Pain Points for Most Faith Base and Non-Profit Organization Websites

In the midst of Covid-19 (Corona Virus), we at JDS WebDesign hope everyone is safe, washing their hands frequently, sneezing and coughing on their elbow, and practicing social distancing.  Over the next several weeks, we plan on blogging about making your website more business-friendly.  We will have some tutorials on our favorite plugins and features, which will make your site more efficient.

What are the pain points that are the elephant in the room for most of our prospective or new clients?  The pain points are the reason that your website is not performing.  Most of these elements can establish a shorter bounce rate (time measured of visitors on your website) and will allow your web designer to focus on content and user experience.  If you have a website and are not gaining any traffic, then check to see if you have the following elements.  These elements are not marketing decisions or strategies.

We will be looking at four elements, Donations Solutions, Map (interactive) and hours of services, Blogging (audio and video), and responsive with mobile application elements.

Donation Solutions

Your website has to have a donation solution.  It has to be easily recognized and should be a different color button. DO NOT INTEGRATE A PAYPAL BUTTON INTO THE CONTENT.  This strategy will not gather the results that you want.

Next, your donation solution should work similarly to checking out in a brick and mortar. If you go to your local grocery store, you gather some products and then wait in a checkout line (or self-checking machine).  Your items are scanned and a total is presented to you. You select the type of payment and provide that payment to either a cashier or a self-check machine. Once the payment has been approved, then you leave with your products.  Most of us, do this process several times a day. Your donation solution can not require someone to sign up, then select the type of transaction (donation, event payment, or tithe), then apply credit card information, fill out address information, then select one-time or recurring, and finally click submit.

Your donation solutions should allow donors to make anonymous donations.   Securing email is all that is needed for the donation, and it is for annual reporting. We offer the following features for our clients.  These are standard features and allow your donation solution to add return on your investment (ROI). Some of the features include the following:

*Multiple Payment Gateways – Stripe, PayPal, Square, Go Cardless, and Cash on Delivery (for products…fundraiser ticket).
NO EXCUSE TO FOR MAKING A PAYMENT
*Donor Management – Multiple Forms with custom styling depending on the campaign, Donor Relationship and profile, Donor Wall, and Donor Account.
USER EXPERIENCE AND FORMS WILL BE CLIENT-FRIENDLY AND ENCOURAGED TO MAKE DONATIONS.
*Full Feature Reporting – Fundraising Summary, Donation History, Donor Reporting, and Data Export Report.
RETURN ON YOUR INVESTMENT (ROI). ALLOW YOUR CLIENT TO VIEW HOW THE DONATION OR TITHE CAMPAIGN IS SUCCEEDING.
*3rd Party Integration – Zapier, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Active Campaign, Convert Kit, Constant Contact, and Google Analytics.
MARKETING FEATURE, ATTACH THE DONATION DATA TO OTHER MARKETING ELEMENTS TO GROW YOUR EXPOSURE.
*Custom Fields – Custom Goals Displayed, Recurring Donation Subscriptions, Fee Recovery, Pdf Receipts, Annual Receipts, Tributes, Donation Upsells, and Text to Give Feature.
SET YOURSELF APART FROM YOUR COMPETITORS AS YOU WILL BE ABLE TO CUSTOMIZE YOUR FORMS, FEATURES SUCH AS RECURRING DONATIONS, PASS ALONG FEE RECOVERY [PAYPAY OR STRIPE’S CHARGES TO THE DONOR], SEND OUT REAL-TIME PDF RECEIPTS AND ANNUAL RECEIPTS [FOR TAXES PURPOSES] AT THE END OF THE YEAR, DONATION UPSELLS TO PROMOTE CAMPAIGN LEVEL GIVING AND TEXT DONOR LIST WITH ANY NEW CAMPAIGNS.

Map and Hours

It is mandatory that your office location (brick and mortar) and hours of location are located on your website. Ideally, this information would be present at the top and bottom of your website.  This is for non-profit organizations only…We live in a new world, so if you have remote staff.  It is okay to list that information and provide the remote business address.

Your address and phone should have interactive features, in which a simple touch will push that information to your phone feature or navigation element of your phone or tablet. Remember your website should push future customers to you or your organization.

This pain point does not take a lot of help to solve.  There are many plugins and some basic coding can ease this pain point.  This is one of the most overlooked pain points.  Imagine a potential customer, who wants to visit an upcoming event, and because you do not have an interactive phone link or map.  They are not able to ask for directions or suitable dress attire or worse how to pay for admission.

