Benchmarking online activities – it’s getting statistical up in here!
Last week M+R Strategic Services and NTEN released their 2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, providing an analysis of online messaging, advocacy, and fundraising benchmarks for nonprofits. In addition to downloading a copy of the report (get it here…it’s free!), I also listened in on a webinar hosted by M+R. My favorite part, of course, was the encouragement to tweet during the webinar. I so enjoyed being able to observe in real time what points resonated with other listeners, and found that many of the stats that caught me by surprise also grabbed the attention of several others in the virtual “room”.
Originally posted on community.npowerseattle.org/npowering on March 31st, 2011.
Last week M+R Strategic Services and NTEN released their 2011 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, providing an analysis of online messaging, advocacy, and fundraising benchmarks for nonprofits. In addition to downloading a copy of the report (get it here…it’s free!), I also listened in on a webinar hosted by M+R. My favorite part, of course, was the encouragement to tweet during the webinar. I so enjoyed being able to observe in real time what points resonated with other listeners, and found that many of the stats that caught me by surprise also grabbed the attention of several others in the virtual “room”. You can scroll through the tweets by searching #2011Bench.
The report provides averages for all organizations surveyed, as well as slicing and dicing the findings by sector and list size. Here are some of the statistics provided in the report:
- Average eNewsletter open rate - 13% // click-through rate –2%
- Average emails sent per month - 3.6 (jumps to 6 in December due to end-of-year fundraising)
- Average email list churn –18% annually
- Online giving increased by 14% between 2009 and 2010
- For every 1,000 email subscribers, organizations had 110 FB fans and 19 Twitter followers – Email is still king
- Daily action rate (# of daily likes and comments on content) for Facebook is 1.7 for every 1,000 fans
- Average email fundraising response rates (% that receive email that make donation) –.08%
Interesting stuff. But the real fun began when I decided to see how NPower is doing compared to these benchmarks. I was pleasantly surprised to see that our last edition of NPower Notables (our monthly eNewsletter) had higher than average open rates (17%) and click-through rates (3.6%). Our unsubscribe rate was a little higher than average, so that gives us something to think about and work to improve. Analyzing our Facebook action rates took a little more math. We had to figure out a solid action rate based on our number of fans, subtract days we didn’t post (weekends) and remove our own staff members’ likes from the equation. Compared to the pace and interaction of Twitter, our Facebook page can seem a little quiet, but this analysis showed us that our action rate was above average!
As use of social media becomes the norm, it is great to have some benchmarking tools available to help us determine if we’re effectively utilizing these networks to build relationships and encourage interaction. And while it is always helpful to know where you stack up against comparable organizations, don’t underestimate the importance of benchmarking against yourself. Are you setting clear and measureable goals for your organization’s online activities? Are you meeting those goals? What are areas for improvement and what strategies will you utilize? How often will you analyze your progress? If you’re feeling totally lost when it comes to social media check out our website for resources (like our Social Media Audit) or to get more information on our social media strategy services.
