic that fit into this was that of those people who preferred email, how many of them felt that email from their from the nonprofit was actually personalized to them. And only 40% said, I feel the information is personalized to me in the email communication that I get. So when I saw this I went ding, ding, ding, ding, here is a opportunity for nonprofits that they're missing out on because we know from my work in the for profit world consumers, especially during the pandemic, vastly expect, not prefer direct and demand personalized email communication because and it's been that's been accelerated, I believe by the pandemic because we want connection more and more and more. Because we've been limited by the pandemic, how we can do that face to face so when an email comes in and it's generic and there's nothing in there that's really personalized to me. It doesn't feel as good it doesn't feel as connected that doesn't feel as nice right so the McKinsey did a study that said that 76% of consumers now expect and demand personalized communications, not just email right but all over personalized marketing communications. And when they don't get it, the majority of them are very, very frustrated by it. So here's this overwhelming demand for personalization in the wide the whole consumer marketplace, and then we look down and we drill to them down to the nonprofits and we see that Oh, their donors volunteers and beneficiaries prefer email communication vastly by 70% and yet very few of them feel that it's personalized to them. So here's this great opportunity nonprofits need to be personalizing their email communications. And by doing so can really reap some terrific benefits because there's all other kind of statistics that talk about how much more people will open your emails based on personalization will commit to doing a volunteer or a donation. So when it's a personalized email communication so this is really, really terrific opportunity for nonprofits. Ask you how do we do that like what are you know like here's the top five things if you're not personalizing consider these next five steps like what are the personalization steps that we should be making. Let's let's I want to definitely answer that let's talk about the difference between segmentation and personalization first. Yeah, cause the Salesforce report also said that nonprofits are doing a good job at segmentation, and they may feel that we're doing great on personalization because they're confusing the two terms. Great. So, segment, let's let's make this easy segmentation is putting your database of people into big buckets. So we can do that based on gender, age, physical location. Things like that that there's a whole group of people who are in this zip code. There's a whole group of people you know here's the men, here's the women, here's the people under 20, here's the people from 20 to 40, here's the people from 40 to 60. We can put those folks into big segmented buckets. Okay, that segmentation. Okay. Now, personalization goes a step farther, and it's very basic level personalization is getting an email that says, Dear Julia. That's personalization. Nobody else, regardless of what bucket they're in for segmentation will get an email that says Dear Julia. Unless they're in Julia. Right, unless their name is Julia. So that it's very basic is personalization but personalization needs to go now way beyond that, right. I think sometimes, not just nonprofits, but, but all types of organizations think if I say Dear Julia in the heading of my email. I personalized my email, and I'm done, and not so anymore technology is allowing us to do a whole lot more personalization. I have a list here of things that can possibly be considered such as name, of course, birth date. Other family members do they have children what are their ages do they have pets, you know, what kind of pets are they their exact location meaning their address, where they've clicked in the past where have they clicked and purchase something or donated made a donation or past purchases their budget level where they visited on our websites was very, very personalized nobody else will have that kind of personal profile in the organization's database that is personalization and personalization is if you think about walking into a local donut shop and the the clerk behind the counter says hello Mrs. Jones it's so good to see you again. We have a new jelly donut today that I think you should try because I know you don't really like cake donuts very personalized and it makes the customer it makes the donor it makes the volunteer feel very, very welcome it creates an experience. Now I want a jelly donut. And I have a similar experience. I just happened to be in Charleston, South Carolina. I visited the same lunch spot more than once. And the cashier, you know, asked me, would you like an Arnold Palmer for, you know, for your drink and I was like, whoa, that's impressive, you know. So just taking that extra step and like you said Lynn, it's more than importing the name into the subject line because to be honest when I start seeing that. I know exactly what they've done and I almost save it in my inbox and I'll say I'll get to that later and if I don't get to it I delete it so thank you for that personalized list but I have a question. This is a reality. This sounds amazing and time is very limited and the little amount that we have in our database often doesn't have birth date let alone what breed of a dog do they have you know things like that. So how do we go about eliciting if that's the right word. This information without seeming too intrusive. Like how can we level up our personalization game. And how do we get this personalized information. Yes. And so that kind of fits into your other question was how do we get started with this right. And here's what I think is the good news for nonprofits specifically, because if there are so few nonprofits producing personalized communication whether that's email or anything else. This is a great opportunity to start doing it and meet the head of other nonprofits so that and it and it doesn't have to be the whole big smear right right from the gate we can start with some small steps. And so I would first want to do some have some kind of let's take a look at what information do we already have that we might not even know we have. And where does it reside right. Some of it's in this database some of it's in this paper file some of it's over here in these people's heads, we just don't have it. In digital format anywhere. So it's a matter of first of all doing an audit, I would call it aware does all this information lie that we might not even be aware that we already have yet. But it's there and consolidating it into a central location, whether