Are we creeping into Big Brother territory, or is this just another way to ensure you fully enjoy your museum experience? An interesting article by Ellen Gamerman in the Wall Street Journal, entitled “When the Art Is Watching You,” discusses the innovative tracking technology that some museums are using to make marketing, fundraising, and curating decisions.

Gamerman writes about the Dallas Museum of Art’s program, in which frequent visitors can use their smart phones to check in throughout the building and win points toward rewards “like free parking, special-exhibition tickets or private use of the museum’s movie theater. The museum then filters the data to better understand guests’ behavior, like how often they visit, which shows they flock to and what art they ignore.”

According to Gamerman, “Across the country, museums are mining increasingly detailed layers of information about their guests, employing some of the same strategies that companies like Macy’s, Netflix and Wal-Mart have used in recent years to boost sales by tracking customer behavior. Museums are using the visitor data to inform decisions on everything from exhibit design to donor outreach to gift-shop marketing strategies.”

We’re all for knowing your donors’ and visitors’ habits and preferences, and for using this information to determine new ways to engage and excite museum-goers. And what better time to engage them than when they are having a positive on-site experience?

Of course, this cutting-edge technology is outside some venues’ budgets. So in this same vein, but without the Big Brother vibe, we’ve put together a checklist of some of the best ways to ensure that your on-site visitors are receiving your membership message—because there is no better time to convey the need for support than when someone is having a firsthand, positive experience with your organization.

Visibility
• Prominently display membership materials at your information booths or kiosks.
• Integrate membership messaging into the “Plan Your Visit” section of your website and/or your online advance ticket purchase process.
• Display signage promoting member discounts and current promotions at entrances and exits, points of purchase (e.g., tickets, bookstores), and frequently visited places (e.g., restrooms, parking lots).
• Print membership messages on tickets/passes, will-call envelopes, receipts, and programs.
• Offer complimentary membership bookmarks (or another appropriate giveaway) at gift shops.
• Display membership table tents in bathrooms, lounges, and dining areas.
• Visibly recognize current members via a banner or rolling electronic sign.
• Conduct on-site membership canvassing with mobile devices.

Sifting through the aftermath of Digital Year-end 2014, the clearest pattern to emerge is that it wasn’t a year of dramatic changes. Nonprofits came around to implementing best practices—forgoing the shiny and new to capitalize on year-end giving with the strategies they knew would work: cleaning and building their lists before year end, either through appends or list buys; implementing lightboxes that seemed to work quite well for most organizations; segmenting based on donor behavior (not just giving, but also filtering out non-responsive people, or non-openers).

There were a handful of Avalon clients that were unable to implement matching gifts this year, when they had reliably used them in the past. As we predicted, the lack of a matching gift had a negative impact on results compared to prior years, which pointed to some potential issues with Development departments and their planning or constricting of gifts. (See Allison Porter’s thoughts on the win-win nature of matching gifts here.)

So far, we’ve seen our clients exceed last year’s year-end totals—some because of new strategy, some because of increased email sends. In addition to December activity, we ensured that our clients got in on the Giving Tuesday phenomenon, but we employed it as a kick-off to their year-end campaigns, vocalizing a substantial case for support, rather than simply asking donors to give because it was Giving Tuesday.

In its third year, Giving Tuesday has grown into a true movement for giving around the world and serves as a counter to the spending-frenzy-induced days like Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. Social media was abuzz with posts (check out this collection of the best posts from Giving Tuesday).

Many of our clients used Giving Tuesday as a springboard for their whole year-end giving campaign, not just Giving Tuesday; making sure their case for support was strong, relevant, and helped donors understand what their gifts could do. And this messaging will be supported by subsequent messages throughout December to motivate donors to give. Early returns show that a number of our clients saw increases over last year’s Giving Tuesday results, though some saw similar totals, and for still others it was their first time out. Many of our clients also saw increased traction on social media and collateral bumps in online revenue that may not be directly attributable to a Giving Tuesday link.

Unfortunately, many organizations’ emails I received were big on Giving Tuesday flash, but short on case for support. But with the uptick in awareness around the Giving Tuesday movement, maybe that’s something to test? My favorite tweet:

Brian Reich@BrianReich · Dec 2

I fully support #GivingTuesday – but I do wish the hundreds of charitable orgs wanting my money were a bit more creative with their asks.

In direct mail marketing, we create donor acquisition control packages that produce solid results, and workhorse appeal campaigns that deliver year after year. Because they work.

But what about online marketing?

We are all enthusiastic about the potential of this channel, and, as with other communications channels, we need to create a foundation for digital on which our marketing can grow. To position our digital programs for the long term, we need to establish the security of an anchor campaign, and then test, tweak, and improve from there.

If you haven’t created an online anchor campaign, now is the time to write, design, test, and launch what can become the underpinning for your entire online program.

Avalon has developed five perennial digital campaigns that deliver for our clients every time. Tailor one to your message and mission, test its effectiveness, and create your own online anchor campaign.

• Motivate your supporters to give with a Membership Month campaign that presents a compelling theme with a built-in time limit. Throughout the month, you can add promotions, goals, and urgency to compel donors to sign up.
• Online Voting is a terrific way to engage members by soliciting their preferences and encouraging donations. We have run numerous online voting campaigns, including one to select the cover photo for a printed calendar and another to choose the best humorous photo caption. Emailing results is another reason to contact supporters, and one they’ll look forward to.
• Mirror your renewals online by synching your mailed and e-Renewals to give each a response boost. Simple and effective.
  Read More

Lots of chatter online this month about the recently released, always fascinating Giving USA report and the Q4 2013 donorCentrics™ Index of Direct Marketing Fundraising. The primary good news take-away from Giving USA is that overall charitable giving is up for the fourth consecutive year. And donorCentrics spotlights the fact that individuals are giving more per person, which masks the downward trend in acquisition investment.

So what does this mean as we move forward?

First of all, pay attention to your donors. Joe Boland writes about the uptick in individual giving in Fundraising Success, “It’s just more proof that every donor matters… Fundraisers must always focus on their donors, cultivating them and building trusting, intimate relationships to land those future major gifts — and maybe even those future grants and corporate dollars.”

We couldn’t agree more. We know that the best ways to encourage donations are to focus on meeting individual donors where they are, to offer multi-channel ways for them to engage with your organization, and to cultivate their broad-based support for your mission.

Here is what I’ve seen and heard online recently:

• Check out Alchemy Worx’s 3 Reasons to Consider Sending More Emails and remember that an increase in volume must also be relevant and meaningful to your supporters.

• Want more choices than simply Subject Line A or Subject Line B when segmenting your email file? Google Grid View allows marketers to send Image A, B, C, D, and E, all at once, and let an algorithm determine which of these images to serve to the person seeing it, based on the device, time of day, location, behavior, gender, age, and even purchase history. Read all about it!

• And last, a blog about click-to-call technology – in The Mobile Call to Action That Drives More Revenue Than the Rest, Eric Holmen cites Google’s report, The Role of the Click to Call in the Path to Purchase, 70 percent of mobile searchers have used the call button to connect directly with a business from the search results page. Definitely something to consider when potential supporters are seeking information about your organization and you’re seeking to convert them to donors.