Get Direction From Your Data
Turns out, yes! The new definition of spam is, “Is this email likely to be engaged with?” rather than simply, “Is this email unrequested?” As we’ve covered here and here, engagement is the name of the game in 2019, which means deliverability is more important now than ever. Amy Chin-Lai goes in-depth in this Medium article about email deliverability, what it means and how to improve your organizations’. It’s a good one.
I adopted an, um, energetic dog early this summer. The seemingly endless walks around my neighborhood with her have given me a lot of podcast-listening time. I’ve found a few new favorites.
If you are familiar with this newsletter, I obviously like my tech news with a good dose of skepticism. Loving Recode’s Pivot for a mix of tech, politics and business updates… and some major sarcasm. It has me LOLing about IPOs and income inequality — something I didn’t think was possible.
It’s my favorite yearly opportunity to snoop on other nonprofits! The 2019 M+R Benchmarks Study includes data from 135 nonprofits across a variety of sizes and sectors. This report has so many good takeaways, it’s hard to choose what to call out here. An interesting fundraising stat was that the revenue from one-time gifts decreased by 2% in 2018, while monthly giving revenue increased by 17%. Focusing heavily on recurring donors could be a winning strategy moving forward.
Have a website… and an app? Well, I have news for you. It’s still in beta, but Google Analytics now has a way to combine app and website data into a single property. This is a particularly exciting development because it deviates from the traditional session and pageview method Google Analytics has used for the past 15+ years (listen to me complain about that here). The new measurement model uses events and parameters instead. And, Google’s created a new feature to make tracking the most common events, such as scrolling and outbound link clicks, a lot easier. This is a huge shift for GA and I’m sure I’ll be covering it again very soon.
An understanding of data analytics is important for everyone in an organization, regardless of your role or position. This Harvard Business Review article breaks down 4 crucial concepts you may have forgotten from your freshman year course in statistics. My favorite tip: Always have a control. You probably know about controls from drug trials, but this doesn’t need to be costly nor time-consuming. Although we may be testing new subject lines or web copy (rather than life-saving drugs), this is a concept that communicators should master too.
I know it sounds cheesy, but put better data collection at the top of your list of new year’s resolutions. This article is written by Salesforce to promote Salesforce, so take it with a grain of salt, but they have good suggestions about what organizations should be focusing on in 2019. For example, committing to a data collection tool and making sure it is set up correctly ensures your nonprofit can be confident in the data you collect – and the decisions you make from it.
If you want to start fresh in 2019, this handy UX research process explains the steps and timeline for redesigning your website with users at the forefront. One thing that stuck out to me was their emphasis on the importance of combining generative (user interviews) and evaluative research (A/B testing, mouse tracking, remote usability testing). Hot tip: since you want the research to define the direction of your design, “put generative techniques at the beginning.”
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Fighting the Business of Fake News
Here’s some activism that doesn’t involve leaving your chair. The New York Times covers how to combat fake news using the power of screen shots. Many companies purchase digital advertising through ad display networks that span hundreds of websites. Most don’t even know where their brand ends up. But if it’s on a fake news site, we should probably tell them.
Reaching the 1 Billion Mark
Does it seem like EVERYONE you know is on Facebook? That’s because they are. Facebook announced this week that their ads now reach more than 1 billion people worldwide.