In this episode, we sit down with guest Josh Burns - Founder and CEO of Spark Collective - a Digital Marketing agency for nonprofits.
We discuss:
- Why marketing matters for nonprofits
- How do you make data-driven decisions about marketing?
- What are some fundamental marketing best practices for nonprofits?
- How do you decide which metrics to track in your marketing campaigns?
and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Making Data Matter,
(00:01):
where we have conversations about data,
leadership at mission-driven organizations
with practical insights into the intersection
of nonprofit mission strategy and data.
I'm your host, Sawyer Nyquist.
And I'm your cohost, Troy Dewek.
And today we are joined by guest, Josh Burns.
Josh, welcome to the show.
(00:22):
Thanks for having me, Troy and Sawyer, appreciate it.
Looking forward to it.
Yeah, and Josh, for folks just meeting you
for the first time, give us a little background
on who you are and what you do.
Sure, yeah.
So my name's Josh.
My family and I live here in the city of Chicago.
Been here since, can't moved here for school in 06.
(00:43):
Been here ever since, pretty much.
And so my, that's, you know, I'm a dad, husband by day.
And that's, you know, the most important thing.
And then I also run a digital marketing agency
for nonprofits.
We focus on creating digital fundraising growth campaigns
(01:06):
for mission-driven organizations and nonprofits
to help them increase their impact.
So yeah, I love all things, digital marketing,
storytelling, and using data to make
those types of decisions, so.
All right, so I'm gonna start here with maybe a naive
(01:27):
or stupid question.
So tell me this, why do nonprofits need marketing?
Because I guess when I think about marketing,
and I'm not a marketer, I'm a data nerd,
so I think about, you know, Pepsi and Nike and Apple
who are selling products, and so they're trying
to get marketing out for their products.
But tell me about a nonprofit.
Why does a nonprofit need to think about marketing?
(01:50):
Sure, yeah, that's a great question.
I like the way you phrased it the second time.
Why do nonprofits need to think about marketing?
Because I believe all organizations, all nonprofits
are marketing themselves all the time, right?
It's just a matter of like how intentional they are
and how they're thinking about it.
And really at the end of the day,
marketing is storytelling.
(02:12):
It's rooted in what the story is of your organization
and how you're telling it.
And so, you know, if you talk to any person
working in nonprofit, I have been one of those
for many years before I launched our agency.
(02:32):
I was in nonprofit work for about 10 years.
And so if you talk to anyone in that sector
and those organizations, you will almost always
find yourself coming back to or hearing about
the limited resources, the limited time, money, capacity
(02:56):
that exists in those types of organizations.
And I believe mission-driven orgs are doing
some of the most impactful and important work in the world.
And so that's why I'm drawn to it.
And so if we're doing, if in those organizations, we're doing,
(03:19):
whatever the work is, right?
Whether it's anything from teen mentorship to clean water
to humanitarian, international humanitarian aid,
clean food, whatever it is, right?
The story of that work needs to be told in a way
that reaches the right people at the right time
(03:41):
with the right message.
And so that's why I believe nonprofits need to be thinking
about their marketing and their storytelling.
The first thing I tell people when I start to work
with an organization is everyone in your organization
is a marketer, right?
Whether you have that role, that title,
or that specific role or not, every employee,
(04:04):
every team member, even volunteers, right?
They're going out and they're gonna have some sort
of conversation with someone in their circles
about the work they're doing.
And so how are they thinking about the work?
How are they thinking about the mission and the vision
and the story that they're telling?
And so at the end of the day, that's how I see that.
(04:28):
And then I love thinking about that in terms
of the digital framework and the digital world
and how that's being done online.
That's, yeah, a long way.
That's hopefully, you know, that's a long way of saying
every nonprofit should be thinking about it.
Now, when you say there's just a story we're communicating
(04:50):
about the nonprofits vision, who is it that they're trying
to communicate to?
Is it to like potential donors?
Is it to potential like volunteers?
Is it to potential people who would be servicers
of their mission or their work?
Even just like the audience that might be at play
when an organization is doing marketing.
(05:14):
Yeah, yeah, it could be all of the above, right?
That's, I think one of the first things organizations
need to do is figure out who their target audiences are
for the goals they're trying to achieve.
So even like a step above who that target audience is,
is like, what are the goals you're trying to achieve?
And then from there we can look at, all right,
(05:34):
who are the people or the audiences that we need to talk
to and reach in order to achieve those goals?
And so oftentimes it's prospective donors, current donors,
lapse donors, talking about data, like those are some,
like you can start to even segment the one audience
in those different ways.
You can look at volunteers, program participants.
(05:59):
I would say those are like the top,
probably typical top three audiences
that a nonprofit would look to talk to.
So as you're thinking about telling stories,
the buzzword is data storytelling.
So when you hear that term, what immediately comes to mind
as a marketer, someone who's doing digital marketing
(06:24):
and looking at some of those digital marketing metrics,
what's data storytelling to you, Josh?
And how do you communicate that out to the nonprofits
that you're working with through your agency?
Yeah, it's a great question.
I think it depends on the context that we're talking in.
So when we look at digital marketing and fundraising
(06:44):
for an organization, our work tends to span
the entire donor journey or partner journey.
And so that can be everything from the awareness side
of things on paid ads, organic social media, SEO,
how are people discovering you for the first time
or becoming aware of you down to that next step,
(07:07):
which is consideration when they're considering
your organ, like taking the next step
with your organization.
How is your website optimized in order to convert them
to take that next step in that action,
whether that's donations or volunteer signups.
And then on the backend, once they've taken that action,
how are we pursuing them and following up with them
(07:29):
through email marketing and marketing automation?
And so, yeah, when you say data storytelling,
I think you're exactly right.
And this is where at least the organizations
that we tend to work with, which tend to fall
between the two to 10 million in annual revenue range,
(07:51):
we have organizations that are larger than this,
in the 100 million annual revenue.
But when you're talking like those small
to mid-size nonprofits, I think the challenge often is,
again, resources are limited.
We only have so much time, so many people.
And so we're just gonna either make decisions
(08:13):
based on feelings and what we know,
what we think is the reason or the cause for certain things,
or we're only looking at the high level,
quote unquote, vanity metrics, right?
Like reach, impressions, things like this.
And then we're making decisions based off of that.
(08:34):
And so when we partner with organizations,
it's even like talking to their,
if they have a marketing team, digital marketing team,
or a person in that role,
it's, when I think of data storytelling,
I think of oftentimes, how are you taking the,
(08:54):
first of all, measuring the data, taking it in,
and then, like I've heard you all talk about before, right?
It's the then taking that to leadership
or communicating that to other stakeholders
in the organization.
And if you hand, typically you hand an executive director
a report that says we got 100,000 impressions
(09:19):
and like 10,000 clicks, right?
They're most likely not gonna know what to do with that.
Or they're gonna just get,
it's just gonna like cause a spiral of questions
that if you actually are able to craft that story
and that narrative around that data,
then you're more quickly gonna be able to advocate
(09:42):
for yourself and your team
and be able to make more actionable decisions.
Yeah, great point.
And one thing I was gonna ask you about
is we often equate this conversion funnel
to like a sales funnel,
is where you have to start with your prospects
and you have to move them through the funnel
(10:02):
until the point that they are actually converted
into being a donor.
And that is a primary audience,
I think, at the nonprofit world,
where much of the revenue is going to come
from your donor base.
But many times it's more like a mountain you're climbing.
It's like you've gotta help them get
from just being a prospect, someone interested,
(10:23):
and you gotta get them to the pinnacle.
And that's a tough, difficult road to navigate.
And so the audience, while it could be
those senior leaders, the executives making decision,
you've gotta craft a story around them.
How have you also seen that donor journey
from say prospect to active donor
and the use of data in that journey for them?
