Are you ready to ramp up engagement at your nonprofit? You need to get personal and go digital.

Donors and volunteers have omni channel expectations, meaning that today they expect to be able to interact with you across multiple channels, digital and in person, pretty seamlessly. Look at the integration of all the ways you’re connecting with your customers, your donors, your volunteers, and think about whether or not that interplay is really successful.

Engagement continues to trend toward digital first. Some studies say that more than 80%, other studies say more than 90%, of a customer’s journey happens digitally before they ever meet us at an actual physical front door. So, we are really allowing all of our lead-in to this relationship, all of the foundation, all of the consideration of whether or not we’re even worth engaging with, happen in digital spaces.

Always, always, always, think about digital first. What is that going to look like before they even get to have a conversation with a real human?

Additionally, the most underrated way today to reach people is email marketing. We are overwhelmed with the amount of content being shared on channels like social media, where our inboxes are typically a little more under control. As consumers, we can manage the flow of material into our inboxes. We’re allowed to subscribe to things that are meaningful for us. We’re allowed to unsubscribe when things stop being meaningful or adding value. As a result, email marketing is really permission. It’s permission to continue to communicate. It’s permission to say I want to stay engaged with your organization.

We also know that people are 91% more likely to engage when messages are personalized. We have the ability to personalize messages that we’re delivering to someone’s email box anytime we reach out. We should really make that effort to take that extra step. Customization is meaningful and really helps us convert.

In summary, we need to build connection and we need to leverage communication. Think about how you’re doing that today and work to ramp up engagement at your nonprofit by getting personal and going digital.