Welcome to this week's lesson, Telemarketing,

where we will dive into one of the longstanding channels

of Annual Giving, telephone solicitation.

Telephone solicitations are still a viable channel for annual giving solicitations,

even with all the changes in telephone technology over the last 10 years.

We will be discussing today the fundamentals of

a calling program, whether it's volunteer-driven,

or a paid staff of callers,

as well as topics such as script-writing,

rapport building, ask ladders,

and closing a call.

A calling program offers some great advantages over other solicitations.

Namely, it's a personal contact with a donor,

and it offers the most flexibility when it comes to messaging.

There are also some challenges,

which we will discuss during the lesson.

The lesson objectives this week will be to identify

the fundamentals of telephone outreach and solicitation.

You will develop scripts,

and an ask ladder to maximize your results.

And will examine pledge fulfillment strategies,

and how to use them to get the greatest results for your programs.

There are many different levels of calling technology and techniques.

What you use may vary considerably from another organization.

Some may have a fully equipped call center with call stations for a number of callers.

These stations would be equipped with hardware and

software for donor database storage and management,

auto dialing, and accepting gifts and pledges over the phone.

Some organizations may have a phone bank that is set up as needed with

phones and calling list provided to staff or volunteers for calling.

Callers would keep pledge cards on hand and write down pledge information.

There are also some who use volunteers only,

and those volunteers call on their own time from their own homes or offices.

In this case, calling lists are provided,

and volunteers return pledge information to the organization for follow up.

What kind of options do you have for a tele fund?

Depending on the size of your organization and budget, there are many options.

You can have an in-house program fully ran and supported by your organization.

Another option is to hire an outside vendor to manage the program,

but they would use local callers and a local facility.

This is an option used by many universities who have onsite call centers,

and really want to use their own students for calling,

but don't want to manage all the logistics and hiring.

Outsourcing the calling completely to an outside vendor where it is

done at a vendor call center is another viable option for many organizations.

And lastly, you can use strictly volunteer

calling where you provide lists and information to volunteers,

and they call from their homes, or offices,

or from a temporary phone bank set up for the short term calling campaign.

Here's your first question if you're planning to use telephone as a solicitation channel.

Do you hire callers or use volunteers?

It truly depends on the size and scope of your venture.

For many smaller organizations,

a volunteer group of callers recruited for a short period of

time to do a peer-to-peer calling campaign can be very successful.

PTAs and booster clubs are good examples.

I've seen some university athletic departments utilize

this method successfully to build participation as well.

On the other hand, if you have the budget and

the large prospect audience like a college or a university,

a paid caller program will give you the bandwidth

needed to reach your audience and maximize results.

Calling is an expensive solicitation channel,

but it is great for acquisition and building your donor base.

So, how long should your telemarketing campaign run?

Should it be short-term,

several months, year round?

Again, it depends. What's your goal,

and what's your budget?

If you were doing a short-term volunteer drive to fund

a community project or garner operating support for your non-profit,

go for a couple of days or a week-long campaign.

If you're a university tasked with attempting to call 200,000 records a year,

you'll need to run 9-12 months a year with a good sized staff.

You need to define your goal,

the size of your database,

and your budget, and then make some decisions.

I can't stress this enough,

current and accurate data is the key to a good calling program.

With smart phones, caller ID,

and the decline in landlines,

contact rates are decreasing at a steady and precipitous rate.

Invest in research and make it a priority to

maintain and regularly update information in your database.

Telemarketing used to be

a reliable and lucrative channel for renewing and acquiring donors.

Contact rates were high because of landline phones,

and the ease of acquiring telephone number information.

With the changes in phone technology and smartphones,

contact rates have declined considerably,

and we can't reach everyone like we used to.

However, it is still the best channel for acquiring donors,

and a valuable tool in a multi-channel strategy.

So once you've decided to use phone in your strategy,

you've got to start thinking about what you're going to say.

You need to build scripts.

Because the phone program may be

the only personal contact a donor or a prospect has with your organization,

you want to be sure it's a positive one.

Train your callers and volunteers to be kind, considerate, and respectful.

Teach them to smile when they dial. Smile and dial.

It sounds crazy but if you smile when you call,

it translates to the donor.

They can hear the smile and are more receptive to the call.

Here's an example, I'm going to read

a snippet from a script both with and without a smile.

Let's see if you can tell the difference.

"Hello, may I speak with Mr. Smith? Hi, Mr. Smith.

My name is Michelle and I'm a student calling from UC Davis.

I hope you're having a great evening."

"Hello, may I speak with Mr. Smith?

Hi, Mr. Smith. My name is Michelle and I'm a student calling from UCDavis.

I hope you're having a great evening."

