In part one of this series, we discussed connecting with and growing with advocates and donors in the new digital landscape.  Here, we’ll look at data-driven marketing strategies to grow advocacy and fundraising as a good first step in establishing clear success metrics. 

Often, in cause-related organizations, delivering to metrics is confused with and/or usurped by delivering to the organization’s mission. This is not to say that delivering to a philanthropic mission is not an ultimate goal. However, using the success of a mission as a marketing performance indicator can be vague, serving neither senior leadership nor the marketing team committed to driving advocacy and fundraising for the mission. At worst, if a marketing team is focused solely on delivering the mission, their performance will become invisible rather than transparent.

So if not the mission, then what? There are three key performance indicators, each with clear success metrics, that will help drive and track fundraising and advocacy goals, and ultimately, deliver to the broader organization’s mission: awareness, consideration and conversion.

So this all sounds great, but how best to capture, track, and analyze these performance indicators? The first step is to point all marketing lead sources to the website. With marketing automation and lead tracking in place, the website functions as a primary marketing sales platform. All leads, closed or open, move back up into marketing for ongoing nurturing or until they are removed.

The ultimate goal is to establish a continual flow of attracting, engaging, and delighting advocates and donors. 

With the above methodologies in place, philanthropic organizations can easily set fundraising goals that are directly connected to the marketing performance data points of website traffic, contact conversion and engagement, and donor contact and retention. 

Find out how to establish a data-driven platform for your philanthropic organization with a complimentary assessment of your marketing tech stack inclusive website performance.