Picture 11 Sean Powell has just published a rather useful free e-book that will point anyone who isn’t well versed in online fundraising in the right direction.

His key points are:

  1. Set up a listening post (I’d addsamepoint.com to Sean’s recommendations).
  2. Re-purpose your content (what works in DM or on TV, will also work online).
  3. Coordinate you mailings and your online activity (at a minimum, I’d recommend you test a pre-mailing email before the direct mail pack and an e-reminder shortly afterwards).
  4. Benchmark, test and measure.
  5. Offline techniques can also work online (matching gifts, donor focused subject lines, adding a PS are all worth using).
  6. Email clients like Outlook and Gmail don’t adhere to HTML standards like web browsers so get ready to test to overcome the quirks (or just stick to plain text which regularly generates the best results for us at Bluefrog).
  7. Seed your email just like direct mail.
  8. Collect email addresses at every opportunity.
  9. Refresh and increase your list size at every opportunity (but remember the old adage, garbage in = garbage out).
  10. Crowdsource your fundraising (supporter get supporter programmes work very well online – take a look at JustGiving).
  11. People like video (mention it in your subject line and it increases open rates).

The e-book has loads more great information and links to very useful resources. You can download your copy here.