Speaking Engagements

Trade Content for Contact and Build your Database

One relationship building tool that I am a big fan of is initiating a relationship with a prospective member through a free email newsletter. This is a great way to build your prospect database and help people get to know your organization.

I shared a while ago how the National Science Teachers Association has built a list of over 200,000 prospective members by using this technique. They basically exchange content for contact.

A friend of this blog from Convio recently shared with me their non-profit online benchmarking survey that highlights many online practices of non-profits including email list building. You can find out more about the study here.

One statistic that they shared is the medium size of email lists that have been developed by different categories of non-profits. Here is the chart from their report. [1]

A key step in building these files is to convert visitors to your website into registered users. Convio shares in their report that associations on average are converting 3.05% of visitors into registered users by getting them to volunteer their email address.

Do you have an active registration and email program with your organization?


[1] Quinn Donovan, Convio Analytics Manager , Vinay Bhagat, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Brian Hauf, VP Client Success Services, The Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index™ Study, March 2009.

2 comments:

Dan said...

Love this idea, Tony. Content for Contact seems like a fair swap. Especially these days the contact becomes so much more valuable. I think getting just the e-mail isn't enough though. Even after they become a registered user more swaps of special content/deeper access for adding info to their profile could be something to try.

Tony Rossell said...

Dan -- Thanks for the feedback. It is all about building a relationship. Just saw some frequency of contact data. It appears prospects who have received just one promotion are less likely to join than those who have had five touches. Building awareness and relationship takes time. Tony