Tips from the Mobile Innogive Conference in Washington DC

The Innogive Conference was held in conjunction with the Nonprofit Technology Conference in DC. This was a full day packed with topics focused on mobile giving with several speakers from the nonprofit industry sharing their expertise and experience with mobile giving.

http://blog.digitalservices.npr.org/2011/03/25/tips-from-the-mobile-innogive-conference/

TIPS FROM THE MOBILE INNOGIVE CONFERENCE: Last week I attended Innogive Conference held in conjunction with the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington DC. This was a full day packed with topics focused on mobile giving with several speakers from the nonprofit industry sharing their expertise and experience with mobile giving.

Some interesting statistics shared at the conference include:

“13% of mobile phones in the US are smartphones but they account for 78% of data traffic”
“180 billion text messages are sent monthly in the US”
“There are more mobile phones in India than toilets!“

It’s clear to everyone that you simply can’t ignore mobile with the risk of becoming irrelevant. But at the same time the speakers all agreed that you need to have a good strategy and goals in mind before entering the mobile space. Not everyone is ready yet.

Here are some tips for a station thinking about entering the mobile space:

1.  Even if you’re not ready to start a mobile campaign yet, you should start collecting mobile numbers on all forms and communications so you have a database ready to go.

2.  With more and more people accessing their email and internet on mobile devices, it’s important to optimize your website and online donation forms for mobile display.

3.  The best way to approach mobile is to first work on engaging the donor, building trust and a relationship. Asking for a donation should come later. This will help turn one time impulse text donors to recurring donors.

4.  Mobile works best when integrated with other channels. A speaker from the Humane Society reported that they saw 77% increase in response rates during their year-end drive by texting an appeal to their donors a day before an email appeal hit their inboxes.  The text campaign worked as a reminder to donate and conveyed the urgency of year-end giving.

5.  Text-to-give alone works best when you can make a direct appeal. For example, at an event, ask people to pull out their mobile devices right there and text their donation.

6.  According to the speakers, mobile giving reaches a different demographic and in a different setting than other channels so it augments and does not cannibalize other giving.