Ep 314 | Connecting with Your Website Visitors with Abby James

Are you making the most of your website visitors? In this episode, I sit down with Abby James from Nonprofit Megaphone to explore innovative ways to connect with people who've shown interest in your organization. We discuss how to leverage website visitor data ethically and effectively to grow your supporter base and enhance your fundraising efforts.

Overcoming the “Creepy Factor”

Abby shares insights on:

• Why collecting visitor information isn't as invasive as you might think
• How to approach outreach in a way that feels authentic and valuable
• Balancing personalization with privacy concerns

Practical Strategies for Engagement

Discover actionable advice for nurturing relationships with website visitors:

• Crafting a welcoming initial email that sets clear expectations
• Developing a consistent communication strategy beyond the first contact
• Using segmentation to tailor your messaging effectively

Maximizing the Value of Visitor Data

Learn how to:

• Identify potential business partners and volunteers from your website traffic
• Use visitor information to refine your programs and services
• Leverage data for both online and offline marketing efforts

Getting Started with Visitor Engagement

We address key considerations for implementing a visitor outreach strategy:

• Essential tools and platforms to simplify the process
• How to involve different departments in utilizing visitor data
• Setting clear goals for your engagement funnel

Whether you're new to digital marketing or looking to refine your current approach, this conversation offers valuable insights to help you turn website visits into meaningful connections and support for your mission.

Want to skip ahead? Here are some key moments:

05:40 Ethical Considerations Explore the balance between personalization and privacy in visitor outreach.

12:15 Crafting Effective Welcome Emails Learn how to make a strong first impression that encourages further engagement.

19:30 Data-Driven Decision Making Discover how visitor information can inform your organizational strategy and program development.

26:45 Building a Sustainable Engagement Funnel Understand how to create a journey that guides visitors towards deeper involvement with your nonprofit.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn how you can ethically and effectively utilize your website visitor data to grow your nonprofit's impact. Tune in for a conversation that could transform your approach to supporter engagement and fundraising.

Full Transcript

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] We all want to grow our email list. We all want to get more contacts into our database, more people to talk to. But how can we do that in a cost effective way? Well, if you're already running the Google Ad Grant, you're likely driving a lot of traffic to your website. Even if you're not running the Google Ad Grant, there's probably still a lot of traffic coming to your site. So how do you capture those people that are looking into the things that you do? That is what we are going to talk about today. My guest today is Abby James and she is going to be sharing some great ways that you can use their service to capture the leads of people that are coming to your website, reach out to them, connect and build relationships. Now, I know it sounds creepy, but before you get nervous about it, just listen to this episode. There are so many ways that you can maximize this opportunity and still be genuine and authentic and not be creepy. After all, we are all getting these kinds of messages already from Amazon, other retailers, other websites. You're getting retargeted all the time. So why not figure out a way that you can take the website traffic coming your way, maximize it, utilize it, and actually know who those people are so that you can connect with them. So today my guest is Abby James. Abby has been immersed in the Google Ad Grant world for over five years now holding various positions at nonprofit Megaphone. Nonprofit Megaphone is a Google Certified Partner and manages more than 750 Google Ad Grant accounts for nonprofits. With her experience in managing accounts and background in marketing and development, she now consults with nonprofits every day on how to fully utilize this program and amplify their missions. You're going to get some great information here and whether you use this service or another one, or you use a different kind of retargeting, it's just great strategy for how you can be authentic in how you show up and how you can build relationships with people that you didn't even know were checking you out. Before we get into the episode though, it is brought to you by Do Good University. Now you can learn all about it and get two weeks free at thefirstclick.net/dgu that's the letter U. But it is a great place for nonprofits to come together in community and connect. There are so many on demand courses that you can take right now on things from board management to grant management to marketing, fundraising, everything that a nonprofit leader needs to be successful. And myself and founder of Do Good YOUniversity, Patrick Kirby, go live every single week, every week to answer your questions and help you get unstuck. We talk about things like how to get your board motivated to support you, ways to maximize on your event during and after, how to think about what to put in an ad for your local chamber of commerce. Those are just a few things we talked about in last week's session. So I hope that you will come join us and get your two weeks free. Thefirstclick.net/dgu and I'd love to see you there on a future call. For now, let's get into the episode.

