Yesterday we introduced my Aunt Ruby as our online donation tester. Today I want to make sure you know of a way that might help all the Aunt Rubys give online more comfortably–while making them feel special.
The strategy uses a PURL–Personalized URL–not the knitting stitch. You’ve probably seen these in various hotel industry offers or timeshare promotions. Your letter might say: go to www.stevethomas.cheaphawaiianvacations.com or something like that. When you enter that URL you go to a log on page where you can enter your name and the “secret code” you received. And voilá, you’re taken to a personalized page that has your special offer.
The way this can work for your Aunt Ruby and all of the rest of us is that you could create a unique PURL for each of your donors in a particular campaign, which might take them to a page that has a special message, say a video from your Executive Director or other unique kinds of info. On that page you’d have very clean giving options with a unique information just for Aunt Ruby and maybe even some additional information about the need. If you have great donor software, you could even have that integrated with their giving history… OR even allow them to update their contact information… OR become part of your online community… OR… well the possibilities are really cool and nearly endless. Think of all the DVDs you’ve sent to your donors that you KNOW never made it into a DVD player.
I’m not sure that any of us have the fundraising PURL thing completely figured out yet. But you should do some investigating and know we’ll keep talking about it. Also @postalsystems has a nifty explanation about PURLs if you want to see how it works in a commercial setting.
We’re talking about lots of online integration strategies and wouldn’t it be wonderful to give all your Aunt Rubys a simple, easy way to get to you online? A PURL is one way to do just that!
What do you think about PURLs? Have you used them yet?
Steve Thomas
Partner, Oneicity
(photo credits: Rhys Jones Photography)
