Too Many High Capacity Donor Prospects?

The Problem: We have too many high capacity donor prospects. (Yes. This is a thing. This is a real problem we hear about in our conversations.)

Solution: Prioritize them by their level of activity on your website.

While it sounds like a pretty good problem to have, some university advancement offices struggle with actually having too many promising high capacity donor prospects. The question for gift officers then becomes: How do I choose which alumni or supporter to spend my limited time and resources cultivating?

We suggest you check your website. More specifically, we suggest you check your Daily Visitor Report (DVR).

Marketing automation can be a transformative tool for major gift officers faced with a daunting list of major prospects.Instead of relying on limited biographical and capacity information, they can use the software to examine recent activity on their institution’s website and determine who is highly engaged and perhaps most open to a discovery call. For example, with Capture Behavioral Engagement (CBE), marketing automation software developed by Capture Higher Ed specifically for colleges and universities, partners can see their donors’ browsing activity every morning in their DVR.

Here is an example of one:

High Capacity Donor Prospects

CBE’s Daily Visitor Report

A typical report includes names, capacity and affinity scores for alumni and friends who are reading articles, registering for events, checking sports schedules or otherwise being active on the university’s site.

This makes it a wonderful prioritization tool. Who would you prefer to call? The high-capacity alumni who has never visited your website … or the guy who has been checking it often and recently? The DVR tells you whom you should call, while giving you the information to do so with the most up-to-date information. It also offers development officers a meaningful approach during a discovery call. No longer are they randomly engaging prospective donors about something that dates back decades — “So, I see you were a TKE” or “Did you really wear leather helmets?”

With a current browsing history, development officers can discuss a subject that the prospect was reading about on your site earlier in the week.

By Kevin Hyde, Senior Content Writer, Capture Higher Ed