Set It and Forget It: The Engagement Plan

Welcome to this edition of the Click and Pledges Fundraising Command Center Podcast, where we talk the why, the what, and the how in the Click and Pledges ecosystem.

And today we are going deep into our the what series. We're focusing on a feature that I think really changes the game for how nonprofits can manage their donor relationships.

I agree. Today's deep dive is all about the engagement plan feature inside the Click and Pay Suite. And you know, if you're a Development Director, you know, the biggest headache isn't always the first ask. It's the follow-up.

It's all the follow-up. The endless manual work of figuring out who opened what, who clicked, who needs another nudge.

Exactly. It's a huge time sink. And our mission with the engagement plan is really about one thing, total automation of that communication.

Moving your staff from doing the busy work to actually, you know, overseeing the strategy.

So if that's the pain point, all this manual labor, what's the core idea behind the engagement plan? How does it get us to that total automation?

The philosophy is what we call set it and forget it, but, with a layer of intelligence on top. We recommend you build out a comprehensive plan just once. Maybe it's start of the year or before a big campaign. You're essentially building a dynamic decision tree for every single person on your list.

A decision tree. I like that. So it anticipates what a donor might do.

Precisely. It's an adaptive system. You define all the possible paths and then the system just runs adapting to each donor's behavior in real time.

So it's not just one email blast that goes out to everybody?

Not at all. This makes sure that whether a donor opens, clicks, or even ignores the email, they automatically get the right next step. And that's what drives engagement and ultimately donations.

That sounds like a major strategic shift.

Yeah.

But okay, if the logic is the brain, what's the wiring we need to set up? First, let's talk about preparation.

J: Right, you have to set the foundation. The first thing we suggest is making sure everything is ready inside Dispatch, which is the messaging hub in the click and pay suite.

First step is the technical stuff like the mass email provider. But then you get into the data.

Then you get to the data and that really starts with custom fields.

And why is that so critical for this? For an automated plan?

Because, I mean, without personalized data, your communication is never going to feel personal. The whole power is in merge tags, pulling information from Salesforce, you know, the first name sure, but also things like their last donation date or highest gift amount.

Ah, so it's not just Hello Bob, it's using that data to filter. Like only send a high dollar ask to people whose highest gift field is say greater than 500.

Exactly that. That's how you get to hyper personalization. So after that, you look at your senders and your lists.

Senders?

Yeah. We recommend creating multiple senders. An email about a gala should feel like it's from the events team, not the general development office. It just builds trust.

That makes sense. And the lists themselves, the recipients, can be built a few ways.

Three main ways. Yeah. Yeah. From an existing Salesforce report and existing campaign, or you can upload a CSV file.

And that CSV upload has a really cool feature built in.

It does. A huge strategic advantage really. You can check a box to automatically create a Salesforce contact for anyone on that list who isn't already in your system.

So every communication effort is also list building. You're keeping your data clean in Salesforce without a bunch of manual imports later.

Right. It keeps everything neat and tidy.

Okay. So the foundation is built, the data is there. Now let's get into the mechanics of the logic. This is what really separates it from just sending a bulk email.

This is the decision tree we were talking about. The system isn't passive, it's actively watching and recording what happens after you hit

And it's watching for four very specific behaviors for every single person. Right?

That's right. Four key actions. First is opened. Did they even look at the email? Second, clicked.

Did they click a link inside it?

Third is the big one.

The big one, donated. Did they complete a transaction? And fourth of course is not opened. They just ignored it.

I think a lot of organizations might lump open and click together, but there's a huge strategic difference there, isn't there?

Oh, absolutely. An open is just curiosity. The subject line worked. A click is intent. They were interested enough to take another step.

Maybe they just got distracted or their credit card was in another room.

So the follow-up has to be completely different. For the open, you're still selling the idea. For the click, you're just trying to remove a barrier to finish.

Exactly. And that's where you define your message status stages and the time delays. You can say, if they clicked but didn't donate, wait two weeks then send a reminder.

Or if they didn't open at all.

You might wait only say seven days and send a totally different email with a brand new punchy subject line just to get their attention.

And that automated tracking is what saves all the staff time. Which leads to how the system manages these groups. You call it the campaign hierarchy. I love the family tree analogy for this.

It really is the best way to picture it. The whole plan starts with your initial list. That's the parent campaign.

And here's the key. The system doesn't just tag people. When it runs its check after say thirty days, it actually moves them.

It automatically moves them. That's the crucial part. If a donor clicked the link, the system physically moves them out of that big parent campaign and into a specific child campaign, like the warm leads campaign.

Or if they donated they go into a thank you campaign.

Instantly. And this flow down the hierarchy from parent to child to grandchild is what guarantees you never send that awkward second ask to someone who already gave last week.

Right, it prevents that overlap and frankly shows you respect the donor.

It makes every single message that follows hyper relevant.

Okay, let's make this tangible. We have this quarterly campaign case study. Let's say it's a ninety day campaign and the goal is a $100,000.

Right. So step one, the initial send, the first email goes out to everyone in the parent campaign and now the ninety day clock starts ticking.

And we hit day 30. This is step two automated filtering. The system looks at what happened in that first month. No one has to pull a report.

And it splits the list into three groups. Group A is the donors. They gave. They're automatically moved to a stewardship child campaign. They get a thank you and they're out of the solicitation path.

Their job is done.

Then you have Group B, the ones who engaged but didn't donate, they opened, maybe clicked the link.

Right, they get moved to a warm leads child campaign and they get a different follow-up, maybe something softer like you're so close to helping us, let's finish strong.

And finally group C, the people who never even opened the first one, the ignorers.

They're moved to yet another child campaign maybe called needs new hook and they get a totally different message, a new subject line, new approach, something to finally grab them.

And the really amazing part is step three: repetition and completion. This whole process filtering, moving, sending customized messages, it just repeats at day 60, day 90, whatever you set up, no one has to touch it.

And here's a really critical point. The plan keeps running until all the steps are done or until the campaign hits its financial goal.

So if you hit that $100,000 on day 45

The whole thing shuts down automatically. No more asks go out. That responsiveness is key for good donor relations.

That is just that's the difference between manual work and true strategy. Now before we wrap, we have to talk about creating all this different content.

Well, we suggest starting with the structured email templates we provide. We have them for the initial ask, the follow-up for non openers, for clickers, the thank you, and so on. They map directly to this strategy.

And for getting that content written quickly, there's a great tool right inside platform.

Right. We want to remind everyone that you can always use Clicky, our AI integration. It's built right into the click and paste suite.

So Clicky can help write these letters?

Absolutely. It's your content assistant, you're trying to write a really compelling subject line for that needs new hook group. Clicky can generate ideas, it can help you draft the actual copy for every single step of your engagement plan.

So at the end of the day, what does all this mean for a fundraising team? To me, the engagement plan is the shortcut. The shortcut to sophisticated, efficient communication.

It lets your staff stop being data entry clerks and start being strategists.

The real power isn't just sending an email. It's knowing that every single interaction or even a lack of interaction is instantly met with a perfect, strategic, automated response.

It respects the donor's behavior and gently moves them down the path to giving.

So we'll leave you with a final thought to chew on. Look at your next big campaign. If you could automate all that follow-up logic, how much sooner could you hit your goal? And what could your team accomplish with the hundreds of hours they'd get back? For more information about this and all Click and Pledge products, make sure to visit clickandpledge.com and request for a one on one training or demo whether you are a client or curious about our platform, just ask us and we will gladly get together with you to chat.

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