(10:46):
Are they part of that audience
in which you're telling a story using data
through the marketing materials
to help them get to that point
where they're part of your active donor base?
I don't know, any thoughts on that?
It was a question that was coming to mind
as you were talking.
Yeah, yeah, it's a good question.
I think if I understand your question correctly,
it's how are we even using the data we have access to
(11:11):
and telling a story around it for the potential donor?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think that even hits on the programming side
of the organization, right?
Where you're not even necessarily looking
at the back-end marketing data,
but it's helping the programming team understand,
(11:35):
listen, data is a way,
like I like to think about donors
in a couple different buckets, right?
You have like the number-driven donor,
which they're thinking about,
they could be thinking about the finances
of the organization, they could be thinking about
the programming metrics of the organization.
Then you have like the emotional donor, right?
(11:56):
Which like you want to also tell the story
of the impact of the organization through the people, right?
And so for those number-driven people,
I think, yeah, you bring up a great point.
It's looking at, all right,
what are our program impact metrics
that we want to, that tell the story accurately
(12:18):
and most clearly for the work that we're doing?
And then, yeah, making that connection for those people.
So yeah, it's definitely not just like,
all right, here's the backend marketing data we're seeing.
It's, okay, then how is our data flowing the other way,
(12:41):
right, back to our prospective audiences?
So I think that's a great point, Troy.
Yeah, and even those emotional donors in that audience,
they still want to see some numbers to equate impact
like you were saying.
So yeah, great thoughts there.
Josh, you mentioned something earlier about,
I think you used the term vanity metrics
(13:01):
and how maybe sometimes there are just big,
high-level numbers, easy numbers
that we can kind of conceptualize of impressions or clicks.
And I'm curious that you call them vanity metrics.
Is that maybe, is there a chance like,
those metrics aren't the most useful
or they could lie or lead you in the wrong direction?
Or maybe what are some cautions around like,
what's the problem with they be looking at certain numbers
instead of other numbers?
(13:23):
Yeah, so, and I say vanity metrics, right,
because I think historically people have used those metrics
to maybe inflate the success of certain things
more than it actually is.
So, and I always have to, I'm constantly, you know,
asking questions of nonprofits around just like
(13:47):
market research for my own work, right?
Because agencies oftentimes get a bad rap
when it comes to like digital marketing specifically,
because it's so easy to just put out like, all right,
we reached half a million people this month
through social media.
When in reality, that's a fine metric to measure
(14:09):
and it gives us one data point, right?
That like, that our content is being seen by people,
but the next step you have to take, right,
is understanding, all right,
our content's being seen by people,
but is it driving them to take action, right?
Or is it engaging with people?
And so, you know, you kind of have to walk that,
(14:30):
walk those steps down the funnel.
And so, you know, you go quickly from impressions
and reach down to engagement and social media.
Is it getting likes, comments, shares?
And then from there, are we actually driving traffic
to the website?
And then from there, it's like, you know, more questions.
(14:52):
What's the quality of that traffic?
Is it just anybody is coming to our site?
And then, you know, the metric that I love looking at
and because it just tells us so much
about different channels is the bounce rate metric
on the website, right?
Because, you know, the bounce rate measures
(15:13):
how many people are coming to your site
and then leaving without taking any action.
And so, if that bounce rate is astronomically high,
that either tells us that the quality of the traffic
is bad, like the, you know, the people we're sending
to our site are not our target audience
or our site is not optimized to convert our target audience
(15:37):
to take the next action, right?
So, there's so many paths you can go down there, right?
And that's where experimentation comes into play
and creating hypotheses of like, okay,
if we move this button up above the fold on the homepage,
right, meaning they don't have to scroll to see the button,
(15:57):
is that going to decrease the bounce rate?
And is it going to increase our traffic to the give page?
So, yeah, so there's, I don't even remember
your original question, I'm so far down the rabbit hole now.
Vanity metrics and like what metrics actually matter.
So, yeah, you get into that.
Yeah, yeah, so we always create something
(16:19):
called a growth report for all the organizations
we work with and all it tracks is the most essential metrics,
meaning if an organization, their top level goal
is to increase donations 20% online,
increase online donations 20%, then, you know,
(16:39):
some examples of metrics we would track
in the growth report would be obviously
donation, online donations, we would be tracking
like conversion rate on the donation page
and we would probably be tracking something
like average gift value or number of donations made, right?
And so to answer your question, yeah, back to your question,
(17:02):
and that doesn't mean we're hiding all those other metrics,
it's just, we don't want to inflate the value
of the work we're doing by just telling people
we're sending, you know, we're reaching this many
hundreds of thousands of people through social media
because then it's like, you know, further down the line,
we get to, you know, a year in
(17:24):
and donations haven't increased at all
and then we're left there with a,
they've got a bad taste in their mouth.
And so, yeah, so we always, we mainly report
on those bottom of funnel metrics
and then, you know, for our own purposes,
we understand the rest of the funnel as well.
(17:44):
And that requires, the main assumption there
is that you've defined what the desired outcome is
and like what the key goal is and that's, you know,
maybe it's donations is probably a core one,
but there might be some other key objectives
so that it's not just the impressions,
but we know what action we want people to end up at
at the bottom of the funnel
and that's what we can keep track of
(18:04):
because this shows up in the tutorialized world all the time
where there's so many numbers that you could look at,
so many metrics and measures that you can create
and splatter across dashboards
and it just gets really noisy for people
trying to consume that information and make sense of it.
And if you have like, hey, here are some clear numbers,
this is actually what our clear objective is,
we work together to define it.
(18:26):
Now we can look at how that needle moves
and did we make progress towards what we care about?
Not just, yeah, busy dashboard.
Yeah, I mean, you know, quick story,
I started working with an organization earlier this year
and on the first call,
they had their goals defined for 2024 and 2025
and I was smiling so big because I was just like,
(18:49):
this is again, like you work with organizations
all across the board,
but like an organization of their size,
I typically do not see any type of tangible goals in place
and so it was just great to even have like
a baseline of what their expectation was
and this is something we ask every organization is like,
(19:10):
what is your expectation for ROI with Spark Collective,
the name of our agency?
And so from the out of the gates, right?
It sets the expectation like, all right,
here's your expectation
and then that gives us at least a baseline to work with
to say, okay, let's reverse engineer these goals
to understand whether or not they're realistic
(19:31):
and with this organization, we actually had to do that
and say like, okay, these might be a little too high for,
at least for industry averages
that we see on a regular basis.
So let's maybe readjust and then we can shoot higher
if we want to.
So yeah, that's a great point.
And that type of nonprofit is probably gonna have
a lot better experience with a marketing agency
(19:52):
than one that doesn't have goals defined, right?
Like they're probably a lot more likely to get
what they're paying for when they work with an agency.
Absolutely.
I was gonna say that's great that you set those goals.
You can keep coming back to those as that baseline
and it can help keep focus.
But that is my question, Josh.
(20:13):
How do you keep these organizations that you work with
focused on a handful of metrics to say
that's what's actually going to give us the insight we need
to drive the actions that we're doing in the org?
Because like Slower was hinting at,
we see it with reports where everybody wants a report
(20:34):
on their metric.
And next thing you know, you got a hundred plus reports
and dashboards out there collecting dust.
And so how do you, as a marketer, keep the leaders
and their organizations focused on a handful of metrics
when they might wanna keep introducing more?
They'll say, well, if we could just have these 10 more
(20:55):
metrics on that one goal we're looking at,
that would give us the flavor text we need
to really know that we're hitting the mark with it.
And that's gonna mean more resources
to develop those metrics.
So what's your process been?
What's the how part?
Maybe you have another story of what that's been like
to keep people from going in all different directions
(21:17):
to get metrics, trying to solve those goals that they set.
