Marketing Automation Gives Grameen Foundation Confidence in Their Communication
The Objective
Grameen Foundation connects women and men in poor communities to a vital mix of financial, health, and agricultural services and information. The impact is tremendous; to date they have served over 23 million people. They engaged Idealist Consulting to get up and running on the marketing automation platform Pardot and use it to better segment and target their constituents.
The Problem
In 2016, Grameen Foundation went through massive uplift when they integrated with another nonprofit, Freedom From Hunger. It was a sink or swim moment that had huge implications for every aspect of how they conducted outreach. Specifically, they knew their existing mass email solution could not manage the combination of legacy data plus new contacts coming in from the merger. They needed a stronger tool to segment and customize as they entered this new phase.
The Solution
Grameen Foundation saw huge potential with adding Pardot (now Account Engagement) onto their already strong use of Salesforce and Affiniquest. For example, when they send an appeal for donations, they need to know who is an active donor, who is lapsed, and who gives regularly, so that they can communicate with each group in a tailored way. Idealist Consulting was a key partner for Grameen Foundation in providing Account Engagement training in addition to the technical implementation.
The Result
Idealist Consulting applied a “train the trainer” approach to encourage Grameen Foundation to get off the ground quickly. Throughout their work, Grameen Foundation often is curious about how many people have done a specific action, and now it’s easy to build a list based on those questions and think more creatively about possible campaigns using forms and landing pages. Today, Grameen Foundation’s lists are between 98-100% mailable because their data is cleaner, which leads to higher open and click rates. The combined lists of Grameen Foundation and Freedom From Hunger are getting stronger every day as more possibilities suggest themselves.
In their own words: “We don’t have to worry about outdated data anymore; I know it works and can build my emails and feel confident sending them. Now I spend my time thinking ‘what else can we do?’” said Nissa Shamsi, Senior Associate, Individual Giving
Interested in talking about what an upgrade to Account Engagement could look like for your nonprofit? Our team is ready when you are.
