22 February 2021 | Article | Ryan Teo
Grow Your Donor Base with Telemarketing
Telemarketing refers to the process of reaching out to potential donors or donors – both new and lapsed – with the objective of asking for Recurring Gift or Regular Donation.
Why Telemarketing?
Telemarketing, a tried and tested method of regular give fundraising, albeit with a smaller volume comparative to Face-to-Face (F2F), can be a source of obtaining high-valued donors with high projected Lifetime Value (expected gift contribution to your cause over time to the point of lapse).
Due to the active opt-in element from Telemarketing-acquired donor, average gifts trend on higher amounts and donors tend to contribute for longer periods.
| Telemarketing | Face-to-Face | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Average Gifts (USD) | Estimated Lifetime Value (USD) | Average Gifts (USD) | Estimated Lifetime Value (USD) |
| Malaysia | 16 | 1,008 | 14 | 528 |
| Indonesia | 9 | 403 | 10 | 245 |
| Thailand | 18 | 471 | 18 | 373 |
| Philippines | 13 | 419 | 15 | 403 |
| Singapore | 16 | 1,329 | 47 | 1,319 |
| Taiwan | 18 | 986 | 24 | 540 |
| Hong Kong | 12 | 893 | 24 | 590 |
| South Korea | 16 | 511 | 24 | 476 |
Types of Telemarketing
When embarking on telemarketing as part of your acquisition strategy, there are multiple considerations in defining the best approach for your cause.
- Why are you undertaking telemarketing?
- Is your organisation aiming to acquire new donors?
- Are you planning to increase the contributions of your existing donors?
| Telemarketing type | Definition | Key questions |
|---|---|---|
| Conversion | Seeks to ask for regular donations from your previous One-off Donors. | – Who are your previous one-time donors? – What was their previous donation size? – When was their last donation? |
| Acquisition | Recruiting new donors who may not have donated before. These leads can come from your supporter base, volunteers or acquired through lead generation activities. | – Do you have a supporter list whom you have been communicating with? – How engaged are your current non-supporters? |
| Reactivation | A call is made to your lapsed donors who used to give a gift, but have since stopped their contribution, to give them an opportunity to restart their pledge. | – Why did your donors stop their contribution? – How long has it been since they stopped their contribution? |
| Upgrade | Optimising your donors’ gift contributions to your cause, which aims at giving them an opportunity to increase their gift size. | – Who are your target donors to upgrade? – Do you have their updated contact information? |
SG Support provides telemarketing services to our various non-profit partners across 14 countries, leveraging on global best practices. In 2020, new donors recruited via telemarketing made up ~10% of all new donors that SG Support manages on behalf of our non-profit partners. Donors recruited via Telemarketing have proven to be a valuable contribution to any donor base, providing a high expected contribution to the causes they sign up for!
Interested in learning more about our services and tools? Reach out to us at consulting@sgsupport.com for a quick chat on how we can assist you.
About SG Support
SG Support exists to make fundraising easy for charities. We do that by working with them to acquire new donors, retain existing ones and win back those who have left. We do this through our complete suite of services that range from data-driven strategy and consultancy, all the way down to the operational aspects of payment processing, contact centre and financial reporting.
