At the 9th Annual Bridge Conference, Tiffany Quast and Bethany Maki of Paradysz, alongside Cathy Jenkins of Paralyzed Veterans of America, shared their insights into the steps PVA took to enhance and uplift their digital program, including: ◾Developing a meaningful audience segmentation strategy for an online and multichannel donor file ◾Testing into a new email cadence without sacrificing net revenue ◾Integrating social media and email efforts

1. A Digital Program Facelift:
How to Reinvent your Program without Reinventing the Wheel
Cathy Jenkins, Paralyzed Veterans of America
Tiffany Quast, Paradysz
Bethany Maki, PM Digital
#Bridge14

2. Reinventing your Digital Program without Reinventing the Wheel

3. Why Was it Time for Paralyzed Veterans to Reinvent the Program?
• Recognizable need for change, but fear of negatively impacting revenues
• File growth and Online Revenues were starting to flat line YOY
• Delta between what used to work and a new emerging strategies was becoming more apparent
• This industry MOVES FAST! Need for change is constant!
• Testing new concepts where there is little revenue impact
• Started testing with a 10 month campaign series

4. Objectives of Today’s Session
Develop meaningful audience segmentation
for an online and multichannel donor file
Test into a new email cadence without
sacrificing net revenue
Integrate social media and email efforts

5. Develop meaningful audience segmentation for an
online and multichannel donor file

6. Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
Demographic
Consumer
Behavior
Financial
Landscape
Channel
Preference
Attitudes
& Preference
Interests
& Hobbies
How can we identify and convert relevant data into marketing
intelligence that improves performance?

7. Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
Model
Variables
Prospects & Donors
Demographic
Consumer
Behavior
Financial
Landscape
Channel
Preference
Attitudes
& Preference
Interests
& Hobbies
Data Append
Personas Identified

8. Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
Gender
Male 35% 39% 27% 37% 36% 35%
Female 58% 53% 66% 56% 52% 57%
Unknown 7% 8% 7% 7% 13% 8%
Age 77 59 68 77 56 68
# of Adults in HH 1.79 2.59 2.39 2.17 1.66 2.13
Income $ 27,500 $ 75,000 $ 37,500 $ 45,000 $ 30,000 $ 43,000
Home Market Value
('000)
$120 $292 $124 $239 $134 $197
Thrifty
Seniors
Affluent
Boomers
Compassionate
Seniors
Golden
Seniors
Struggling
Boomers
PVA
Average

9. Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
DM/Catalog- Channel
Preference 117 70 96 117 99 100
Online - Channel
Preference 107 108 93 81 127 100
Retail - Channel
Preference 109 107 104 75 116 100
Likeliness to BuyHigh
Speed Internet 51 149 81 49 193 100
Likeliness to use Smart
Phone 50 186 71 89 121 100
Thrifty
Seniors
Affluent
Boomers
Compassionate
Seniors
Golden
Seniors
Struggling
Boomers
PVA
Average

10. Persona Mail Qty Resp % Resp Index Gift Gift Index Rev $/M
Rev$/M
Index
5,121,800 2.43% 116 $10.77 90 $261.78 105
4,287,520 1.67% 80 $14.58 122 $243.03 97
4,769,440 2.18% 104 $11.02 92 $239.86 96
4,885,960 2.09% 100 $13.29 111 $277.54 111
4,350,140 2.02% 097 $11.14 93 $224.91 90
Grand Total 23,414,860 2.09% 100 $11.97 1.00 $250.32 100
Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
Thrifty
Seniors
Affluent
Boomers
Compassionate
Seniors
Golden
Seniors
Struggling
Boomers
What can we learn from Direct Mail Performance?

