Quartz.com most recent email speaks to the essence of Cool - with a big "C" (Check out Quartz membership for reliable news and culture). A sentence in the last paragraph struck me as not only important to how cool is present in our culture, but also as a key driver of successful fundraising. The sentence reads "experts argue the mass market is fragmenting into a universe of micro-markets, formed of communities coalesced around shared tastes and beliefs".
Micro-markets correlate to targeted segmentation in donor cultivation and stewardship and even in the solicitation efforts. The key to micro-segmentation is collecting and utilizing the appropriate data to help segment. This can range from frequency and recency of giving, to donor preferences on program, location, etc. Most importantly this level of segmentation doesn't take place without the necessary data collection, planning where it lives in your CRM and the combining data points that drive the segmentation. For the "art" side of fundraising, crafting the message and varying the elements so the result isn communication that appeals to or motivates the segment you are targeting.
Key Elements:
Plan for how you will collect and where you will store data (so it can be retrieved easily) in your CRM.
Draft the segmentation strategy - who are you targeting for what action
Determine the data you collected that will drive the necessary segmentation strategy
Develop the creative that highlights what action is desired from the audience and embeds elements of the data you are using.
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