that's something like a CRM or an email program or whatever it is that we're working with. And in terms of the database and centralizing what we do have already in that centralized location. And then starting to use that in our communications immediately now the, the, it's not necessary believe it or not any longer to have a really sophisticated and expensive CRM program in place to be able to do this smaller email marketing programs have the ability they've evolved since Julia and I met at that first speaking engagement right when we were doing basic things pretty much, and all of the relatively mid level email marketing programs have evolved to where they can capture this type of data and put it in their systems when they're sending out email communications so I would say, you know, start if you don't have a big budget if you don't have a big team, you're just want you know you want to get this started and you just not quite sure why how do an audit. And gather all that information together and start kicking away at getting it into a centralized database and using it as you get it in there, and you'll grow from that and learn based on the results that you get what what's working and what's not working for you. So for example, could an organization and we all have donors that are segmented, because we know that they'd like to participate volunteer attend or donate to a certain programming, would you say that we could take that group and start there Okay we're going to really focus on the people let's say that give to our scholarship program, whatever, and then move then like look at that microcosm and figure out what's what's going on there or is that too risky because this is my, my devil's advocate And the question is it, I'll tell you, I cannot get beyond an email or snail mail that doesn't have the correct name. And it's, I know Jared has a name that, you know, is Jared. The first name or the last name is ransom the person I mean, and you know they screw up with Julia. I know how I can't imagine Jared what yours, what your communications look like. But beyond that when there are errors or you know is that more off putting than not using it. That's a good question. So, let's, let's take that in two sections if you will so your question about should we start with a certain segment and kind of do some testing there and or is that risky. I think that might be actually a very good approach because you can make some missteps with a smaller group and use that as your model going forward learn from that and then apply that to other segments. Maybe you start it with maybe you start it with just your internal organizational staff and test things that way. Okay, and then all the mistakes don't matter because you'll get that feedback and you'll say oh okay this field isn't working because of this and we need to fix that. So maybe that's a good way to do it to and then rule it out to a specific segment so that and then you'll have more confidence in what your program is doing for you. And then your second question is it more off putting you know that's an interesting question I don't know if off putting to do it wrong than to do it not at all. That's an interesting question. I don't know I think it depends on each person. So, um, and we like to make sure that when information is entered into the database that the person if I'm the donor the volunteer. I'm inputting that information myself rather than somebody from your organization doing it so that there's less chance of it being misspelled. Sometimes, have you ever done this, I've done this sometimes you sign up for an email program or an email list for an email newsletter whatever it is and I'm not really sure I want to give them all my information so I just put L instead of Lynn, right. And then you do that and that's actually when I get the emails, I'm like, oh yeah I did that so I know it was me. It's not their fault right and I just did that because I really just didn't want them to know my name for whatever reason. So that's why we like to make put the onus on the person receiving the communications to input their data as much as we can because it's then it's much more accurate. And any mistakes are not on our plate. Yeah, great. So we don't have much time and I know we still have two big questions are of this. I mean I feel like you've talked a little bit about it but the donor responses so when we know the difference between segmentation and personalization. Perhaps we level up our personalization game. What are we seeing by way of donor response. So what was so the, the donor response, let me share with you some statistics from, well they're from a variety of organizations, research organizations, I don't have anything specific to donor responses the Salesforce report didn't include that and I couldn't find anything on that but we know that people are people, our donors are also out there in the consumer world right and so we can assume that they are in these categories. So personalization delivers a six time higher transaction rate from experience says that. So, six times higher transaction rate which means transaction doing something, buying something donating something at six times higher transaction rates personalized email improves click through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10%. So we know we're getting higher click throughs which are the key indicator. Now that open rates are not quite as accurate as they used to be the click through rate is what we really want to be tracking, and that's where our most effectiveness is open rates increased by 41% when the subject line is personalized and 74% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement. So there's all kinds of research that tells us that personalization increases interaction with your customers with your clients with your donors with your volunteers. So, hopefully that answers some of that question that this is worth doing. So let's dive deeper into then that content creation and then managing the content because you know the open rate is wonderful the click through rate is even more wonderful and better. So talk to us Lynn if you would about you know what should we think about as we begin to not only create the content, but then manage that content. So, this is this is fascinating the, the content creation and management is critically important. A couple that with personalization and that as an extra layer of sophistication to everything and thus a higher level of management needed overall of that because it's much more complicated it's much more sophisticated it's much more involved. So there needs to be a key point person in charge of content management for your organization and this needs to be someone who is relatively high in the organization and