Written by 
Vicky Reeves, Managing Director of goDonate, reveals practical ideas charities can implement to maximise their online income:
- 1. Understand current donor journeys – consider their starting point – was it TV, OOH, social? – and how this experience progresses, so that pain points can be ironed out and drop-offs decreased.
2. Recognise engagement-based giving – you can’t expect people to donate based on first contact: getting noticed across numerous touchpoints and devices is key to conversion. Our model is ‘Engage, Connect, Convert’.
3. Don’t forget to test and learn – small changes can make a big difference. We don’t see enough testing once a supporter has reached a charity’s website. Optimising their experience could be as simple as tweaking prompt text or images.
4. Create impactful landing pages – a diverse audience visits your site, so your landing page has a big job to do. It needs to work across devices and offer a joined-up, consistent experience of your charity and its message.
5. Make sure messaging tallies – it’s vital to tell the same story throughout the donor journey, with relevant content, images and prompts appearing across an appeal campaign – all the way to the thank you email.
6. Take away donor distractions – the donation funnel should sit within your site but with a consistent look and feel so supporters are satisfied. Make the final donation form consistent and simple for them to complete!
7. Opting for opt-ins – many potential donors skip ‘keep in touch’ requests for fear of being spammed, but if you explain why it can be useful for them they’ll be more likely to tick the box.
8. Go frictionless with digital wallets – payment innovation is streamlining the online donation experience and helps supporters donate in seconds. They also encourage Regular Giving with 35% of recurring donations coming through digital wallets and cards, according to our goDonate data.
9. Harness QR codes with mobile-first campaigns – people are now more used to QR codes due to pandemic ‘check-ins’. They’re an efficient way for supporters to find out more and donate via their phone, while charities benefit from data capture and segmentation opportunities.
10. Stay on track with tracking – it’s vital to understand your donors’ experience, motivations and donation types. Track these and other factors so you can analyse the data and feed it into CRM that underpins ongoing supporter journeys.
To find out more on how you can optimise donations online with the goDonate platform
Read about some of our Success Stories here, or Contact Us to see how we can help you.