Category Archives: Email List Building

The Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study

Posted on by Michael Stein

Gene Austin wrote in the June 2011 issue of Mal Warwick’s Newsletter that Convio recently released its fifth annual Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index™ Study designed to help nonprofit professionals understand beneficial online marketing metrics, evaluate the effectiveness of their organization compared to similar organizations and determine strategies for future success.

Key findings of the 2011 study include:

  • Online fundraising continues to grow. Overall, 79% of organizations included in the report raised more in 2010 than 2009.
  • Advocacy continues to play an important role. Total number of advocates on file increased by 20%, and 6.4% of advocates on file were also donors, up from 5.9% in 2009.
  • An increase in gift count and average gift size primarily drove fundraising gains. This indicates more people are moving online to give even if inspired through other channels.
  • Email files continued to grow strongly.  The median total email file grew 22% to 48,700 constituents. The increase in people engaging online means organizations need to ensure their communications and fundraising asks match the channel preferences for their constituents if they hope to maximize the value of each relationship.
  • Haiti relief played a strong role in growing aggregate online fundraising. The vertical most impacted by the Haiti event was the Disaster & Relief vertical, growing 38% from 2009 to 2010. Independent of the Haiti event, however, Disaster & Relief still grew at a healthy 23% from 2009 to 2010.

The entire report as a PDF can be downloaded here.


Email client market share

Posted on by Michael Stein

Here at Donordigital, we obsess about “email clients,” which are the various software tools that people use to read the email they receive. Our obsession derives from the fact that we have to test every email message campaign that we send out for our clients. Most of the time that goes smoothly.  Once in a while, an email message won’t render correctly in, say, Microsoft Outlook 2004.

Email clients fall into three general categories: desktop software such as Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, webmail in the cloud such as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, and then various email clients installed on mobile devices like iPhones or Blackberry.

Which got us wondering about the top email clients in use today.  Not surprisingly, various analysts have studied this issue.  We tracked down a 2010 report which shows the current state of the email client market, with data from almost 250 million email recipients.

Here’s the Top 10 email clients in decending order of estimated market share:

  • Microsoft Outlook – 43%*
  • Hotmail – 17%
  • Yahoo! Mail – 13%
  • Gmail – 5%
  • Apple Mail – 4%
  • iPhone – 4%
  • Thunderbird – 2.4%
  • Windows Live Mail (Desktop) – 2%
  • AOL Mail – 1.2%
  • Lotus Notes – 0.4%
  • Others – 8%

* Outlook 2003 and earlier – 34%

* Outlook 2007 – 9%

Read about this report


8 good online fundraising resources that help us learn

Posted on by Nick Allen

While the basic principles of online fundraising aren’t changing fast, the tools and tests of the ways that work are.  So it’s really worthwhile to keep up with the cleverest people in the world who are writing about them.  Here are 10 sources that can help you raise more money (and avoid some big mistakes).  Most are available as email newsletters, RSS feeds, or apps.

  1. The Agitator.  If your organization is cutting its budget and you can only afford one daily email, this is the one!  (Just kidding, it’s free.) Tom Belford and Roger Craver consistently find the most important research and campaigns and write passionately about them.
  2. Mashable, the indispensable mega-site covering social media, includes substantial coverage of nonprofit issues in the “social good” section.
  3. Beth Kanter.  Whether she’s in Beirut or Boston, Beth manages to turn out a daily post which usually contains at least one nugget, if not a complete how-to on a new trend in social networking. Sample: “I had the pleasure of experimenting with a text polling app to find out the composition of the audience and their experience with…how to integrate the use of mobile technology into multi-channel campaigns with an emphasis on social…    So, while we were waiting,  I asked the panelists to take bets….”
  4. Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog.  Katya Andresen, COO of Network for Good, always has useful and provocative ideas on online marketing.
  5. Kira Marchenese’s Online Communications for Nonprofits. Insights on social media and web usability for nonprofits always has news you can use.  In recent posts, Kira, director of Internet communications at Environmental Defense Fund, writes about RFPs and “why most Facebook marketing doesn’t work.”
  6. Chronicle of Philanthropy’s daily “Philanthropy Today” newsletter.  Indispensible coverage of the sector based on the Chronicle’s own excellent stories as well as major media coverage.
  7. Mark Phillips’ “Queer Ideas.” The head of London’s Bluefrog agency explores what’s working and what’s not from the UK point of view.  From a recent post: “Choice is becoming a buzzword in fundraising. But just how important is it? …organisations like Kiva, DonorsChoose and CRUK (with MyProjects) have done rather well by offering people a chance to decide how their donations are used. …But is choice the key factor that lies behind this level of fundraising success?”
  8. UK Fundraising.  A UK version of the Chronicle, this weekly newsletter includes news you can use even if you’ve never heard of the organizations making it. Sample: “As part of its annual Cards for a Cure™ campaign, Hallmark Cards is asking adults and children to declare their love for their mother on an online ‘Mums Wall’, with the most ‘liked’ messages turned into…”

Nick Allen is co-founder and chief strategy officer of Donordigital, the online fundraising, marketing, and advertising company.  Contact: nick@donordigital.com or phone (510) 473-0366.