year-end campaign

How to Segment Your Year-End Campaign

As we head into year-end campaign season, you may be contemplating the importance of segmentation, targeted user flows, and messaging. Although all these things can take additional resources, they are most definitely worth it.

In a chaotic digital world, it’s more important than ever to put the user at the center of your communications strategy and speak directly to what interests them. I know for nonprofits, this can be challenging due to technology limitations or resources.

At Media Cause, when we implement a targeted year-end campaign, we’ve seen anywhere from a 10% to a 98% increase in year-over-year campaign growth!

With all of our campaigns, we’re always implementing some type of segmentation. Whether it’s just donors vs. non-donors, or active vs. inactive donors, knowing who you are speaking to is one of the most important components of your fundraising campaign. Something as simple as thanking donors for their previous contributions or even acknowledging what they have already done can go a long way.

Here are a few segmentation suggestions as you head into year-end:

  • Donors vs. Non-donors: Acknowledging your donors for their previous contributions. If they gave at a specific program level, acknowledge that!
  • Donor Recency: Treat your donors differently depending on when their last gift was, or how often they give.
  • Program involvement: Target users by how they are connected to your organization.
  • Giving Capacity: Don’t leave money on the table! If you know HPC, use that to customize the ask strategy. If it’s a completely new lead, try testing high and low ask amounts.
  • Online vs. Direct Mail: Donors interact with online differently than in the mail. Don’t just transfer your direct mail pieces online.

If your organization doesn’t have as much data as you would like, fall back on donors vs. non-donors segmentation. Take a file from your CRM or donor database manually and use that for your two email segments. It’s simple, but still effective.

For more year-end fundraising tips, check out our other blog posts.


Looking for support in developing a successful year-end digital fundraising strategy? Get in touch! We’d love to help.