You're listening to the Digital Marketing Therapy Podcast. I'm your host, Sami Bedell Mulhern. Each month we dive deep into a digital marketing or fundraising strategy that you can implement in your organization. Each week you'll hear from guest experts, nonprofits and myself on on best practices, tips and resources to help you raise more money online and reach your organizational goals.

Hey friends, Please join me in welcoming Abby James to the podcast. Abby, thanks for being here today.

[Abby James] Hi Sami. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah. So I'm excited about this topic because we've talked a lot about websites on the podcast. We talked a lot about the Google Ad grant. But I feel like there's a lot of things that we talk about in marketing with regards to retargeting and tracking codes and pixels and all the things. And I think for a lot of us who aren't marketers, it gets kind of overwhelming and confusing and oh well, we couldn't, we don't have anybody who custom codes or does all that stuff or that sounds super expensive. So just in general, kind of, as we kick off this conversation, what would you say to people about access to tools now that can make their lives super easy and it's more approachable than ever?

[Abby James] Yeah, definitely. I think that the way things have moved to being definitely more user friendly and easier to access has been definitely beneficial in terms of. Yeah, following up with people, engaging with them more, finding out, you know, who is coming to your website and having that ability to, like you said, like retarget remarket, reaching out to them and continuing that conversation with them after they've, you know, raised their hand and shown some interest in, in what you do in your mission. And I think, I think it is, it is getting easier and there are definitely more tools available to do that now.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah, well, and I love this conversation because I think we tend to get creeped out. You know, we talk a lot about what pages are people visiting on your website, where are they coming from, what's you know, who's opening your emails, who's clicking your emails, and how can you follow up with them. But also now we can collect information from visitors on our website and reach out to them. And I think immediately people's reaction is, ew, gross. I don't want to do that. That's creepy. How do you kind of start to shift that mindset? Because like you said, people have raised their hand and raising their hand looks like a lot of different things nowadays. So how do. How do we kind of get over that hurdle so that we can still provide and grow our impact?

[Abby James] Yeah, I definitely. There are definitely two sides to that coin. Yes. But I think most people are fairly familiar now with the fact that your information is out there.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah.

[Abby James] Google has information, different trackers, cookies. It is there. And for the people who are very concerned about that, they take steps to avoid that. Right. They use incognito browsers. They turn off their tracking. They are conscientious about it. I will be honest and say, I am one of those who is not. Yeah, there is something I want to access. I will put in my email address and I will say, fine, go ahead and contact me. No worries. I check that box every time. And I think people are just aware of what they're doing now more than ever of, yes, I'm checking that box. This information is going somewhere. People are tracking me. Google knows things about me. Yeah, I, it just, it is there. And, and for, you know, a handful of people, they're okay with that. I'm okay with that.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah.

[Abby James] But again, for those that are not comfortable with it and would not like to hear from you, they are taking steps to avoid that. They'll decline the cookie consent banner or, you know, they'll take action to avoid it. And so I think we need to kind of realize that too, that things are changing. People are more aware of it. And if they really do not want to hear from you, again, they are taking those steps on their own. And they won't be included in that remarketing or that retargeting because their information isn't out there.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah, that's such a good point. And I think that, like, as either small business owners or nonprofits who are closer to their community compared to, like a big e commerce platform like Amazon, for example, like, you know, you go search for, you know, Clorox wipes on Amazon, you're gonna get an email an hour or a couple days later saying, hey, here's some products you might like. And you don't think about that and go, well, that's weird. Like, we know that big stores and companies like that are doing that, but for some reason, when it comes to, like, a nonprofit, you feel different about it. But it's really the same thing. These are people that are coming to your website that are connecting with you, that have consumed some of your content, who are clearly interested in what you do. You're almost, like, leaving money on the table or leaving awareness, like, not giving them an opportunity to connect with you more.

[Abby James] Yeah, definitely. You know, like I said, they've already raised their hands, shown that they are interested in some way. And I think that's the. The joke today of why we all have, you know, a hundred tabs open on our devices.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah.

