Leveraging the few moments or minutes you have a visitor on your website to make a listing impression is KEY. But how do you do it? How do you get them to remember you and come back?

Let’s chat this week about how to use your charity website to create a lasting impression for your donors.

#1

GET THEM IN THE FEELS

Getting them in the feels! Emotions will certainly get them remembering you but be careful to use your tone and message in a positive way. More and more charities are shying away from graphic and shock value images to spur on donations and reactionary guilt payments. Instead, consider your tone, your message and how you want to come across. Optimistic? Hopeful? Perfect… use images of relief and joy. Need to communicate a serious issue and only have more intense images? Consider high opacity overlays to ‘smoke’ the image OR use those sparingly in your impact sections and place images that have items and objects relating to your case in high traffic locations like Home page, donate etc.

REMEMBER - Visitors are on your site for a reason. Its important to deliver a visual of what they are expecting you to care for or address as a charity/nonprofit.

#2

TELL THEM A REAL STORY

Playing off #1, telling them a real story of impact, purpose and your actionable value will not only help to create a future donor or volunteer but helps establish that all too important legitimacy. It also brings to light the importance of your cause. Perhaps the visitor did not realize how prevalent surrendering pets was in your area or perhaps they didn’t know that scenario was actually human trafficking. You are educating while creating a connection to a real story in their community or cause they are curious or passionate about. DO NOT UNDER ESTIMATE THE VALUE OF THESE STORIES

REMEMBER - These visitors are curious or already passionate about your cause. Show them why you are the leader, the best etc and share with them an impact/ testimonial story. If you need stock images because of privacy, remember to use Unsplash.com and Pexels.com

#3

HAVE A CLEAN, UPDATED WEBSITE

I mean, you knew this was coming right? Not all impressions are good right? We want LASTING GOOD IMPRESSIONS and few things leave a bad taste in web visitors mouths like an outdated and poorly organized website. Keeping something up to date IS hard which is why I always advocate for nonprofits to be on Squarespace, I have talked about it lots HERE & HERE. There are probably more.

Adding some tasteful flashy details never hurt someone either. I have loads of plugins, code I have developed and widgets I can use on your site to make it stand out more. Subtle animations, sticky elements, and scrolling effects are minimal but impactful ways that a visitor is engaged in the experience of reviewing the website but not overloaded by all the glitter.

REMEMBER - Too many animations, moving bits and bobs are a distraction. Work with a designer (like me 😀) to find the balance of restraint and tasteful pizzazz. More so, maintaining a website that is current, accurate and updated is of the utmost importance.

#4

THANK THEM IMMEDIATELY + WITH FOCUS

Now, I know this is technically NOT in/on the website but HONESTLY, I cannot leave any bit that touches a website alone. I want the whole ecosystem of the site to be whole, functioning, optimized, clean, concise and well… perfect. So let’s discuss.

Making sure you have automatic thank you emails for all donations, with personalization fields and an impact focused thank you that draws back the mission is SUPER important. Remember to bring the same tone and personality to this correspondence as well. Add in an handwritten note or snail mail letter on letterhead for extra measure to prove to the donor JUST how much their donation meant to your cause. Be sure to ask them to continue to donate, remind them about holiday giving and ask them to tell their friends about you. Oh and dont forget tax deduction information of course.

REMEMBER - Automating these sorts of tasks will free up MUCH of your time. If your donor management/processor does not offer this feature, consider my favorite DONORBOX. (PST, it even will send out in memoriam and honor emails automatically for you!)

So there you have some of my favorite ways to make a lasting impression with a visitor on your charity website. How did your non profit’s website do?

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