11. Persona Mail Qty Resp % Resp Index Gift Gift Index Rev $/M
Rev$/M
Index
Overall Thrifty Senior Performance
(Across all packages)
5,121,800 2.43% 100 $10.77 100 $261.39 100
Package A 1,776,340 2.80% 115 $9.44 88 $264.39 101
Package B 228,420 1.76% 72 $11.18 104 $196.36 75
Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
Thrifty
Seniors
Audience Optimization – Use the right message/format to maximize performance

12. Persona Mail Qty Resp % Resp Index Gift Gift Index Rev $/M
Rev$/M
Index
Overall Affluent Boomers Performance
(Across all packages)
4,287,520 1.67% 100 $14.58 100 $243.03 100
Package A 149,540 2.40% 144 $11.64 80 $279.74 115
Package B 220,300 0.98% 59 $20.74 142 $203.68 84
Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
Audience Optimization – Use the right message/format to maximize performance
Affluent
Boomers

13. Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
What is next for the Affluent Boomer from an Online perspective?
We started with Direct Mail as volumes and budget allowed. We will be transferring
this validation process over to specific online segments to measure how different email
messages and treatments influenced performance
The Affluent Boomer
Demographic
Late “Baby Boomer” and is the wealthiest of the group. She has a college degree and is
most likely married. She is also the most likely to have older children in the home.
Channel Preferences Of the group, she is the most connected; indexing high on smart phone usage
Attitudes/Interests
Leans conservative but is not as philanthropic as the others. Has interest in reading,
travel, and sports.
Consumer Behavior Is most active around the Holidays
PVA Support Online and Offline donor; Nonpremium donor

14. Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
3rd party
segmentation
Relationship
to veterans’
cause
Relationship
to PVA
Donor
Lifecycle
Channels
affected by
and
transacting by
Interest Area
BETHANY

15. Developing Meaningful Audience Segmentation
We have great data now what?
• Overlay personas onto the PVA database and improve segmentation
across all channels
• Exclude less responsive online personas to online communications
• Improve DM messaging based on persona interests to attract the
desired donors
• Utilize personas to better qualify prospects for both online and offline
acquisition and reactivation efforts

16. Test into a new email cadence without sacrificing net
revenue

17. Paralyzed Veterans Email History
• Previous testing indicated that Tuesdays were the
best day for email delivery
• Each month was comprised of:
• Three e-appeal emails
• One Newsletter
• All deployed, one at on each Tuesday of the
month
• Email themes were generated based on Holidays like
Veteran’s Day or Thanksgiving
• Little resting between deployments based on
segmentation
SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT

18. New Email Cadence, Content & Segmentation
June 2013 Email Campaign
• Calendar event focused email series
• Email 1: Father’s Day
• Email 2: Accessible Travel
• Email 3: 4th of July
• Emails were deployed one week
apart every Tuesday:
• June 11
• June 18
• June 25
• Emails were deployed to full file

19. New Email Cadence, Content & Segmentation
June 2014 – What was Different?
• Consistent theme based on current need
not a holiday
• Scheduled to create urgency
• Audience defined by recency of donation,
prospects excluded
• Personalized copy and ask

20. New Email Cadence, Content & Segmentation
So which email series
generated stronger
performance?
36%Improvement in Revenue

21. New Email Cadence, Content & Segmentation
August 2013 Email Campaign
• A three calendar series was sent one week
apart on Tuesday mornings on 8/13, 8/20 and
8/27.
• Slight content changes were made in email 2
and 3.

22. New Email Cadence, Content & Segmentation
August 2014 Email Series
• Focus on National Veterans
Wheelchair Games
• Adjusted deployment dates
• Two leading up to games
• Two during games
• Emails 3 & 4 will be sent “real time”
during the games as if we are
following Ryan Lynstrom (a
featured athlete)
RESULTS PENDING –
Deploys in August!!!

23. New Email Cadence, Content & Segmentation
Evolving approach to content marketing
• PVA sends out a monthly enews, but has seen
plateauing performance
• A deeper dive into the data shows a large segment of
constituents opening but not clicking through on stories
• FY14 approach was to test minor design changes
• Results leading to FY15 approach of scaled back enews
cadence and supplemental feature focused content
emails, new segmentation (mission seekers versus
donors)

