In this webinar, hear from Informz client, Beta Theta Pi, and learn how their strategic, blended fundraising approach helped them successfully raise nearly $300,000 during the final month of their fiscal year. Learn how Beta Theta Pi developed and deployed a blended fundraising strategy, engaged donors throughout the month, and created a seamless donation process to alleviate obstacles for donors.

1. Informz Client Success Series:
Email’s Role in Raising $300,000 in One Month
Presenters:
Alex Mastrianni, Informz
Ryan King, Beta Theta Pi

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4. Presenters:
Alex Mastrianni, Informz
Ryan King, Beta Theta Pi
Informz Client Success Series:
Email’s Role in Raising $300,000 in One Month

5. About Informz Image

6. Meet the Presenters
Alex Mastrianni
Marketing Specialist
Informz
Ryan King
Director of Advancement
Beta Theta Pi

7. Cross Channel Marketing
Cross-Channel Marketing

8. The mission of the Beta
Theta Pi Foundation is to
develop men of principle
for a principled life.
• 174 year old college fraternity
based in Oxford, Ohio.
• 129 active chapters across North
America
• 8,000+ undergraduate members
• 127,000 living alumni
• 100,000 with mailing addresses
• 40,000 with email addresses
• 10,000+ parents and friends of
the Fraternity
About Beta Theta Pi

9. The Challenge
• In FY13 (June 1 – May 31) we were roughly $350,000 short of
our $1 million annual fund goal on May 1. (Beta Leadership
Fund)
• A few audience segmentation strategies worked
previously, but we wanted to take it to the next level.
• We knew we needed a fully blended strategy with multiple
audiences and multiple outreach methods (methods
supplementing each other, rather than competing).

10. The Plan
In February and March we designed a fiscal-year end strategy
that involved multiple audiences and outreach methods.
Donor Base Audiences
• Inner family of volunteers
• Top lifetime/lapsed donors
• Parents
• Canadian members
• General members/non-
donors
Outreach Methods*
• Out of house direct mail
• Email
• In house direct mail
• Phone calls from Board
members & other volunteers.
• Staff phone-a-thon
• Facebook/Twitter
* Number of recipients for various email/mail outreach
ranged from less than 100 people to 40,000 people.

11. The Execution
Our April and May plan included
– 3 Direct Mail Appeals
– 16 Email Solicitations
– 8 Facebook/Twitter posts
– 3 Phone Outreach

13. Audience & Appeal
Breakdown Examples
Top Donors
• In house letter under signature of dignitary – May 15
• Phone call from board member – May 20-22
• Email reminder with reinforced ask amount – May 23
• Final progress updates on May 31
Parents
• Direct mail appeal – April 15
• Email announcing $10,000 May Challenge – May 8
• Challenge progress update email – May 23
• Final progress update – May 31
Those who gave were excluded from subsequent emails with the exception of the
May 31 “progress update.”

14. The Results
• $292,099 was raised in May (second largest month ever)
o $114,821 through email
o $60,213 through phone
o $117,065 through mail
• Unsubscribe Rates
o “Series Unsubscribe” gave the option to opt-out of future May outreach only.
o All 16 Informz emails in May had an unsubscribe rate below the 0.14%
benchmark.
o May 2013 unsubscribes were less than half of our May 2012 push unsubscribes.
– We ended the fiscal year at $960,828 - our second largest year
ever.

15. Key Learnings
• Master Calendar – Created months in advance and
allowed for effective blending of strategies across multiple
outreach methods and audiences.
• Database Integration
o Audience segmentation
o Personalized donor information in various emails
o Reinforcement of ask amounts used in direct mail appeal
o Custom giving URLs allowed for auto-population of donor
information on the giving form (fast and easy for smartphone users)
o Tracking of email effectiveness with embedded appeal codes
o Clean unsubscribe process which minimized “global unsubscribes”
thanks to the “series unsubscribe” option

16. “The annual fund provides a fertile field in which to
experiment with new and emerging technologies and
techniques. Successful organizations will apply a
blended approach of proven and exploratory methods
to ensure growth and viability into the future.”
Fundraising Best Practices Report

17. Things to remember
• Create a master calendar
• Utilize your data
• Get personal
• Set expectations
• Make it easy

18. Questions? Let us know!
Type your questions in the chat box to
the right!
Contact the speakers:
Alex | mastrianni@informz.com
Ryan | ryan.king@betathetapi.org
Speak to the email marketing
experts at Informz:
experts@informz.com
1.888.371.1842 x5