Creating Consistent Messaging for Omnichannel Campaigns
Very few supporters will contribute to nonprofits they don’t have a relationship with, and as a result, highly personalized donor journeys are becoming the new normal. To keep up with donors’ expectations, many nonprofits adopt an omnichannel messaging approach.
Omnichannel marketing is similar to multichannel marketing in that it involves reaching out to supporters across several different communication platforms. However, it differs in that it leverages supporter data to create consistent, personalized messages across channels that reflect where each donor is in their support journey and push them toward the next step.
While omnichannel marketing can be exceptionally effective at earning support, these campaigns can quickly become unfeasible without the right tools and strategies. To help your nonprofit launch an organized omnichannel campaign, this guide will explore four tips for creating consistent messaging.
1. Collect and leverage data.
All communication strategies rely on data, but accurate, up-to-date information is especially important for the hyper-personalized nature of omnichannel campaigns. After all, this outreach strategy requires identifying specific donors on multiple platforms, logging their responses to your messages, and following up with the right donor through additional channels.
As part of your omnichannel strategy, ensure you have the proper tools and partners to keep donor identities organized. Deep Sync discusses how identity resolution is essential for monitoring all of an individual supporter’s interactions with your nonprofit to create one unified, comprehensive profile. With proper identity resolution, your nonprofit can:
- Create custom messages that enhance the supporter experience.
- Combine offline and online data to create holistic donor profiles.
- Deliver consistent messages across all touchpoints that advance the supporter journey.
- Attribute responses and actions to individual supporters.
- Better manage fundraising campaigns and eliminate wasted ad spend.
Along with leveraging supporter data, you should also track your results on the communication channels you’ve implemented. While omnichannel marketing derives its power from leveraging multiple platforms, you might discover that some channels have a stronger impact on donor conversions than others.
2. Develop messaging guidelines.
Omnichannel marketing involves creating messages for numerous platforms. To keep these messages consistent without sacrificing personalization, nonprofits should develop standardized messaging guidelines.
Your guidelines are essentially a repeatable framework that your marketing team can use to create message templates, write one-off messages, tweak messages for various platforms, and generally communicate with your supporters.
Along with a style guide for your nonprofit’s brand, each outreach campaign should also have a consistent message. Getting Attention’s guide to nonprofit marketing recommends implementing the CRAM method for creating effective, repeatable messages. CRAM messages are:
- Connected to a cause. Link every message you send supporters not just to your overall campaign but to things, people, and causes your audience cares about.
- Rewarding. Reading your messages and following through on the desired next steps should make your audience feel fulfilled or inspired. For instance, you might send a supporter a direct message on social media, sharing a story about a constituent and asking for a donation to help support them. Then, once the supporter donates, you could follow up via an email that describes how their specific donation helps the constituent from your story.
- Actionable. Messages should include a clear call to action (CTA) that tells supporters what to do next. Include only one CTA per message to avoid overwhelming or confusing supporters.
- Memorable. To stand out from the rest of the messages your supporters receive on a daily basis, tell stories to evoke emotions, use bold visuals, or share powerful statistics.
Omnichannel messages that keep supporters focused can smoothly move them from one step of the donor journey to the next, all while maintaining your nonprofit’s brand identity.
3. Coordinate messaging across channels.
The key to an omnichannel campaign is ensuring each message builds on the one before it, even while jumping between communication channels. As a result, performing an omnichannel campaign requires sophisticated marketing software that enables your team to coordinate personalized messages at scale.
You can leverage communication platforms to facilitate your omnichannel campaign by:
- Automating messages. To operate at scale, many of your omnichannel messages will be automated, relying on standardized templates and data in your donor profiles to create personalized messages. For example, you might set up an automated trigger that sends anyone who signs up for an event on your website a thank-you email.
- Assigning task ownership. Some parts of your messaging will be more hands-on, such as direct messaging and phone banking. For these tasks, assign ownership so your team knows who is responsible for what, and each communication cadence moves forward at a steady pace.
- Creating a content calendar. All outreach campaigns should have a content calendar with deadlines for when team members must create content by and when it goes live. For your omnichannel campaign, you might use your content calendar to coordinate with graphic designers, creating unique versions of images for each platform you intend to contact supporters on.
When researching marketing tools, look for their ability to help nonprofits manage multiple communication platforms, including email, SMS, social media, and direct mail. If one platform doesn’t have robust enough functionalities for all of these channels, consider finding a software solution with a wide number of integrations, like Salesforce or Blackbaud products, so you can invest in specialized tools.
4. Evaluate campaign performance.
Throughout your campaign, keep a close eye on your messaging strategies to see what resonates with supporters and what you may need to adjust. For instance, you might find that one channel is particularly effective for certain types of messages or discover that your audience is fairly absent on a platform you assumed would be more popular.
To continually evaluate and improve your campaign, consider:
- Conducting A/B testing. Experiment with different message styles to see which approaches have the strongest impact on your donors. For instance, when directly messaging supporters on social media, you might experiment with two different greetings to see which results in more responses.
- Collecting supporter feedback. For supporters who engage with your organization during your omnichannel campaign, survey them about their experiences. Ask them where they first heard about your nonprofit, what their preferred communication channels are, and what convinced them to donate.
- Supplementing your data. An omnichannel campaign requires having immense amounts of supporter data, and while planning your campaign, you might find that certain information is missing or outdated. Consider seeking third-party data sources to supplement your donor profiles.
By iterating on your strategy throughout your campaign, you enhance your current campaign’s results and gather insights for future campaigns.
Omnichannel campaigns can drive donor engagement to new levels through a combination of hyper-personalization and multichannel touchpoints. To launch a successful omnichannel campaign, start exploring software solutions that can adapt to this highly individualized outreach strategy, and consider working with a data provider to source the data you need for precise targeting and personalization.
