Donor management: Tools to segment & personalize mailing list

In the family of donor management tools that nonprofit associations should use, the most important one would enable “personalized communication” based on the “segmentation” of its audience.

Each customer is unique, so why would you want reach them with the single approach?

It is a question of not sending a single letter to tens or hundreds of people who have little in common – It is a matter of grouping its recipient donors and personalizing its message for each group (the individualization of the message being the most advanced level).

One of the oldest and best techniques for segmenting a database is the RFM (Recency, Frequency, and Amount) analysis. RFM analysis is simple because it does not require complex statistical analysis or detailed demographic profiles.

If nonprofit associations have their donor’s giving history in their database, then they can do an RFM analysis. This analysis is said to be a powerful donor management tool because it brings together three of the best indicators of a donor’s interest in the cause.

In other words they can be classified in the following five groups:

1. New donors (have just made their first donation)
2. (Less than one year old)
3. Old donors (have given before a year)
4. Regular donors (those who give regularly, for example by monthly contributors)
5. The donors by giving levels (those who give via a group, once a certain threshold is reached)

Other popular methods of segmentation non-profit associations can use are:

Segmentation by Geographic territories

E-mail delivery by geographic location can provide you with a significant advantage. Spending time segmenting your donors by region, department or city can help you personalize your events and appeals for these donors.

Segmentation by Age/Sex

Email marketing can also be tailored to the age and gender of your donors. The tone of the content, the images used, and even the kind of charity events themselves, can give better results if they target a more specific audience. By establishing alternative advertising methods based on these two demographic criteria, companies can attract a wider audience without too much effort.