[Abby James] Because we're all thinking, I'm gonna go back to that. I want to read more about that. I want to look at that. I want to find out more information. So we leave that tab open, and this is almost a way of bringing them back to that tab. Right. That email pops up or that ad. I personally, and I know a lot of people, I think, would actually rather have. Rather see things that are geared towards what you are, what you are interested, what you've shown that you are interested in, versus because you're going to see ads, it's going to happen. You're going to see ads, you're going to be retargeted. You. And why not have that be meaningful? I don't want an ad or I don't want to be followed up for something that I am not interested in at all. But it is. If I've, yeah, Clorox wipes. Show me Clorox wipes and Lysol wipes and whatever else. But don't show me something that's really far off the mark. That's not going to work. That's not beneficial. And that's kind of what, you know, this does is again, that tab is open. You left it open. You went there. Why not reconnect with them and remind them, hey, you were interested in this. Are you still. You know, you always have that option to still opt out at that point. That's a. You know, that's. You're always allowed to do that as well. But why not give them that second chance to think and say, oh, that's right. I did want to look into that. I did want to attend that event, purchase those tickets, volunteer, sign up for a webinar. Like, it is good to remind them.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I love the tab analogy because as I'm looking at my two monitors, I probably have like 20 some open and there's nothing worse than when you accidentally close your browser and they're all gone. And, and you're like, well, shoot, yeah, I'm sure there was something that. And then you forget about it completely. And if they don't try to get in touch with me again, then I'm done. But I also just love that authenticity. Like how you said, don't show me if I'm looking for this, don't show me something that's not related. And I do think like when we're talking about this and this is very specific to, we're going to get into some specific strategies here, but specific to when people come to your website, they click yes, they accept your cookies and that then you're able to grab information about those visitors that you can use to email, message, mail, whatever. I do want to say, like the technology that Amazon has and Netflix has and like all of those types of things is definitely much more sophisticated and more large scale. So I'm not trying to like make the comparison that this is the same as that. But what I love so much about it is, it is people that are warm, people that are interested. So if we get this information about our customers how. And visitor website visitors, like, what's a good first step to reconnect with them so that it's not overly creepy.

[Abby James] Yeah, I think that original welcome email is vital, saying, hey, thanks for visiting our site. Here's what we are, here's what we do, here's what you can expect. We hope you stick around. I think just starting that off right away and then adding them, you know, to more email blasts, newsletters, other outreach beyond that point, but definitely starting with that welcome email and just thanking them, appreciate you coming by and giving them a little bit more information about what you are and what you do and what you offer, what your mission is just to kind of warm them up a little bit. But again, always offering, you know, to have them opt out at that point and then once if they, if they stay, they stay and they're, you know, they're now in, they're now part of your, of your database and you can grow that. You know, I sometimes hate throwing out these statistics, but they do say, you know, it takes seven to 10 engagements before somebody is going to take action. And so yeah, that welcome.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well, we hear even upwards of 21 times that they have to see something before they take an action.

[Abby James] Okay. Yeah.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Even more overwhelming. Yeah, yeah.

[Abby James] Even more important, I think the key.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Thing that you said there, that I think is really important is thanks for visiting our website, like making it very clear at the beginning this is how we got your information. So they're. Because I've gotten emails from all types of organizations for profit or nonprofit, and all of a sudden you're like, how did I get on this list? Like, they never clearly said, here's why you're here. So I think that's pivotal and that's the thing that makes it more palatable because it's just like, oh yeah, I did go visit their website. That makes sense. Like I can make that connection.

[Abby James] Right? Yeah, definitely. Yep. Tell them.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yep.

[Abby James] Transparent.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So before jumping into a campaign like this, it's probably also important to make sure you do have regular communication. Right. Because there's nothing worse than you send that welcome email, they're like, oh cool, yeah, I'm definitely engaged. And then they hear nothing from you until you ask them for money. Right. So kind of what types of things would we want to have in place even before we start kind of collecting this information from our website to make sure that we can take care of those people once they have decided to stay on our email list?