24. Opportunity for Small Tweaks & Improvement
• Change cadence/deployment dates to make series more timely and meaningful to
prospect/donor
• Create more program specific appeal series vs. focus on calendar events
• Improved content for engagement with donor pool and prospects
• Segmentation improvements
• Sustainers are now only included on year-end or high value appeals (1-2 times a year)
• Determine if prospects should be rested or included in all campaigns
• FY15 will see continued evolution the cadence as well as of segmentation based also on
content interest and action. We will also be designing purposeful conversion and upgrade
series
New Email Cadence, Content & Segmentation

25. Integrate Social Media and Email Efforts

26. Why should we care about social integration?
Integrate Social Media and Email Efforts
• 46% of internet users leverage social networks to aid in making
purchasing decisions
• 288 Million active monthly Twitter users; 76% of active users post
regularly
• A new user signs up every second on Instagram and 3,400+ photos are
uploaded every second
• 27% of total time spent online is on social networking sites
• Referrals from Pinterest spend 70% more
• +1 button is used 5 Million times/day

27. Integrate Social Media and Email Efforts
Why Social Media Integration is Next
Logical Step
• Your Facebook page can be a good place for
email acquisition, BUT…
• About 84% of your email list should
already be fans on Facebook
(convinceandconvert.com)
• Because of the audience overlap, your
strategies (ie: cadence, content, etc.) in email
and social media need to be complimentary
and create a seamless constituent experience
• Integrating social and email allows your
constituents to become more engaged
(beyond donating), and extends the reach of
both your social and email campaigns

28. Integrate Social Media and Email Efforts
In February 2014, PVA launched a
social media campaign called,
“Show Love for Your Veterans”
Facebook and Tweet Memes

29. Integrate Social Media and Email Efforts
While the February email series
was focused on getting signatures
for congress, Paralyzed Veterans of
America also used this opportunity
to weave the “Show Love for Your
Veteran” theme into the email
series to further enhance
engagement and integration.
Results?
12%
REVENUE

30. Integrate Social Media and Email Efforts
Tying it all together…..
• For those who responded, subsequent
emails in the series was a thank you
with a social integration CTA

31. Integrate Social Media and Email Efforts
The Show Love for Your Veteran was a BIG Success for Paralyzed Veterans!
Campaign Results
138 Posts
112 Users
98,300 Reach*
191,347 Impressions
*Unique Followers
53% Original post
46% Retweets
56%44%

32. Where to start integrating your social media and email programs
Integrate Social Media and Email Efforts
• Remember that your social and email audiences likely overlap a lot
• Test your email timing against your Facebook post and Tweet timing (ie: keep
your nonprofit top of mind when someone switches venues throughout the day)
• Encourage current email subscribers to like and follow you (ie: in receipts,
autoresponders, enews, etc.)
• Pay attention to what your social audience is talking about/what’s popular with
them and let the trends guide what content you serve in email
• Make sure your email and web content is optimized to be shared
• Use stories from email, told from a different angle, as posts and tweets (ie: more
imagery, a video, a pull quote, etc.)
• Measure how the channels affect each other!

33. Wrap Up
Conclusion:
Purposeful disruption and small changes can lead to improved performance
• Take the learnings you can from direct mail and extend the analytics approach
to your digital program
• Identify who your non-donor audience on your email file are and what they are
doing with your content and engagement opportunities
• Stay on top of your KPIs and recognize when your program is plateauing
(ps…and if you don’t have KPIs defined for your program as part of an annual
planning process, start there)
• Define the best times in your program for testing, when revenue risk is
minimized and learnings can be rolled out for high impact campaigns
• Be mindful that a plateauing email program likely points to other areas of
opportunity (ie: other channels like social, web site optimization, etc.). Your
digital program is an ecosystem, not just an email cadence

34. Thank You!
Cathy Jenkins
Senior Director of Fundraising, Paralyzed Veterans of America
email: cathyj@pva.org
Tiffany Quast
Vice President, Relationship Management, Paradysz
email: tquast@Paradysz.com
Bethany Maki
Vice President, Non Profit Strategy, PM Digital
email: bmaki@pmdigital.com
Don’t forget to visit the
Solutions Showcase!
Many of the ideas discussed today are on display at the
Solutions Showcase!#Bridge14