REACHING MID TIER DONORS—MONICA C. SMITH SPEAKS AT AFPDC ROUNDTABLE
Monica C. Smith, President and CEO of Marketsmith, Inc. offered insights into segmenting and targeting donors in a presentation to the Washington DC Chapter of AFP (Association of Fundraising Professionals) May 30, 2006. Ms. Smith discussed the importance of segmenting donors by variables that create relevance for contact strategy – Affinity/attachment/involvement, ability/capacity, assets/income, behavior, predictive modeling, and demographics/psychographics. She advised the group to combine donor development scores with donor data to create personas and then apply RFM segmentation to donor file after personas determined.
She gave an example of working with a health research foundation where Marketsmith was able to increase the average donation through modeling and ask line testing even though response rate stayed constant.
She identified common mistakes made in creating contact strategy which is not targeted to its audience:
- Start with last gift and move up
- Include a wide range in the ask line from under $30 to over $250
- Use same ask line for donors and prospects
She also stated the necessity of ensuring data are clean and updated regularly.
A targeted approach, focusing on the characteristics for individual donor groups along with a supporting data structure and maintenance program will allow an organization to generate increased revenues.
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