Oh my goodness.
When you figure that out, Troy, let me know.
Because yeah, it's-
That's why we invited you, my friend, come on.
No, it's a great, I think it's a great question
and a challenge that continuously comes up, right?
Even for our own business, right?
(21:39):
You're constantly having to figure out, all right,
what's most essential to focus on?
And then what can we maybe save for later?
Or we can track less frequently, right?
Maybe we don't need a monthly report on this.
Maybe we need a quarterly report.
Maybe we need a bi-annual report.
I think that's like, first, the approach is like
(22:01):
asking questions and understanding
what's the motivation behind you wanting to
have this type of data or these metrics.
And oftentimes it's not necessarily rooted
in wanting to improve whatever that high level goal is.
It's oftentimes for their own personal context,
(22:26):
which is fine, I get that.
But yes, it does have to come back to time,
capacity, resources.
And we oftentimes view things as we view,
we call it scope.
We view scope or resources as like a plate of food, right?
And so you've got a full plate of food right now, all right?
(22:48):
If we want to add something else,
we maybe have to reallocate and take something else off.
And so that's oftentimes a helpful conversation.
And when these things come up, because you're right,
it's, you know, the dashboard starts to get really big.
And then, you know, like you said, it's somebody's time.
(23:11):
That's tracking all these metrics and data
and creating these reports.
And so, yeah, so I think those are like some approaches
that we take to that.
That's not just helpful in agency work.
I think that's like just organizationally, right?
If you're a team member inside of an organization,
having those conversations to understand scope and capacity.
(23:35):
And yeah, and then again, around frequency,
we send out monthly reports
to the organizations we work with.
But they also have access to these dashboards at any time
that they can go take a look at, right?
And so if they have a question around the metric
or something like we're happy we have those conversations.
(23:58):
But yeah, I think that's the other, you know,
going back to like how agencies have gotten a bad rap is,
you know, we like to be completely transparent
with the data, right?
Because we shouldn't have anything to hide.
If we're doing our jobs right, you know,
so people have access to all of that.
And then we can have those conversations as they come up.
(24:21):
One of the tools that I've used are frameworks that,
I don't know, I probably stole from somebody or adapted,
but it's this idea of there are terminal metrics
and there are decision metrics.
Like a terminal metric would be like revenue.
Like we're tracking revenue.
Why are we tracking revenue?
Because that's the end goal.
Like that's the terminal goal that we wanna keep track of.
And then you might have like maybe one or two
maybe three terminal metrics,
(24:43):
but then everything else needs to be,
the only other thing you track then is like,
you only track decision metrics.
And like that metric has to have a decision tied to it.
When we hit X, we need to, we change Y.
The metrics are tied to specific decisions.
And so I'm curious about drilling into that second one
a little bit.
How do you make decisions around marketing decisions, perhaps,
around data and like specific metrics that might come in?
(25:06):
What are the things that come through from a data standpoint
that would lead to a different decision
from a marketer perspective?
Maybe that's posting schedule,
maybe that's the type of content.
Tell me a little bit about like those decision metrics
that you might keep track of and what those look like.
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, I love that terminal metrics and decision metrics.
I just wrote that down because see,
I told you all before we hopped on here,
(25:28):
I'm probably gonna learn more from you
than you're gonna learn from me.
So yeah, that's great.
The, yeah, the decision metrics, I mean,
it could, there are many that we could look at.
I think one that's that I'm often intrigued by
is conversion rate on a website because it tells you,
it could potentially tell you or give you data
(25:50):
into a few different channels,
or it could lead you in a few different directions
in terms of decisions.
So, you know, if you have a low conversion rate
on your website, it could mean a few different,
like one of a few different things.
It could mean you're not sending enough traffic
to your website.
It could mean, again, you're sending the wrong,
(26:11):
bad quality of traffic to the website,
or it could mean that your website,
the page isn't optimized properly
for engagement and conversions.
And so that's, I think that's like a big one
that I like looking at.
Another one would be email open rates
and click through rates.
And so, you know, we worked with an organization
(26:34):
at year end and we're still working with them,
but we, you know, we ran their year end campaign,
fundraising campaign last year.
And we looked at, all right, how many,
what's the frequency of emails that you all have sent out
in the past between November and December?
In the past, they had sent out,
I believe it was 11 emails over the course of that time.
(26:57):
And I said, okay, what if we almost doubled that?
And let's see what happens.
And so we increased that frequency rate,
the email volume by 90%.
And they saw an increase,
we saw an increase in their open rate by 14% over that time.
(27:20):
And which is counterintuitive, right?
Like you think we send out more emails,
we're gonna get less people opening them.
I wouldn't backfire too, yeah.
Yeah, exactly, right?
And that's where like you have to be willing to adjust
and pivot as you're gathering more data, right?
If we would have seen the open rate just plummet,
then we make a decision to pivot.
(27:44):
But yeah, so, you know,
we actually saw the open rate and the click rate increase
over that time.
And we saw that the amount of donations from email
increased during that time.
So yeah, so I think,
and this is another thing I would encourage people
in nonprofits or just organizations in general to do.
(28:08):
And I find myself not doing this enough,
but being willing to experiment and learn.
And that's going to involve a certain amount of risk.
But I think it's the only way forward,
especially in digital,
because things are changing so often and so quickly.
And so if there's not some sort of built-in time
(28:32):
in your role to try things and experiment with things,
and you know, in nonprofits,
this is probably one of the hardest environments
to do this in because again,
we're all strapped for time.
And then we have people around us or leaders
that are so focused on making sure
(28:56):
we're hitting our revenue goals and our donation goals.
And so if we try something new
or pivot from what we know has always worked,
then what's going to happen? We don't know.
But I think starting out in small ways
in those things and then trying new things all the time,
(29:19):
I think it's actually going to help you in the long run.
So yeah, so those are, I think,
when it comes to decision metrics,
I could talk for hours on how you can make decisions
based on certain data points,
but those are a couple that come to mind.
Yeah, this may not work,
(29:40):
or some of the scariest words or the most exciting words
you could hear, like, we're going to try something,
and this may not work.
And that can feel kind of reckless,
especially if you're in a conservative financial situation
or at least a mindset of we can't waste resources
and we're scarce in resources.
But it's also where the door opens up the most
(30:01):
for opportunities and we're trying something that may not work.
And that's, in order to really move the needle on things,
that's often, that's always what's required
to really make change is we're trying something new and different.
Can I pivot a little bit to talk about,
or to ask you about maybe some of the more nitty-gritty technical stuff?
So what are the tools you use to work with data?
(30:24):
Where does data come from this?
You talked about conversion rates and click-throughs
and tracking people on their journey with a marketing campaign.
What does that even look like from a practical tools perspective for you?
Yeah, yeah, it's a good question.
And it's, you know, I love looking at this, again,
for the size of organizations we typically work with
(30:45):
because typically, you know, I'll talk to someone in a nonprofit
and they've either got Google Analytics installed
and they're not paying attention to it or it's not even there at all.
And my question is always like,
who built your website and didn't install some sort of tracking?
Like, it's mind blowing to me.
(31:08):
But it's...
Uncle Sam built the website and he did it for me.
Yeah, exactly.
Uncle Steve built the website.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's no knock.
Like, I get it.
You don't know what you don't know.
So, yeah, so I think, you know, the basics are Google Analytics,
having that installed, looking at, you know,
(31:32):
whatever social media channels you're using,
whether that's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn,
and just the built-in analytics that are there,
I would say just start there.
And so, and then, you know, you obviously have metrics built into
email marketing platforms as well.
But, yeah, I think, you know,
(31:54):
digging into more of the nitty gritty of Google Analytics,
it's like thinking through things like internal traffic filters
and understanding that, like, oh,
when everyone in our office goes to the website,
that's skewing the data that we're getting out of it, right?
