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No matter how decorated it looks, if it has no return on investment (ROI), you get zero out of ten. Of course, it depends on the type of goals you set up for your website but mostly, people want their website to attract online donations and/or increase their mailing list. Every organization needs money to support its causes and a mailing list to engage the donors and volunteers, and the website provides this opportunity.
Nevertheless, not all people are able to get donations online or increase their mailing lists because they fail to define their value proposition. In this post, we will discuss one way to increase your online donations and grow your mailing list by simply defining your value proposition.
Imagine you have a high-class website with more visitors coming, reading through your About Us page, checking your projects, reading your wonderful stories and even going as far as the Donation page, but leave the website without taking any action?
If you already have a website I am sure that at some point you might have experienced or still experience this.
But why do hundreds of people visit your website but still not sign up for your newsletter? Donations? Do you think you are not doing a great job? Or is it that your cause is not worth it? No! A big NO! You might be screaming, ‘If no, then why? Why me?’ Don’t worry! I can understand your pain but wait…! Open your website in a new tab especially where you embedded your donation and newsletter signup forms………….
Done?
Great! Now, let’s talk about these two key features one by one.
Your form still looks good, right? Fantastic! But when was the last time you received a donation through that form? If you have never received any or you get less than expected, then I suspect your donation form has no value attached to it. It’s just there, to fill blank space.
Yet, this is a great opportunity for you to offer value. We are not talking about the values of goods here but an emotional value – something that will influence someone to contribute to your cause. Or is there any text accompanying the form? If so, what does it say? Is it something that can entice people to contribute?
Let’s say you are a nonprofit organization working on getting girls back to school. Instead of only placing the donate button, you may inscribe some text and attach it to the donation form saying: “By choosing to donate, you are helping 3000 girls in Mangochi to go back to school and reduce maternity mortality.” Got it?
Now compare that with a website that only has a donation form with the text “Donate”. If you are interested in donating, which one will you go for? Obviously, the first one is because you know why you are donating – there is an emotional value attached to it.
Likewise, an E-newsletter is very important for nonprofits. It helps you to engage with your volunteers, and your donors and even provide updates to the people who share the same vision with you. However, if your newsletter signup form just has a title or a text like “Newsletter” or “Sign Up For Our E-Newsletter”, that’s enough of a reason you should be failing to grow your mailing list. These texts don’t provide any effective value proposition.
The reason why people should sign up is not communicated and it will make them wonder what kind of content they will receive and how often they are to provide their email address. Therefore, if you are a nonprofit organization working on girls' education like the example above and you want to get more signups, your text might read like this: “Sign up for monthly news, and stories of our girls.” The value is clear, right? If I’m interested in girls’ education and I want to know how this organization is changing the lives of girls, I will definitely sign up. After all, I also know that emails will only be sent once a month, so I’m not concerned about daily emails flooding my inbox.
To sum up, many nonprofits fail to get more online donations and grow their mailing list because they fail to provide value propositions. They fail to communicate the benefits visitors receive or will receive for taking action on their website.
For instance, you may go for a business website and someone selling weight loss pills might write this text alongside their newsletter signup form: “Signup to our newsletter and Lose weight in 30 minutes.” That’s a clear benefit to giving away your email address, right? Great! It’s the same with a nonprofit website.
If you have a website with these things taken into consideration and still more you can’t get donations or grow your mailing list, you can contact us and request a free one-hour consultation.
