EOY 2024 Campaign
Introduction:
Our Annual Giving service revolves around story-based, deadline-driven campaigns designed to engage supporters year-round. By emphasizing frequency, consistency, and personalization, we develop and execute four annual campaigns, creating tailored creative assets across digital and print media. Our commitment is to activate donor relationships, inspire broad audiences, and provide the strategic support needed to reinforce these relationships through personalized communication.
Campaign Objective
The primary objective of Crossroads’ End-of-Year campaign was to harness the holiday season’s spirit and employ a comprehensive, multichannel approach—spanning a dedicated landing page, targeted email series, social media outreach, and direct mail—to elevate awareness of Crossroads’ mission and highlight the critical importance of providing nutritious food to those in need. By sharing compelling success stories and illustrating the tangible impact of donor support, we aimed to inspire meaningful contributions and reinforce Crossroads’ role as a beacon of hope for families.
At the client’s request, the campaign was ultimately scaled back to an email series supported by social media posts, directing supporters to the donation page. While this approach differed from our original plan—particularly in its limited use of a dedicated landing page and a streamlined direct mail effort—we maintained our focus on celebrating Crossroads’ 2024 milestones, articulating aspirations for 2025, and encouraging the community to rally behind the organization’s vital work.
Campaign Timeline
December 3rd-31st: Cultivation Emails
Campaign Story:
We shared the story of Dulce, a grandmother raising her two granddaughters after losing her daughter, who turned to Crossroads for help when she struggled to afford both car repairs and food. The story highlighted the impact Crossroads had on her life, providing food assistance, financial coaching, and peace of mind. With over 1,000 households served monthly and an increasing demand for services, we emphasized the importance of supporting Crossroads this North Texas Giving Day, especially with a $25,000 matching gift to double the impact of donations.
Website traffic
Total Traffic (12/3 - 12/31)
Visits 3,549
EOY Page Traffic
Visits 2,623
Average Time on EOY Page: 1 minutes 11 seconds
73.91% visitors to Crossroads website during campaign were visiting the EOY page
Since the home page was the EOY page this may have had an impact on this data
Total Button Clicks During Campaign
Clicks 219
Total Button Clicks on EOY Page
Clicks 79
36% of people who clicked during EOY campaign clicked somewhere on EOY page
Giving Clicks
Audience 31
39% of the people who clicked on the EOY page clicked on the giving button
solicitation email/Social posts
Throughout this email series, Crossroads stressed an urgent need to raise $250,000 by year’s end to ensure families receive nutritious food during the holiday season. Each email featured a clear call to action—inviting supporters to donate online—and underscored how contributions would directly help fill families’ tables and sustain Crossroads’ mission into the coming year.
Campaign Results:
Email Open Rates: The campaign average open rate 34.6%. The highest open rate was 37.3% for the second email which was the only email sent in the evening. This might suggest this time could be viable for more of your audience.
Email Click-Through Rates: The campaign average CTR was 1.23%. The email sent on 12/17 had the highest click rate, 37%, and the third highest open rate, 36.%. The subject of this email was “URGENT: Help Us Today” which suggests that strong clear email subjects are effective and that using all caps could be a useful tool for future campaigns that should be used sparingly.
Key Takeaways:
Email engagement data points to later evenings as being another viable time for your audience to open emails, which might be worth trying out in a future A/B test.
Continue to use effective, CTA in email subjects, and use all caps sparingly for best practice.
Overall, email engagement saw a decline from last year, although if there have been additions to the email list that could explain that data.
Solidify messaging and assets at least 3-4 months ahead of time.
Ensure all statistics shared make sense and are accurate.