Your website visits may not be 100 a week if, you know,
(32:19):
20 of those are your internal traffic.
So, so, you know, stuff like that,
that people just don't think about and setting those up,
setting up events and key events in Google Analytics,
or, you know, formerly known as conversion events.
And then, you know, being able to look at the end,
(32:41):
that then gives you a whole window, right,
into the donor journey to understand,
especially when I would highly encourage people to,
like, Google the donation platform that you're using
and ask Google if there's a Google Analytics integration
with your donation platform, because, again,
(33:05):
this is mind-blowing to me, but there are donation platforms
out there that, like, don't integrate well.
And unless you're a developer that can get into, like,
the data layer of your website and, you know, start to,
or, like, another simple workaround is just, like,
redirecting people to a thank you page so that that triggers
a conversion event in Google Analytics.
(33:26):
But making sure that those things can talk to each other,
I think, is really important and really helpful.
And then the other thing I would say is start using UTM links
and parameters to be able to track inside of Google Analytics
where your website traffic is coming from
and then understanding, again, that full journey on the website
(33:51):
through to donation or volunteer signups or whatever it may be.
And it's getting, I mean, you all, I would love to, you know,
probably chop it up with you all on this,
because I'd love to hear your thoughts, but, like,
obviously third-party data is becoming harder and harder to track,
and it's just going to, like, it's, you know,
(34:12):
eventually just going to become a thing of the past, right?
Like, we're all going to have to go, like,
that's one thing that I'm constantly encouraging organizations
to get better at and think about is, like,
are we gathering first-party data from people, our target audiences?
And, you know, those just a quick, like, third-party data is, like,
(34:36):
you go to a website and then it tracks you around the internet, right?
You get ads.
First-party data is, like, I put in my email address into this form,
and I give it to the organization.
So those are things that, you know,
we're constantly thinking about and trying to help organizations think
about because we're not going to be able to track people around the
internet forever.
So.
Yeah.
(34:57):
And one of those is exponentially more valuable from your organization
standpoint than the other.
And so how much are you dependent upon third-party data?
Third-party data is, like, inconsistent and, like,
changing with the tides and can also be really costly,
depending on how you're acquiring that.
And first-party data can just be, offer a lot more value in terms of
(35:19):
your control of it and your ability to manipulate, manage,
and optimize around it.
So that's a good call-out from a marketing perspective.
Josh, this has been great.
So where can people go online to find more about you, Spark Collective?
Maybe you stirred up some itches in people as they think about their own
marketing, their firm, and what they want to do,
what tools they might kind of use.
But if they want to reach out, say hi to you online or maybe reach out for
(35:42):
help, where can they find you in Spark Collective?
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, like I said, I appreciate you all having me on.
Love learning from you all.
And yeah, you all can find me.
Ironically, the platform I spend the most time on is LinkedIn these days.
So yeah, just search for me there, Josh Burns on LinkedIn,
or you can go to our website, sparkcollective.net.
(36:05):
Excellent.
This has been a pleasure, Josh.
Exploring new worlds for Troy and I.
I haven't spent much time in the marketing world and conversion rates and
things like that are a little bit different, but I realized this is,
this is core aspect of data and like it's so many data points in that and
so crucial to nonprofit organizations and how they function in terms of like
spreading their story and making data matter and be impactful and influential
(36:29):
in what they're doing.
So thanks so much for joining us.
It was a pleasure to have you.
And that's all folks.
Thanks for joining us and we will see you next time on making data matter.
Hey, so you're here again.
During the course of this conversation, we ended up taking a bit of a detour
and went deeper into Troy.
Josh is in my background.
We all went to the same Bible college and we ended up exploring a little bit
(36:54):
of our experience with our current work and our perspective on theology and
religion and how that has played a factor in our journey over the last 15
years or so.
Some of this conversation didn't quite fit with the rest of the tone of the
episode and so we didn't include it in the main part, but I thought it was a
valuable enough conversation as we shared a little bit more about our stories
(37:15):
that it might interest some of the listeners to explore that a bit more.
So if you want to hear a bit more about where Josh, myself and Troy came from
and how we think about our work from a Christian and theological perspective,
there's a little bit of an epilogue about us talking through that.
I want to take us in a different direction.
So you've got three guys on the call who went from a religious college
(37:42):
experience and we're all now in quote unquote non-religious sort of roles in
terms of the things we're doing.
Sawyer, you as a data architect and myself as a BI engineer.
Josh, you're running your own marketing agency around digital marketing and
(38:03):
analytics.
So Josh, specifically tell us a little bit about your journey.
How do you go from that non-traditional background and find yourself in this
kind of a role nerding out on things like Google Analytics and conversion
rates and UTMs of your campaigns?
Tell us about that.
I love it.
(38:25):
Now we're really going deep.
Let's go.
And you all can choose what you want to cut out of this.
No, I think it's a good question.
It took me about, oh, man, 10 years to post college to just grow on my
understanding of work and what it means and what the purpose of it is.
(38:47):
And so I could go on for a long time about that.
But yeah, you're right.
You know, it's funny.
Yeah, I wasn't sure, you know, Troy, where I think I knew you.
We all went to the same school, but it didn't actually click and register with me.
So, yeah, I went to Bible school.
(39:08):
And I think, you know, like I shared earlier, my passion has, regardless of the
context, has always been using the tools at our disposal to share stories and
help.
I think first it started as like share stories enabled in order to make an
impact.
(39:29):
And now it's more so sharing stories in order to help other people make an
impact in their communities and in their circles.
And so getting more specific in that, which is really cool.
But yeah, I mean, and I don't know, like, I don't know how deep you all want me
to go with this.
We can cut this out.
I don't know how deep, like I could go in a whole thing about like, you know,
(39:53):
theology of work and stuff, but I don't know who your audience is and stuff.
So open it up, Josh.
Go for it.
We'll figure it out later.
Yeah.
So I think, like I said, it took me about 10 years to, I think, come to this
understanding that there's from a work perspective, there's not necessarily
there.
You know, I think it's easy to think about whether it's like, quote unquote,
(40:15):
faith based work or ministry minded work as like one path to go down as a, I'm
a follower of Jesus.
And so that, I think I had a very narrow mindset and very narrow view of what
that looked like.
And coming to the realization that I think also like there was a bit of
insecurity in myself to think that I, the skills that I have could translate to
(40:40):
the marketplace or to another type of context.
And so, yeah, so that was a really good journey to go on to understand that
there's not necessarily like a sacred and secular divide as a follower of Jesus
when it comes to work.
I believe I'm commissioned to work for the glory of God in whatever context I
(41:02):
find myself in.
Obviously there's some where that's automatically negated, but yeah, so I
think that's kind of the journey that I've been on in understanding that, man,
I think the age that we live in, the time that we live in, we have such an
opportunity to again, take the tools that we've been given, the data that we're
(41:23):
getting every single day through these tools.
And I'm also a big fan of using these platforms in healthy and sustainable
ways, right?
So oftentimes it's ironic that like I run a digital marketing agency, but like
I'm barely ever on social media for myself personally and, you know, helping
(41:44):
people understand like their own, you know, personal limits and boundaries
around these things and what's healthy and for their own lives.
But anyways, I digress.
Yeah, that's kind of what my journey has looked like.
But yeah, I mean, I'd be curious to hear from your perspective as well what
that's looked like for you.
Yeah, that's me.
Good as Josh.
(42:05):
I don't remember if we talked about this much because my story is similar in
some ways.
Like I spent, after movie, was seminary for me for four years.
And then it was after seminary, it was, I don't know what I'm doing because I
didn't end up being a pastor or in ministry or something like that.
