The Pentera Blog
Pennsylvania Webinar 9/21: Claudine Donikian Presents New Research, "Donor Stories in Planned Giving Marketing—To Use or Not to Use."
Pentera CEO Claudine Donikian continues presenting her new research on donor stories in a Webinar to the Planned Giving Council of Central Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Sept. 21—the first of many presentations of the research on her national tour this fall. The research is being well-received by planned giving councils throughout the nation and changing the way planned giving departments are writing donor stories. As one client said recently, "Based on Claudine's donor story research, our university immediately changed its strategy on how to write donor stories we include in our planned giving marketing."
"Donor Stories in Planned Giving Marketing—To Use or Not to Use?" begins at 1 p.m. ET Sept. 21. You can learn more at plannedgivingcouncilcentralpenn.org. Claudine will also be making presentations of the donor story research between now and well into 2022 to planned giving councils in Minnesota, Nebraska, Florida, Arizona, Texas, and Iowa.
"The planned giving industry assumes that donor stories are an effective way to inspire other donors and to increase engagement, including response, in marketing materials," says Claudine, a sought-after speaker who has been president & CEO of Pentera since 2010. "But could certain donor stories have the opposite effect and decrease engagement and response? To date there has been no formal, large-scale research study conducted on planned giving marketing to support or counter those industry assumptions—until now."
The Pentera research study to be presented analyzes two key email metrics: The click-through rate and the response rate from tens of thousands of eNewsletters that went to millions of prospective donors over several years. The study includes the surprising key finding that certain types of donor stories can actually decrease response rates. Based on the findings of the study, Claudine recommends when to use donor stories in marketing materials and when not to—as well as what types of donor stories to avoid. Guidelines are presented on how to write effective donor stories and donor blurbs to get the best response rates possible.
