The holiday season is quite possibly the best time for a charity, with the thought of giving on everybody’s mind. However, it can also be a time for you to completely mess up a great opportunity. There are a few ways to surely mess up your online Christmas appeal, listed below, based off of an article I found on the British “JustGiving” blog:
Rehashing your last appeal: Making this appeal the same as your last one is a great way for your supporters to completely ignore your appeal. Christmas does make your supporters more likely to give, so don’t ignore that and hurt your appeal. Make sure you create fresh (and festive) content.
Not truly connecting with people: The themes of family and homeliness are a big deal for people at Christmas, so use that to create an individual emotional connection with supporters.
Sending supporters to your donate page: Be sure to give your donors instant visual cues that they’re in the right place, otherwise they’ll be much more likely to click away than donate. Make a stand-alone version of your donate page, one without the typical distracting links of your home page.
Making recipients pinch and zoom: In 2015, people frequently use mobile devices to go onto the Internet. Therefore, you need a mobile-friendly site, one that isn’t hard to navigate without pinching and zooming on their touch screens.
Don’t make ask: As Wayne Gretzky once said, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. Many of your supporters do want to give at Christmas, so give them a wonderful cause and deserving charity to make it easier for them.