And it took me a while to figure out, hey, I can be in the marketplace and love
(42:28):
Jesus and Jesus could love my work in the marketplace.
And that was a fluke some kind of mentors.
It took me a few years to get there.
And now I've had a great deal of joy and fulfillment in the marketplace.
So, yes, I think there's some probably parallel journeys that we were going on
in that space.
Yeah, I'm echoing the same thing in terms of just I thought my career goals
(42:51):
were to either be a seminary professor or pastor in a church.
And as I was going through seminary, I was working at a job that had me doing
all the formulas.
And it was like I got bit by this bug that I just wanted to know more about
rows and columns.
And that doesn't mean a lot to a ton of people out there.
(43:14):
But if you're a data geek, it's like that's where it all starts.
And it just kept snowballing from there.
And I was like, you know what?
I'm finding passion and fulfillment in the work that I'm doing.
And it's something that I felt gifted in.
And so learning that, like you were saying, that theology of work where there
isn't this divide between secular and sacred, that everything I do is something
(43:36):
that glorifies God is important.
And so, yeah, I'm glad that I'm able to do that in the nonprofit Christian
spaces that I've been in.
But wherever we're called, I think that's a neat opportunity.
So since we're on the topic of, you know, theology, seminary, those kinds of
things, I got some Bible trivia for you guys.
(43:59):
All right?
My question is, who's the only person in the Bible who doesn't have a father?
It's not going to be what I want to say.
Yeah, it's going to be some trick question or something.
It's Joshua.
I don't even.
Because he's the son of none.
(44:20):
Son of none.
Son of none.
This guy.
All right.
This guy.
Welcome to Making Data Matter,
(00:01):
where we have conversations about data,
leadership at mission-driven organizations
with practical insights into the intersection
of nonprofit mission strategy and data.
I'm your host, Sawyer Nyquist.
And I'm your cohost, Troy Dewek.
And today we are joined by guest, Josh Burns.
Josh, welcome to the show.
(00:22):
Thanks for having me, Troy and Sawyer, appreciate it.
Looking forward to it.
Yeah, and Josh, for folks just meeting you
for the first time, give us a little background
on who you are and what you do.
Sure, yeah.
So my name's Josh.
My family and I live here in the city of Chicago.
Been here since, can't moved here for school in 06.
(00:43):
Been here ever since, pretty much.
And so my, that's, you know, I'm a dad, husband by day.
And that's, you know, the most important thing.
And then I also run a digital marketing agency
for nonprofits.
We focus on creating digital fundraising growth campaigns
(01:06):
for mission-driven organizations and nonprofits
to help them increase their impact.
So yeah, I love all things, digital marketing,
storytelling, and using data to make
those types of decisions, so.
All right, so I'm gonna start here with maybe a naive
(01:27):
or stupid question.
So tell me this, why do nonprofits need marketing?
Because I guess when I think about marketing,
and I'm not a marketer, I'm a data nerd,
so I think about, you know, Pepsi and Nike and Apple
who are selling products, and so they're trying
to get marketing out for their products.
But tell me about a nonprofit.
Why does a nonprofit need to think about marketing?
(01:50):
Sure, yeah, that's a great question.
I like the way you phrased it the second time.
Why do nonprofits need to think about marketing?
Because I believe all organizations, all nonprofits
are marketing themselves all the time, right?
It's just a matter of like how intentional they are
and how they're thinking about it.
And really at the end of the day,
marketing is storytelling.
(02:12):
It's rooted in what the story is of your organization
and how you're telling it.
And so, you know, if you talk to any person
working in nonprofit, I have been one of those
for many years before I launched our agency.
(02:32):
I was in nonprofit work for about 10 years.
And so if you talk to anyone in that sector
and those organizations, you will almost always
find yourself coming back to or hearing about
the limited resources, the limited time, money, capacity
(02:56):
that exists in those types of organizations.
And I believe mission-driven orgs are doing
some of the most impactful and important work in the world.
And so that's why I'm drawn to it.
And so if we're doing, if in those organizations, we're doing,
(03:19):
whatever the work is, right?
Whether it's anything from teen mentorship to clean water
to humanitarian, international humanitarian aid,
clean food, whatever it is, right?
The story of that work needs to be told in a way
that reaches the right people at the right time
(03:41):
with the right message.
And so that's why I believe nonprofits need to be thinking
about their marketing and their storytelling.
The first thing I tell people when I start to work
with an organization is everyone in your organization
is a marketer, right?
Whether you have that role, that title,
or that specific role or not, every employee,
(04:04):
every team member, even volunteers, right?
They're going out and they're gonna have some sort
of conversation with someone in their circles
about the work they're doing.
And so how are they thinking about the work?
How are they thinking about the mission and the vision
and the story that they're telling?
And so at the end of the day, that's how I see that.
(04:28):
And then I love thinking about that in terms
of the digital framework and the digital world
and how that's being done online.
That's, yeah, a long way.
That's hopefully, you know, that's a long way of saying
every nonprofit should be thinking about it.
Now, when you say there's just a story we're communicating
(04:50):
about the nonprofits vision, who is it that they're trying
to communicate to?
Is it to like potential donors?
Is it to potential like volunteers?
Is it to potential people who would be servicers
of their mission or their work?
Even just like the audience that might be at play
when an organization is doing marketing.
(05:14):
Yeah, yeah, it could be all of the above, right?
That's, I think one of the first things organizations
need to do is figure out who their target audiences are
for the goals they're trying to achieve.
So even like a step above who that target audience is,
is like, what are the goals you're trying to achieve?
And then from there we can look at, all right,
(05:34):
who are the people or the audiences that we need to talk
to and reach in order to achieve those goals?
And so oftentimes it's prospective donors, current donors,
lapse donors, talking about data, like those are some,
like you can start to even segment the one audience
in those different ways.
You can look at volunteers, program participants.
(05:59):
I would say those are like the top,
probably typical top three audiences
that a nonprofit would look to talk to.
So as you're thinking about telling stories,
the buzzword is data storytelling.
So when you hear that term, what immediately comes to mind
as a marketer, someone who's doing digital marketing
(06:24):
and looking at some of those digital marketing metrics,
what's data storytelling to you, Josh?
And how do you communicate that out to the nonprofits
that you're working with through your agency?
Yeah, it's a great question.
I think it depends on the context that we're talking in.
So when we look at digital marketing and fundraising
(06:44):
for an organization, our work tends to span
the entire donor journey or partner journey.
And so that can be everything from the awareness side
of things on paid ads, organic social media, SEO,
how are people discovering you for the first time
or becoming aware of you down to that next step,
(07:07):
which is consideration when they're considering
your organ, like taking the next step
with your organization.
How is your website optimized in order to convert them
to take that next step in that action,
whether that's donations or volunteer signups.
And then on the backend, once they've taken that action,
how are we pursuing them and following up with them
(07:29):
through email marketing and marketing automation?
And so, yeah, when you say data storytelling,
I think you're exactly right.
And this is where at least the organizations
that we tend to work with, which tend to fall
between the two to 10 million in annual revenue range,
(07:51):
we have organizations that are larger than this,
in the 100 million annual revenue.
But when you're talking like those small
to mid-size nonprofits, I think the challenge often is,
again, resources are limited.
We only have so much time, so many people.
And so we're just gonna either make decisions
(08:13):
based on feelings and what we know,
what we think is the reason or the cause for certain things,
or we're only looking at the high level,
quote unquote, vanity metrics, right?
Like reach, impressions, things like this.
And then we're making decisions based off of that.
(08:34):
And so when we partner with organizations,
it's even like talking to their,
if they have a marketing team, digital marketing team,
or a person in that role,
it's, when I think of data storytelling,
I think of oftentimes, how are you taking the,
(08:54):
first of all, measuring the data, taking it in,
and then, like I've heard you all talk about before, right?
