The Pentera Blog
Westin St. Francis in San Francisco 4/24: Claudine Donikian Presents New Research, "Donor Stories in Planned Giving Marketing—To Use or Not to Use?"
Pentera CEO Claudine Donikian will present new research on donor stories at the 30th Annual Northern California Planned Giving Conference on Monday, April 24, 2023, in San Francisco.
Her presentation, "Donor Stories in Planned Giving Marketing—To Use or Not to Use?" begins at 1:45 p.m. Pacific Time. Please click here to register.
Claudine presents valuable, research-supported insights into the effectiveness of donor stories in fundraising appeals. “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, JD, MBA, 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 materials 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.