So, can you tell the difference between those two?

When the callers are in a good mood,

when they smile during a call, the donors can hear it.

You need to build your scripts to allow for some consistency between the calls,

but it also has to be open enough to allow for dialogue.

An example of scripting would be, "Hi,

this is Michelle Poesy and I'm a student at XYZ University.

I'm calling to talk to Phil.

Is he available?

Great. I'm glad I caught you today.

I'm calling to talk to you about all the great things

happening at XYZ and within the College of Ag,

and to make sure we have your current contact information

so we can keep you up to date on your alma mater.

Can I ask you to confirm your address and e-mail with me?

Great. Thank you so much."

As you can see,

the caller is scripted,

but it's fluid can be adjusted per call depending on responses.

This is the best part of the call, rapport building.

This is where the scripting ends and the visit begins.

The caller uses the script to find the areas of

shared experience or interest they can expand on.

For example, "I see you're an engineering student.

I am too. Did you have classes with Professor Smith when you were here?

I'm in their class this semester and it's a killer,

but I'm learning so much from them."

For universities, it may be their college,

a class, a professor, a student organization, a band,

or a sport that resonates,

or it could be a doctor who saved a life a caring experience with a nurse,

or adopting a dog that became a cherished family member.

Whatever your organization, find an avenue within the script to build rapport,

and allow your callers to expand on those shared interests.

Your caller has built rapport with the potential donor.

Now, it's time to build a case for support.

This is the transition from building

a relationship with the donor and asking them to give.

Why should the person you we're calling care about what you're doing?

What are you doing that will make people want to join you?

Why should someone give you their money?

If you develop a strong case for support that resonates with your audience,

you were far more likely to succeed.

Callers need to be prepared with options depending on the call.

Scripts can include half a dozen or more bullet points on cases per support

for the caller to choose from depending on the direction the call has taken.

Using a university example,

maybe the caller talked with the donor about the high cost of tuition today,

their favorite research faculty member,

and how much the Career Services Center helped them when they graduated.

Those topics would indicate to the caller they should use scholarships,

faculty support, and the Career Center in their case for support conversation.

So the caller has built a rapport with the donor,

and shared a friendly,

and hopefully an impactful conversation with the donor.

They transition nicely from

the relationship building to sharing the case or cases for support.

Now, it's time to move to the ask.

What are you asking for and how much?

Here's where you need to have an effective ask ladder in

place to give the caller the opportunity to ask,

and continue the conversation if the donor says no.

An ask ladder, also known as ask amounts or ask strings,

is a set of fixed or calculated ask amounts based on constituents' giving history.

You assign ask ladders to segments to

ensure each recipient receives the appropriate ask amount.

This isn't an exact science and the aggressiveness of

an ask ladder varies considerably from organization to organization.

But there are some general guidelines to consider.

For instance, if someone's last gift was $50,

you wouldn't necessarily start off with a 1,000-dollar ask.

Or if they were a non-donor,

you wouldn't typically start with a 2,500-dollar ask.

If someone's last gift was $500,

you'd be missing the boat if you started by asking them for $100.

So, here's an example of the first ask in a four-ask ladder.

In this example, the ask is for a leadership level annual gift at the 1,000-dollar level.

If the donor says yes,

you move onto the call close.

If they say no, the caller needs to listen,

acknowledge, support, and then continue on to the next ask.

The second ask acknowledges not everyone contributes at the leadership level,

but we wanted to give them the opportunity.

It goes on to talk about the opportunities that are

available because of the generosity of donors.

It even mentions breaking the gift up into installments.

The ask is for $500.

If the donor says yes,

you move on to the call close.

If they decline again,

the caller needs to listen,

acknowledge, support, and then continue on to the third ask.

In this example, the third ask shares how important the alums are to the university,

and reinforces they are part of something bigger.

It continues to build on the need for support to maintain the services and resources.

And then it asks for a gift of $250.

If the donor says yes at this point,

the caller moves to the call close.

If they decline, the caller moves on to the final participation ask.

The fourth ask is the participation ask.

This is where you try to get the donor to give it a participation level.

Where you emphasize that every gift counts no matter the amount.

In this example, I'm illustrating alumni participation,

but it can be participation in a campaign,

participating in helping animals,

and helping a school,

in supporting any number of causes or initiatives.

The goal is to renew, reactivate,

or acquire a new donor no matter the level of the gift.

If the donor says yes,

the caller moves onto the call close.

If at this time they still refuse to give,

you thank them for their time and share information with

them on staying engaged and giving in the future.

If your technology allows,

record the reason for the refusal so you can use that for future calling efforts.

Using Telemarketing Overview (Part 1)

Annual Campaigns: Building a Case for Support

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