Whether it's online blog posts or working with designers and creative agencies, I see far too many people advocating design that looks pretty, but isn't based on the available data surrounding donor behaviour.
If you're looking for someone to help you design an on-line advertisement, a newsletter, a website, donation page, or any of your direct response work, make sure their suggestions are based on data and best practices that demonstrate results with some form of statistical proof of impact.
Just because a donation page looks pretty and works to process your donation, doesn't mean it's effective at increasing donations for your organization. Just because a website looks wonderful and does cool stuff, doesn't mean it is helping people get information, or get involved with your organization.
Free can be expensive!
If you're considering hiring a firm or independent consultant to help you with design, be sure to ask them for data to support their design decisions. If you want to ensure your donation page is converting more donations (or higher amounts), work with professionals who understand fundraising. If someone is offering to do work in this area for you for free (or at minimal cost), consider how much you stand to lose if their design costs you thousands or hundreds of thousands in donations.
With online and mobile giving growing at an enormous pace, you can't afford to be creating websites or other communications properties with people who can't tell you how donors behave and what they motivate them to respond.
Always keep in mind what your trying to achieve. Pretty and "cool" isn't good enough. Results are your number one priority, make sure the people you work with deliver on them.
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