It's the then taking that to leadership
or communicating that to other stakeholders
in the organization.
And if you hand, typically you hand an executive director
a report that says we got 100,000 impressions
(09:19):
and like 10,000 clicks, right?
They're most likely not gonna know what to do with that.
Or they're gonna just get,
it's just gonna like cause a spiral of questions
that if you actually are able to craft that story
and that narrative around that data,
then you're more quickly gonna be able to advocate
(09:42):
for yourself and your team
and be able to make more actionable decisions.
Yeah, great point.
And one thing I was gonna ask you about
is we often equate this conversion funnel
to like a sales funnel,
is where you have to start with your prospects
and you have to move them through the funnel
(10:02):
until the point that they are actually converted
into being a donor.
And that is a primary audience,
I think, at the nonprofit world,
where much of the revenue is going to come
from your donor base.
But many times it's more like a mountain you're climbing.
It's like you've gotta help them get
from just being a prospect, someone interested,
(10:23):
and you gotta get them to the pinnacle.
And that's a tough, difficult road to navigate.
And so the audience, while it could be
those senior leaders, the executives making decision,
you've gotta craft a story around them.
How have you also seen that donor journey
from say prospect to active donor
and the use of data in that journey for them?
(10:46):
Are they part of that audience
in which you're telling a story using data
through the marketing materials
to help them get to that point
where they're part of your active donor base?
I don't know, any thoughts on that?
It was a question that was coming to mind
as you were talking.
Yeah, yeah, it's a good question.
I think if I understand your question correctly,
it's how are we even using the data we have access to
(11:11):
and telling a story around it for the potential donor?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I think that even hits on the programming side
of the organization, right?
Where you're not even necessarily looking
at the back-end marketing data,
but it's helping the programming team understand,
(11:35):
listen, data is a way,
like I like to think about donors
in a couple different buckets, right?
You have like the number-driven donor,
which they're thinking about,
they could be thinking about the finances
of the organization, they could be thinking about
the programming metrics of the organization.
Then you have like the emotional donor, right?
(11:56):
Which like you want to also tell the story
of the impact of the organization through the people, right?
And so for those number-driven people,
I think, yeah, you bring up a great point.
It's looking at, all right,
what are our program impact metrics
that we want to, that tell the story accurately
(12:18):
and most clearly for the work that we're doing?
And then, yeah, making that connection for those people.
So yeah, it's definitely not just like,
all right, here's the backend marketing data we're seeing.
It's, okay, then how is our data flowing the other way,
(12:41):
right, back to our prospective audiences?
So I think that's a great point, Troy.
Yeah, and even those emotional donors in that audience,
they still want to see some numbers to equate impact
like you were saying.
So yeah, great thoughts there.
Josh, you mentioned something earlier about,
I think you used the term vanity metrics
(13:01):
and how maybe sometimes there are just big,
high-level numbers, easy numbers
that we can kind of conceptualize of impressions or clicks.
And I'm curious that you call them vanity metrics.
Is that maybe, is there a chance like,
those metrics aren't the most useful
or they could lie or lead you in the wrong direction?
Or maybe what are some cautions around like,
what's the problem with they be looking at certain numbers
instead of other numbers?
(13:23):
Yeah, so, and I say vanity metrics, right,
because I think historically people have used those metrics
to maybe inflate the success of certain things
more than it actually is.
So, and I always have to, I'm constantly, you know,
asking questions of nonprofits around just like
(13:47):
market research for my own work, right?
Because agencies oftentimes get a bad rap
when it comes to like digital marketing specifically,
because it's so easy to just put out like, all right,
we reached half a million people this month
through social media.
When in reality, that's a fine metric to measure
(14:09):
and it gives us one data point, right?
That like, that our content is being seen by people,
but the next step you have to take, right,
is understanding, all right,
our content's being seen by people,
but is it driving them to take action, right?
Or is it engaging with people?
And so, you know, you kind of have to walk that,
(14:30):
walk those steps down the funnel.
And so, you know, you go quickly from impressions
and reach down to engagement and social media.
Is it getting likes, comments, shares?
And then from there, are we actually driving traffic
to the website?
And then from there, it's like, you know, more questions.
(14:52):
What's the quality of that traffic?
Is it just anybody is coming to our site?
And then, you know, the metric that I love looking at
and because it just tells us so much
about different channels is the bounce rate metric
on the website, right?
Because, you know, the bounce rate measures
(15:13):
how many people are coming to your site
and then leaving without taking any action.
And so, if that bounce rate is astronomically high,
that either tells us that the quality of the traffic
is bad, like the, you know, the people we're sending
to our site are not our target audience
or our site is not optimized to convert our target audience
(15:37):
to take the next action, right?
So, there's so many paths you can go down there, right?
And that's where experimentation comes into play
and creating hypotheses of like, okay,
if we move this button up above the fold on the homepage,
right, meaning they don't have to scroll to see the button,
(15:57):
is that going to decrease the bounce rate?
And is it going to increase our traffic to the give page?
So, yeah, so there's, I don't even remember
your original question, I'm so far down the rabbit hole now.
Vanity metrics and like what metrics actually matter.
So, yeah, you get into that.
Yeah, yeah, so we always create something
(16:19):
called a growth report for all the organizations
we work with and all it tracks is the most essential metrics,
meaning if an organization, their top level goal
is to increase donations 20% online,
increase online donations 20%, then, you know,
(16:39):
some examples of metrics we would track
in the growth report would be obviously
donation, online donations, we would be tracking
like conversion rate on the donation page
and we would probably be tracking something
like average gift value or number of donations made, right?
And so to answer your question, yeah, back to your question,
(17:02):
and that doesn't mean we're hiding all those other metrics,
it's just, we don't want to inflate the value
of the work we're doing by just telling people
we're sending, you know, we're reaching this many
hundreds of thousands of people through social media
because then it's like, you know, further down the line,
we get to, you know, a year in
(17:24):
and donations haven't increased at all
and then we're left there with a,
they've got a bad taste in their mouth.
And so, yeah, so we always, we mainly report
on those bottom of funnel metrics
and then, you know, for our own purposes,
we understand the rest of the funnel as well.
(17:44):
And that requires, the main assumption there
is that you've defined what the desired outcome is
and like what the key goal is and that's, you know,
maybe it's donations is probably a core one,
but there might be some other key objectives
so that it's not just the impressions,
but we know what action we want people to end up at
at the bottom of the funnel
and that's what we can keep track of
(18:04):
because this shows up in the tutorialized world all the time
where there's so many numbers that you could look at,
so many metrics and measures that you can create
and splatter across dashboards
and it just gets really noisy for people
trying to consume that information and make sense of it.
And if you have like, hey, here are some clear numbers,
this is actually what our clear objective is,
we work together to define it.
(18:26):
Now we can look at how that needle moves
and did we make progress towards what we care about?
Not just, yeah, busy dashboard.
Yeah, I mean, you know, quick story,
I started working with an organization earlier this year
and on the first call,
they had their goals defined for 2024 and 2025
and I was smiling so big because I was just like,
(18:49):
this is again, like you work with organizations
all across the board,
but like an organization of their size,
I typically do not see any type of tangible goals in place
and so it was just great to even have like
a baseline of what their expectation was
and this is something we ask every organization is like,
(19:10):
what is your expectation for ROI with Spark Collective,
the name of our agency?
And so from the out of the gates, right?
It sets the expectation like, all right,
here's your expectation
and then that gives us at least a baseline to work with
to say, okay, let's reverse engineer these goals
to understand whether or not they're realistic
(19:31):
and with this organization, we actually had to do that
and say like, okay, these might be a little too high for,
at least for industry averages
that we see on a regular basis.
