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Imagine a large garden. Tomatoes growing on the vine, the tops of carrots poking above the soil, pollinators going about their crucial work. The gardener is just about finished weeding for the day and then will turn on the irrigation system to ensure all the plants get the hydration they need to thrive. They put up their gloves and spade in the shed and kick on the fancy subsurface drip irrigation system before going back into their perfectly decorated home.
Inside, the gardener sits in a handcrafted chair, sipping some artisan peppermint tea and reading the latest issue of “Perennials for You.” Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, a dire issue is unfolding just outside their window…
Cut to a few weeks later, and the garden is withering. The gardener stands at the head of the once-lush plot of land, scratching their head.
“What went wrong? I’ve been increasing the amount of water I give the garden every week, but it just keeps getting worse.”
Zoom in with me now under the dirt, where we see the intricate irrigation system—riddled with leaks. The water the gardener paid for never reached the plants. Increasing the amount of water or time the system ran had no effect because the vast majority of the water wasn’t getting where it needed to go.
Catching the metaphor yet? We see this exact scenario all the time.
Optimization Work = Acquisition Work
I think it’s fair to say that if you’re reading this, you would like to acquire some more donors. In fact, almost every client we work alongside expresses a desire to increase the number of acquired donors year over year. It can be tempting to pursue this goal by increasing the reach of paid media or expanding into new channels to get more traffic to your mission’s website.
What can easily go overlooked, however, is where the traffic is being directed to.
Let’s return to the garden for a moment. As it withered, the gardener paid for more and more water to be pumped into the system. This is like buying more clicks to increase traffic to your website. But what the gardener neglected to do was ensure that the water was being given the best possible chance of actually nourishing the garden. This is directing traffic to a suboptimal page!
You can get all the clicks in the world, and it won’t mean anything if where the click leads someone is a confusing, anxiety-inducing, friction-laden experience. You’re wasting water. This leads me to the core principle of this article: Optimization Work = Acquisition Work.
It can be very easy to write off optimization efforts as unnecessary. They can be complicated. They can introduce some level of risk. They don’t always produce the outcome you hope for. It can be difficult to assign a direct ROI. No one wants to dig up their irrigation system and painstakingly test each segment to ensure it is working effectively. It can be oh so tempting to simply buy some more water. To get the newfangled mineral-enhanced water straight from the hidden springs of the promised land.
You can get a huge volume of highly motivated traffic from your media strategy and still fail to produce a meaningful result because of the quality of your digital experiences. To really maximize the value of your incoming traffic, you have to fix your irrigation system!
Plugging the Leaks
Here are a few things you can check right away to see if you’re wasting water.
Homepage Experience
Take a look at your homepage from a first-time visitor’s perspective. Has it been optimized to educate and instantly draw them into your mission? Or is it packed with industry speak, dense blocks of text, and confusing statistics? Making sure your homepage gives a strong first impression is crucial. We talked a bit about what makes an excellent homepage experience in our blog article How to Build a Homepage That Thrives, if you need some guidance.
Donation Page Experience
Also check out our Designing a Donation Page Ecosystem blog for the full breakdown of what really makes a donation page sing. Some very important things to keep in mind: ensure it is designed from a mobile-first perspective, contains laser-focused clarity on the value of a donor’s gift*, and does not contain distracting elements that could lead the user away from the page.
*This must also be articulated in a way that resonates with your target audience. Beware of language that may confuse a layman!
Ad-to-Landing Page Cohesiveness
Cohesive messaging means that the language, offer, and branding displayed in the ad is mirrored on the landing page. Discordant, complex, or incomprehensible messaging can drastically increase user frustration. Imagine you click on an ad that says you can help bring relief to a particular region only to see a totally different place referenced on the landing page. Most folks are hitting the eject button faster than you can say “Oops, we meant to update that.”
Thank-You/Welcome Series Audit
This tip leans more towards cultivation rather than acquisition, but it’s too important to leave out. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve been told, “Yes, we have a thank-you email series after the donor gives a gift!” only to be faced with radio silence after we run a test gift. Properly thanking and celebrating the donor after they give is the easiest way to increase the odds of them coming back. As the old adage goes, “You really only acquire a donor after their second gift.” The first one can often be a trial run, or even an impulse gift.
Final Thoughts
Determining the optimal configuration of your digital experiences is not an optional endeavor. Spending time doing the hard work of digging out the guts of your irrigation system and examining them with a magnifying glass to find the leaks is crucial to the success of your garden. This is vitally important to investigate in terms of your acquisition practices, but it extends far beyond that.
Struggling to get new donors? What does your donation experience look like? Is it full of jargon and industry speak that would be befuddling to someone who just learned about your cause?
Seeing an increase in lapsed donors? What is your cultivation strategy? How are you making them feel seen, celebrated, and crucial to your organization’s success?
Having a hard time upgrading single givers to monthly? How are you asking them to do so? How are you building a relationship with them that makes them feel even more folded into your mission?
