With privacy legislation expected to get tighter and acquisition costs rising, contactability has become a hot topic in fundraising. During the Aotearoa New Zealand Forum 2023, Fi McPhee asked Eddie O’Loughlin, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Médecins Sans Frontières Australia & Médecins Sans Frontières New Zealand, how he has tackled it.
Even as a ‘digital-first’ person, Eddie believes that it is important to get telephone numbers, addresses and email addresses.
He says “In the past we wanted to make digital donation pages as quick and easy as possible and reducing the contact options helped to get a higher conversion rate. However, testing shows us that autofill, which exists on nearly every form, has made it harder for a donor to remove their phone number once it has autofilled than not.”
Whilst modelling this, Eddie found that the difference to charities made by people giving their contact details over a five-to-ten-year period can be hundreds of thousands – even millions of dollars in income based on upgrades and other fundraising activities.
Eddies says, “it really pays to look at this as it adds value to your database”.