So let's maybe readjust and then we can shoot higher
if we want to.
So yeah, that's a great point.
And that type of nonprofit is probably gonna have
a lot better experience with a marketing agency
(19:52):
than one that doesn't have goals defined, right?
Like they're probably a lot more likely to get
what they're paying for when they work with an agency.
Absolutely.
I was gonna say that's great that you set those goals.
You can keep coming back to those as that baseline
and it can help keep focus.
But that is my question, Josh.
(20:13):
How do you keep these organizations that you work with
focused on a handful of metrics to say
that's what's actually going to give us the insight we need
to drive the actions that we're doing in the org?
Because like Slower was hinting at,
we see it with reports where everybody wants a report
(20:34):
on their metric.
And next thing you know, you got a hundred plus reports
and dashboards out there collecting dust.
And so how do you, as a marketer, keep the leaders
and their organizations focused on a handful of metrics
when they might wanna keep introducing more?
They'll say, well, if we could just have these 10 more
(20:55):
metrics on that one goal we're looking at,
that would give us the flavor text we need
to really know that we're hitting the mark with it.
And that's gonna mean more resources
to develop those metrics.
So what's your process been?
What's the how part?
Maybe you have another story of what that's been like
to keep people from going in all different directions
(21:17):
to get metrics, trying to solve those goals that they set.
Oh my goodness.
When you figure that out, Troy, let me know.
Because yeah, it's-
That's why we invited you, my friend, come on.
No, it's a great, I think it's a great question
and a challenge that continuously comes up, right?
Even for our own business, right?
(21:39):
You're constantly having to figure out, all right,
what's most essential to focus on?
And then what can we maybe save for later?
Or we can track less frequently, right?
Maybe we don't need a monthly report on this.
Maybe we need a quarterly report.
Maybe we need a bi-annual report.
I think that's like, first, the approach is like
(22:01):
asking questions and understanding
what's the motivation behind you wanting to
have this type of data or these metrics.
And oftentimes it's not necessarily rooted
in wanting to improve whatever that high level goal is.
It's oftentimes for their own personal context,
(22:26):
which is fine, I get that.
But yes, it does have to come back to time,
capacity, resources.
And we oftentimes view things as we view,
we call it scope.
We view scope or resources as like a plate of food, right?
And so you've got a full plate of food right now, all right?
(22:48):
If we want to add something else,
we maybe have to reallocate and take something else off.
And so that's oftentimes a helpful conversation.
And when these things come up, because you're right,
it's, you know, the dashboard starts to get really big.
And then, you know, like you said, it's somebody's time.
(23:11):
That's tracking all these metrics and data
and creating these reports.
And so, yeah, so I think those are like some approaches
that we take to that.
That's not just helpful in agency work.
I think that's like just organizationally, right?
If you're a team member inside of an organization,
having those conversations to understand scope and capacity.
(23:35):
And yeah, and then again, around frequency,
we send out monthly reports
to the organizations we work with.
But they also have access to these dashboards at any time
that they can go take a look at, right?
And so if they have a question around the metric
or something like we're happy we have those conversations.
(23:58):
But yeah, I think that's the other, you know,
going back to like how agencies have gotten a bad rap is,
you know, we like to be completely transparent
with the data, right?
Because we shouldn't have anything to hide.
If we're doing our jobs right, you know,
so people have access to all of that.
And then we can have those conversations as they come up.
(24:21):
One of the tools that I've used are frameworks that,
I don't know, I probably stole from somebody or adapted,
but it's this idea of there are terminal metrics
and there are decision metrics.
Like a terminal metric would be like revenue.
Like we're tracking revenue.
Why are we tracking revenue?
Because that's the end goal.
Like that's the terminal goal that we wanna keep track of.
And then you might have like maybe one or two
maybe three terminal metrics,
(24:43):
but then everything else needs to be,
the only other thing you track then is like,
you only track decision metrics.
And like that metric has to have a decision tied to it.
When we hit X, we need to, we change Y.
The metrics are tied to specific decisions.
And so I'm curious about drilling into that second one
a little bit.
How do you make decisions around marketing decisions, perhaps,
around data and like specific metrics that might come in?
(25:06):
What are the things that come through from a data standpoint
that would lead to a different decision
from a marketer perspective?
Maybe that's posting schedule,
maybe that's the type of content.
Tell me a little bit about like those decision metrics
that you might keep track of and what those look like.
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, I love that terminal metrics and decision metrics.
I just wrote that down because see,
I told you all before we hopped on here,
(25:28):
I'm probably gonna learn more from you
than you're gonna learn from me.
So yeah, that's great.
The, yeah, the decision metrics, I mean,
it could, there are many that we could look at.
I think one that's that I'm often intrigued by
is conversion rate on a website because it tells you,
it could potentially tell you or give you data
(25:50):
into a few different channels,
or it could lead you in a few different directions
in terms of decisions.
So, you know, if you have a low conversion rate
on your website, it could mean a few different,
like one of a few different things.
It could mean you're not sending enough traffic
to your website.
It could mean, again, you're sending the wrong,
(26:11):
bad quality of traffic to the website,
or it could mean that your website,
the page isn't optimized properly
for engagement and conversions.
And so that's, I think that's like a big one
that I like looking at.
Another one would be email open rates
and click through rates.
And so, you know, we worked with an organization
(26:34):
at year end and we're still working with them,
but we, you know, we ran their year end campaign,
fundraising campaign last year.
And we looked at, all right, how many,
what's the frequency of emails that you all have sent out
in the past between November and December?
In the past, they had sent out,
I believe it was 11 emails over the course of that time.
(26:57):
And I said, okay, what if we almost doubled that?
And let's see what happens.
And so we increased that frequency rate,
the email volume by 90%.
And they saw an increase,
we saw an increase in their open rate by 14% over that time.
(27:20):
And which is counterintuitive, right?
Like you think we send out more emails,
we're gonna get less people opening them.
I wouldn't backfire too, yeah.
Yeah, exactly, right?
And that's where like you have to be willing to adjust
and pivot as you're gathering more data, right?
If we would have seen the open rate just plummet,
then we make a decision to pivot.
(27:44):
But yeah, so, you know,
we actually saw the open rate and the click rate increase
over that time.
And we saw that the amount of donations from email
increased during that time.
So yeah, so I think,
and this is another thing I would encourage people
in nonprofits or just organizations in general to do.
(28:08):
And I find myself not doing this enough,
but being willing to experiment and learn.
And that's going to involve a certain amount of risk.
But I think it's the only way forward,
especially in digital,
because things are changing so often and so quickly.
And so if there's not some sort of built-in time
(28:32):
in your role to try things and experiment with things,
and you know, in nonprofits,
this is probably one of the hardest environments
to do this in because again,
we're all strapped for time.
And then we have people around us or leaders
that are so focused on making sure
(28:56):
we're hitting our revenue goals and our donation goals.
And so if we try something new
or pivot from what we know has always worked,
then what's going to happen? We don't know.
But I think starting out in small ways
in those things and then trying new things all the time,
(29:19):
I think it's actually going to help you in the long run.
So yeah, so those are, I think,
when it comes to decision metrics,
I could talk for hours on how you can make decisions
based on certain data points,
but those are a couple that come to mind.
Yeah, this may not work,
(29:40):
or some of the scariest words or the most exciting words
you could hear, like, we're going to try something,
and this may not work.
And that can feel kind of reckless,
especially if you're in a conservative financial situation
or at least a mindset of we can't waste resources
and we're scarce in resources.
But it's also where the door opens up the most
(30:01):
for opportunities and we're trying something that may not work.
And that's, in order to really move the needle on things,
that's often, that's always what's required
to really make change is we're trying something new and different.