[Abby James] Yep. I think definitely a. The pretty, a pretty well built out newsletter strategy is pretty important. It doesn't have to be super often and I don't think it has to be super long. You know, just sharing a blurb and then a call to action. And also your calls to action I think should change over time as well. Yeah, yeah, don't always ask for a donation. Maybe a smaller ask. Follow us on social media, share our information, Join us for something, a free event or something different calls to actions in those newsletters. But definitely I think a newsletter is, is a good idea and even if you can segment it out for your different audiences, that's. That gets a little bit deeper. But you know, if you know what keywords brought somebody into your website or what landing pages they did visit, you can follow that in, you know, your Google Analytics. Then you can see, okay, were they interested in our events? Were they interested in volunteering, were they interested in donating? What was it that they were looking at? And then gearing that newsletter sequence essentially to that individual person I think is valuable. But if that is a lot, that's a lot of work, especially for a smaller organization. So even just one newsletter that can kind of capture all different audiences I think would be beneficial. But I do definitely think that's the start of building that engagement over time.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Well, and I would say if you're Already. If you already have a regular newsletter and you feel pretty comfortable with that, check in with your email service provider because they may have conditional formatting that you can put into your emails. That makes it super easy for you to put certain blocks depending on how they're tagged in your system. So it sounds, again, overwhelming. But check in with your software. They might already have a way to make that super easy to where you can just flip the switch. It doesn't always work that way. But also, Abby, I would think you would encourage organizations when they're getting all this content, this information of people that you do, regardless of if you're segmenting or not, start tagging and tracking people as if you might start segmenting more in the future.

[Abby James] Yeah, nothing is worse than building up your email list and then realizing down the line, oh, I should have been grouping these differently or I really have a good announcement for just one audience. But now I'm stuck with, I would have to, you know, build that right away. And you're right. A lot of platforms now, you know, constant contact, email octopus, you know, mailchimp, they do have pretty easy ways of doing that. You're right. Or, you know, helpful, you know, reach out to their contact. Look at their help pages. They're, they're pretty user friendly anymore. I think it's not as scary as it used to be.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] For sure, for sure. For sure. Okay, so I want to talk a little bit more specifically about what types of information we can collect from. So you're. I'm going to say this, I always say this the wrong way, but it's website visitor service, visitor email service, visitor email service. I always say it the wrong way. Anyway, visitor email service is your particular platform and we'll share how people can learn more about that here at the end. But with what kinds of information can we potentially gather from people that are visiting our website? 1. But also, like, I would love for you to share some ways that people have taken that information and used it even in like their offline. Like, it doesn't just have to be a digital marketing strategy. So could you kind of share both of those things together?

[Abby James] Sure. Names, email addresses, various demographic information. It does vary widely, of course, again, depending on what information is out there about people. So it does vary quite widely. But there is, you know, yeah, the demographic usually names, email addresses occasionally maybe even work information if they're, you know, if they're, if they came to your website from their work email address will, you know, there could be that information about them. And in terms of how to use it maybe not just in, you know, digital marketing is. Maybe it's important for. If you're looking for, you know, a lot of nonprofits want like business partners in their community, you know, using that information to reach out to different businesses that might have come across your website or that might have had an employee visit your website. Organizations like, you know, you know, maybe team building, volunteering hours, you know, businesses do that kind of thing with their teams. You know, we're going to go and volunteer at an organization and kind of become a sponsor or things like that. So I think that is one of the really good things to use is. Yeah. Finding out who is coming to your website and then. And also it's important to know who is not. Right. What, what audience are we missing? Okay. I'm seeing a lot of people coming from these places or these kinds of areas, but who are we missing and who might we tap into and how could we do that? Is it through content? Is it through different platforms? So, yeah, knowing who's coming to your website is important, but it's also important to know who is not. Who are you, who are you missing? And I think that could be really valuable in knowing as well so that, you know.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah.

[Abby James] What have we not tapped into that would be a good source for support of our organization?

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah. And I know we utilize this service for a client of ours and one of the things we're going to be doing at year end is, you know, pulling all of the mailing addresses that have been collected and using that to send a specific direct mail piece for your end fundraising. Because again, I think that's not as invasive or creepy because you can buy direct mail lists from any. I mean, people are used to getting direct mail pieces from organizations that they might not know, but using that as a touch point as well to kind of gather that information. But I love that you said, who are we not connecting with and who are we missing? Because I hadn't thought about that as like a, like as you're growing or maybe it's a certain. If you're in a local population, but everybody coming to your website and the content you're getting is all from outside, then clearly you're missing the mark. And I know you can do that with Google Analytics as well. But it could also maybe show you a missed opportunity for either donor outreach or services that might be helpful to a wider base.