Blogging

You have to blog!  Your blog can consist of a sermon (audio and video) [if this is a faith-based organization] or just a blog about what your organization is and will be doing.  This is the best way to communicate with your potential and existing clients.  Podcasts are a great way to communicate and really are not as difficult as one might think.

You have to stay in front of your audiences and the best way to do this is by creating a frequent blog or post.  Make it bi-monthly at first and if you can do one weekly, then put up a post weekly.  If you have the time and resources to create one daily, then post on a daily basis.  One of the biggest reasons for not having a blog is TIME!!! If you do the following, then TIME will not become an issue.

*Schedule a time to write.  If you are more creative in the morning, then block out a few hours in the morning to write a few blog posts.
*Read, read and read some more. You know your visitors’ pain points. Read about them from other bloggers.  Spend 30 minutes a day, reading
a book.
*Use Guest bloggers to write on your website, if it is appropriate.  I would recommend this on a faith-based organization’s website unless it is a ministry
leader (Women’s Counsel President, Men’s Club Director, Educational Ministry Leader, etc.).
*Get ahead of your schedule and stay ahead.  If you write posts Monday – Friday, then write a blog post on the weekend.  At least until you are a few weeks ahead, then you can write on a daily basis. Remember, you will need the flexibility to write on a daily basis, especially if something time-sensitive comes up today.

Lastly, stop believing that you can not be a good writer.  Blogging is just an expression of your expertise.  You should be addressing solutions to a pain point and how to help others.

Responsive and Mobile Application

We only create responsive design websites. This means that it does not matter the size or type of device, your website will be viewable.  All current browsers will display your website. It will respond to the device, so you do not have to worry about how your visitor came to your website. We also do not create any projects, that are not also looking into having a mobile application. Mobile applications are super important!!!

Why are mobile applications so important?  Let’s take a look at your type of visitors.  You have four types of visitors:  Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials or Generation Y, and Generation Z.

Baby Boomers, who were born between 1946 – 1964.  These are individuals in their mid 50’s to late ’70s.  They typically will reject digital platforms.  They love brick and mortar.  They love building relationships.  They make up around 29 million in the United States.

Generation X or GenX, who were born between 1965 – 1980.  These are individuals in their early ’40s to mid-’50s.  Most had to learn about technology either during their school days or early career.  Most struggled with technology, but it has become a part of everyday activities and tasks.  Most GenX have learned to adapt to digital platforms as it is just a new and efficient way to handle day-to-day activities.  GenX makes up around 50 million in the United States.

Millennials or GenY, who were born between 1981 – 2012.  These are individuals in their early teens to mid-’40s.  They were born with technology and learn how to operate most devices prior to even attending school. They are paralyzed without technology.  Lack of internet would cripple or at least pause them as it is just how they accomplish most missions.  GenY makes up around 60 million in the United States.

Mobile applications which are viewed by Generation X and Millennials on a regular basis make up over 80 percent of the United States and you do not have a mobile application.  The math is not hard.  You want to put your organization in front of as many eyes as possible and you can not do that by only investing in a website.

Your mobile application should have a QR code, push notifications, my account, events, and all the major pages on your website.  QR code is a short code to add your application to new visitors or customers.  No longer do you have to go to the iOs [Apple] or Google Play Store and search for your organization.  They can just take a picture of your QR code and your application will begin to download. That’s why a QR code is so important.  Push Notifications are the best way to communicate with your target audience.  You have an upcoming event, donation request, blogging news, or just want to recognize someone or something. Use your push notifications to get our information on a regular basis.  It is very similar to your push notifications emails, which your get on a daily basis from your email carrier. My account is how your new visitors can log into their accounts, to receive push notifications.

Conclusion

When we do a review of most potential new clients, the first area that we check along with Analytics numbers. Analytic is the number of visitors that come to your site, where they come from, and how long they stay on your website, as well as, which page they stay on the longest.  We work on creating a predictable behavior, but generally in order to get a predictable behavior.  We need to have a good donation solution, an interactive map and phone, a blogging section, and a responsive website along with a mobile application.

Your organization needs to have a good solution to get funding, allow visitors to get in contact with you, provide relevant content, and provide information to all your target audience.  These four elements will solve these issues.

Image courtesy of Samatha Borges.

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