who has the ear, and the respect of your CEO or your president is at the top of your organization and that CEO slash president needs to understand the importance of this, and it's not just something that's delegated to somebody in marketing who's going to come up with a picture and something to say about it. Content management now needs to be much more thoughtful and much more strategic and much at a much higher place because with personalization, we're going to be able to determine this person over here needs to see this type of content on this topic because what they're interested in, and this person over here needs to see something different because they're interested in these different things instead. So it's a very much a high level type of management and importance, so that you can create that personalized for your donors, volunteers and beneficiaries. And then also, keep in mind that this is something that that I said, ah, okay. Marketing is now data driven. Yeah, marketing is not creating pretty pictures and making pretty videos and creating pretty posters. It is that, but that's not the putting the data on top of that is so important. And so if you need to have someone in your organization who loves data, who loves numbers who loves being able to figure out how to use those numbers for the personalization so that the content, the right content gets to the right person at the right time. Marketing now is data and understanding that is critical. I know it's for many of us. It's a lot more fun to create the pretty things and and the interesting and fun, you know, content, but the data drives all of that now. I love that quote, marketing is data. And I would say that in the nonprofit sector, we have been so bad at that we tend to be stronger at that with our clients and with our programming. But even then, for a lot of us, it's, it's challenging, you know, in the sector. So to hear you say this, there are a lot of probably marketing communication teams watching this going, ah, you know, because we have not been leading that way. And so you've really given us some new ideas and thoughts about this. I've got to ask you as we wind up, you know, this is really where we're going and I feel like we're at the beginning of it, would you agree or is there going to be something else that we, is this going to be a fad and we move off of it, I guess is what I'm saying. I do not think it's a fad. I do think we're at the beginning of it, especially in the nonprofit sector. The for-profit sector, well, the bigger companies are more advanced at this than the smaller ones, but in general, I think they're a little farther along than the nonprofit sector. So as I said, this is great opportunity to even just do a little bit and have some great results from it. However, I don't think it's a fad. I mean, the pandemic has accelerated everybody moving to, you know, more online. There's companies that went digital since the pandemic that were kind of like dragging their feet. But when the pandemic came, they said, yeah, we got to do this. And so this is not something that's going to go away. I think it's only going to increase. And there's also the advent of AI, right, so that that's going to become even more sophisticated. I don't think we're there yet with that to use that as a tool, especially in the nonprofit world. Certainly the data-driven viewpoint and mindset is something that needs to be put in place for the nonprofits through the long haul. Right. You know, as we end up, I've got to say, I absolutely, I find myself getting overwhelmed by this in so many ways. But the gem for me today and Jared, I don't know if this resonated with you or not was start with your internal communications. And that's your, you know, everything from your board to your employees, your vendors. I mean, I can see where you could take, you could get a pretty robust list pretty quickly. And then even communicate out, hey, we're going to be using this as a test or we're going to be experimenting with this. I love that because for me, the fear has always been, I don't want to fall flat with my donors, you know, like how do we have egg on your face, right? If the merge doesn't work well or it says, dear, insert name here, right? We've all gotten those emails. And they missed it here. And unfortunately, we too have been on that side, you know, where we haven't been the one that's going, I'm so embarrassed that this went out. So that huge takeaway, the differences between segmentation and personalization, you know, for some and maybe you Lynn, it seems very basic, but for others, it's like, yeah, you know, we've kind of used that as a synonym, and it's not a synonym. It's not, no. It's been amazing. Wow. I'm just delighted on a personal level that you reached out to me. You were somewhere where my name got reconnected and then you reached out. It's been great to see and hear you and you've always been such a wise mind when it comes to this discussion and so I'm so excited. Here's Lynn's information. Really, Lynn brings an amazing combination of what the for-profit world is doing and how that impacts the nonprofit. And so I always enjoy the things that you bring to light because they're things that I would not necessarily know. So here's Lynn's information and I suspect we're going to have you back on to talk about more of these things in depth because this is what we need to be talking about. I'd love to come back. This has been awesome. It's good because I feel like we simply scratch the surface. Oh yeah, there's a whole lot more even just with this topic. So yeah. I have a list of notes in fact that I wrote down. Well, thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Again, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I've been joined by the nonprofit nurse herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. We want to remind you if you want to go back and see other episodes, we're marching towards our 500 episodes. We've got a lot. Plus we have our learning episodes that are short snippets and we're up to well over 800 of those. Find us on Roku, YouTube TV, Amazon Fire TV, and then Vimeo. Again, thank you to all of our presenting sponsors who allow us to have these amazing conversations day in and day out. Without you, we would not be here. Wow, ladies, this was great. I am going to go back and be more committed to looking at our data, our own data, and try and figure out what the heck we need to do next. Absolutely. Thank you, Lynn. This is fantastic. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, ladies. Thank you. It's been a lot of fun. Hey, as we wrap up every episode of the nonprofit show, we want to remind you to stay well so you can do well. We'll see you back here tomorrow, everyone. Thanks. Thank you.