[Abby James] Yeah, definitely. Yep. Yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of different ways you can use this information. You can even use it to figure out, you know, what services in our community are needed? What do people, you know, what are. What is everybody looking at? And is that a program that we need to develop more? You know, if everybody's coming to look for scholarships, oh, maybe we need to offer more scholarships, what everybody seems to be interested in. And maybe another program isn't, isn't, you know, looked at as much. And so maybe, okay, maybe we could drop this service or this program and put more resources into something that our community is really in need of, that more people are interested in supporting, that we could rally more support around. So that's another use as well, is determining your strategy for the work that you're doing.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] No, that's so good. Well, and I think too, because part of the information you get is the pages that they visited. Right. So being able to kind of go through that and connect with multiple areas of your team. Because I think even if you brainstorm with your team and say, okay, here's the information that we get, everybody's going to have a different like, oh, well, we could use it for this, or we could use it for this, or this would be helpful for us to see this information. So I think it's not just a tool for marketing or fundraising. I think the whole company can use it. And the more you kind of bring everybody to the table and brainstorm, you'll kind of come up with even more ideas for how you can kind of leverage that information, whether you physically reach out to people or not.

[Abby James] Right. I mean, you know, a lot of non profits have some sort of a shop or something. So looking at logistics, where are we shipping to? You know, where. Where's most of our people interested and do we even have the logistics to ship to that area? So, yeah, I think a lot of different departments in, in the organization can utilize this information for sure. Yep.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] I love that. And we should mention that it's easily downloadable in a CSV file, so you could sort and filter to all of our Excel wizards that are out there and configure. Not me, but is there anything else about kind of just overall thinking about a strategy for nonprofit. If you're kind of jumping into, to potentially wanting to segment or retarget or whether it's through this platform or through a pixel on another, whatever. Are there. We're just getting started. Are there any kind of things we might want to think about to kind of set us up for success in the long run?

[Abby James] Good question. I think just, yeah, just having a way, having good calls to actions. I think thinking about the funnel of, okay, this is somebody at the very top of the funnel. What am I looking at? What is my ultimate goal? Because this is essentially lead generation. So looking at it as, okay, this is my lead. What is, you know, again, a buzzword that everybody's using. What is the user journey and what do I ultimately want them to do? I think that's a missing piece a lot when I talk to nonprofits, it's like, okay, think about your website. When somebody goes to your website, what do you want them to do? And I always hear, oh, you know, and they haven't thought about that maybe enough. So I think, definitely thinking about that funnel, what are some. Some small asks that you can ask along the way? And do you have them set up? Do you have them set up for success in terms of working them through to what you ultimately, you know, want them and need them to do?

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Yeah, I love that. And that's a good exercise to do in general anyway, because everything you do then you'll. You'll start to figure out, you know, your blog content, your social media content, everything your email, everything you're doing then can follow through that funnel. So that's a great exercise in general. So I love that you brought that up. Well, Abby, I really appreciate kind of the conversation and just the brainstorming, kind of the creativity around how we're collecting information, how we're using it, how we're giving people more of an opportunity to say yes because they've already landed on our website. If people want to learn more about Nonprofit Megaphone in this platform and service that you guys offer, how can they do that?

[Abby James] Yeah, they can go to nonprofit megaphone.com. there's more information there about the different services that we offer. And then, you know, book a call, talk, you know, talk to one of us about it. We'd be happy to see where you're at right now in your journey, what it would take to kind of get you ready for that and, or, you know, reaching out to me directly at Abby James at Nonprofit Megaphone. If you have, you know, some specific questions about this, I'm happy, happy to talk about this.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] So good. And we'll have all that linked up in the show notes at thefirstclick.net/314 314 Abby, thank you so much for your time today.

[Abby James] Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Sami Bedell-Mulhern] Okay, so I want to know, how do you feel about this service now from before, when you started this episode to now? Are you feeling like this might be something that could be of value to you? Are you starting to get your wheels spinning about how you can connect and engage with people in a different way. I hope so. If you want to grab the resources and information mentioned in this episode, you can do that at thefirstclick.net/314 all of the goodies are there, but for now I would love if you would head on over to our YouTube channel at Digital Marketing Therapy and drop a comment below this video and let us know what was your biggest surprise, key takeaway, or even if there's a topic or speaker that you think would be great for this show. Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on a single episode. And thank you so much for taking time to listen. I will see you in the next one.