13 Amazing Takeaways from the DMAW Data Strategy Forum

Recently, PMG’s Polly Papsadore and Jaime Grams joined event sponsor MMI Direct’s Charlie Rice and nearly 100 industry colleagues at the 2022 DMAW Data Strategy Forum at the National Housing Center in Washington, DC.

A big thanks to all the excellent presenters who advanced attendees’ understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing omnichannel fundraisers amidst a shifting economic climate.

Here are 13 key takeaways from the event:

1. Your best donors keep giving even during challenging times like 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and Covid because they are bound to your mission. And donors who join during these times typically end up with very strong lifetime value. Identify them and treat them well!
2. Beware of the flaws of averages: a rolled-up average gift metric encompassing all audience segments is not always helpful. It’s better to build your strategies around the gift amounts of meaningful groups of donors.
3. Focus on tests that will reduce costs, especially in this current environment with increasing materials and production costs and ongoing supply chain issues. Contact us for a free postal analysis to start cutting postage costs on your next and future mailings. 
4. Mail online-acquired donors once per quarter, mail direct-mail-acquired donors once per month.
5. Develop long-term tests related to direct mail and digital cadence vs. being solely focused on episodic, campaign-based testing. Donors are on a continuum, not just interacting in a moment of time.
6. A great single-question to ask donors which can reveal insights and messaging ideas for your future fundraising: What is the one sentence you would use to describe why you give to this organization?
7. Offering new payment options signals that your organization is culturally aware, forward-thinking and efficient. It reflects well on your brand and mission, especially with tech-savvy and younger donors.
8. Top payment options to include in your fundraising efforts: Vanity URLs, QR codes, EFT/EBT (Electronic Funds Transfer, also called Electronic Bank Transfer), PayPal.
9. 28% of online gifts are made via mobile and digital wallets like PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Wallet, Venmo, etc. and lift mobile conversion by 14%!
10. Matchback attribution reveals the true efficacy and value of direct mail by considering all gifts by recipients and not just directly attributed replies. Contact us to learn about we can help you obtain a best-in-class matchback analysis from our colleagues at MMI Direct! 
11. Test to try: Mail modeled online-only donors at year-end.
12. Tele Townhalls are an effective way to connect with supporters and are particularly successful when organizations have a dynamic leader to engage with attendees.
13. Data Lakes are easier to set up than you may think! Your CRM is everything you need today to implement your programs. Your Data Lake is everything you may need. Pro-tip for Data Lake Do-It-Yourselfers: Implement a process once per month where you export data sets from all your systems and place them in your data lake. You’ll have a robust data lake running in a month! This is a fascinating topic that will be explored in greater depth at future DMAW events and here on the PMG Family blogs.

DMAW closed out the day by formalizing the next evolution of the Data Strategy Forum: the Multi-Channel Mini-Con scheduled for October 2023 dubbed a two-day “Supershow” combining Digital Day and Data Strategy Forum into a shared event. 

The PMG Family, including MailSmart Logistics, MMI Direct, and PMG look forward to this next iteration!

Thanks to Charlie and MMI Direct, the 2022 Networking Reception Partner, for keeping the good times rolling into the 6PM hour (whoaaah!) and to all other event partners, producers, participants, and partakers!