Can I pivot a little bit to talk about,
or to ask you about maybe some of the more nitty-gritty technical stuff?
So what are the tools you use to work with data?
(30:24):
Where does data come from this?
You talked about conversion rates and click-throughs
and tracking people on their journey with a marketing campaign.
What does that even look like from a practical tools perspective for you?
Yeah, yeah, it's a good question.
And it's, you know, I love looking at this, again,
for the size of organizations we typically work with
(30:45):
because typically, you know, I'll talk to someone in a nonprofit
and they've either got Google Analytics installed
and they're not paying attention to it or it's not even there at all.
And my question is always like,
who built your website and didn't install some sort of tracking?
Like, it's mind blowing to me.
(31:08):
But it's...
Uncle Sam built the website and he did it for me.
Yeah, exactly.
Uncle Steve built the website.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, yeah, no, it's no knock.
Like, I get it.
You don't know what you don't know.
So, yeah, so I think, you know, the basics are Google Analytics,
having that installed, looking at, you know,
(31:32):
whatever social media channels you're using,
whether that's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn,
and just the built-in analytics that are there,
I would say just start there.
And so, and then, you know, you obviously have metrics built into
email marketing platforms as well.
But, yeah, I think, you know,
(31:54):
digging into more of the nitty gritty of Google Analytics,
it's like thinking through things like internal traffic filters
and understanding that, like, oh,
when everyone in our office goes to the website,
that's skewing the data that we're getting out of it, right?
Your website visits may not be 100 a week if, you know,
(32:19):
20 of those are your internal traffic.
So, so, you know, stuff like that,
that people just don't think about and setting those up,
setting up events and key events in Google Analytics,
or, you know, formerly known as conversion events.
And then, you know, being able to look at the end,
(32:41):
that then gives you a whole window, right,
into the donor journey to understand,
especially when I would highly encourage people to,
like, Google the donation platform that you're using
and ask Google if there's a Google Analytics integration
with your donation platform, because, again,
(33:05):
this is mind-blowing to me, but there are donation platforms
out there that, like, don't integrate well.
And unless you're a developer that can get into, like,
the data layer of your website and, you know, start to,
or, like, another simple workaround is just, like,
redirecting people to a thank you page so that that triggers
a conversion event in Google Analytics.
(33:26):
But making sure that those things can talk to each other,
I think, is really important and really helpful.
And then the other thing I would say is start using UTM links
and parameters to be able to track inside of Google Analytics
where your website traffic is coming from
and then understanding, again, that full journey on the website
(33:51):
through to donation or volunteer signups or whatever it may be.
And it's getting, I mean, you all, I would love to, you know,
probably chop it up with you all on this,
because I'd love to hear your thoughts, but, like,
obviously third-party data is becoming harder and harder to track,
and it's just going to, like, it's, you know,
(34:12):
eventually just going to become a thing of the past, right?
Like, we're all going to have to go, like,
that's one thing that I'm constantly encouraging organizations
to get better at and think about is, like,
are we gathering first-party data from people, our target audiences?
And, you know, those just a quick, like, third-party data is, like,
(34:36):
you go to a website and then it tracks you around the internet, right?
You get ads.
First-party data is, like, I put in my email address into this form,
and I give it to the organization.
So those are things that, you know,
we're constantly thinking about and trying to help organizations think
about because we're not going to be able to track people around the
internet forever.
So.
Yeah.
(34:57):
And one of those is exponentially more valuable from your organization
standpoint than the other.
And so how much are you dependent upon third-party data?
Third-party data is, like, inconsistent and, like,
changing with the tides and can also be really costly,
depending on how you're acquiring that.
And first-party data can just be, offer a lot more value in terms of
(35:19):
your control of it and your ability to manipulate, manage,
and optimize around it.
So that's a good call-out from a marketing perspective.
Josh, this has been great.
So where can people go online to find more about you, Spark Collective?
Maybe you stirred up some itches in people as they think about their own
marketing, their firm, and what they want to do,
what tools they might kind of use.
But if they want to reach out, say hi to you online or maybe reach out for
(35:42):
help, where can they find you in Spark Collective?
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, like I said, I appreciate you all having me on.
Love learning from you all.
And yeah, you all can find me.
Ironically, the platform I spend the most time on is LinkedIn these days.
So yeah, just search for me there, Josh Burns on LinkedIn,
or you can go to our website, sparkcollective.net.
(36:05):
Excellent.
This has been a pleasure, Josh.
Exploring new worlds for Troy and I.
I haven't spent much time in the marketing world and conversion rates and
things like that are a little bit different, but I realized this is,
this is core aspect of data and like it's so many data points in that and
so crucial to nonprofit organizations and how they function in terms of like
spreading their story and making data matter and be impactful and influential
(36:29):
in what they're doing.
So thanks so much for joining us.
It was a pleasure to have you.
And that's all folks.
Thanks for joining us and we will see you next time on making data matter.
Hey, so you're here again.
During the course of this conversation, we ended up taking a bit of a detour
and went deeper into Troy.
Josh is in my background.
We all went to the same Bible college and we ended up exploring a little bit
(36:54):
of our experience with our current work and our perspective on theology and
religion and how that has played a factor in our journey over the last 15
years or so.
Some of this conversation didn't quite fit with the rest of the tone of the
episode and so we didn't include it in the main part, but I thought it was a
valuable enough conversation as we shared a little bit more about our stories
(37:15):
that it might interest some of the listeners to explore that a bit more.
So if you want to hear a bit more about where Josh, myself and Troy came from
and how we think about our work from a Christian and theological perspective,
there's a little bit of an epilogue about us talking through that.
I want to take us in a different direction.
So you've got three guys on the call who went from a religious college
(37:42):
experience and we're all now in quote unquote non-religious sort of roles in
terms of the things we're doing.
Sawyer, you as a data architect and myself as a BI engineer.
Josh, you're running your own marketing agency around digital marketing and
(38:03):
analytics.
So Josh, specifically tell us a little bit about your journey.
How do you go from that non-traditional background and find yourself in this
kind of a role nerding out on things like Google Analytics and conversion
rates and UTMs of your campaigns?
Tell us about that.
I love it.
(38:25):
Now we're really going deep.
Let's go.
And you all can choose what you want to cut out of this.
No, I think it's a good question.
It took me about, oh, man, 10 years to post college to just grow on my
understanding of work and what it means and what the purpose of it is.
(38:47):
And so I could go on for a long time about that.
But yeah, you're right.
You know, it's funny.
Yeah, I wasn't sure, you know, Troy, where I think I knew you.
We all went to the same school, but it didn't actually click and register with me.
So, yeah, I went to Bible school.
(39:08):
And I think, you know, like I shared earlier, my passion has, regardless of the
context, has always been using the tools at our disposal to share stories and
help.
I think first it started as like share stories enabled in order to make an
impact.
(39:29):
And now it's more so sharing stories in order to help other people make an
impact in their communities and in their circles.
And so getting more specific in that, which is really cool.
But yeah, I mean, and I don't know, like, I don't know how deep you all want me
to go with this.
We can cut this out.
I don't know how deep, like I could go in a whole thing about like, you know,
(39:53):
theology of work and stuff, but I don't know who your audience is and stuff.
So open it up, Josh.
Go for it.
We'll figure it out later.
Yeah.
So I think, like I said, it took me about 10 years to, I think, come to this
understanding that there's from a work perspective, there's not necessarily
there.
You know, I think it's easy to think about whether it's like, quote unquote,
(40:15):
faith based work or ministry minded work as like one path to go down as a, I'm
a follower of Jesus.
And so that, I think I had a very narrow mindset and very narrow view of what
that looked like.
And coming to the realization that I think also like there was a bit of
insecurity in myself to think that I, the skills that I have could translate to
(40:40):
the marketplace or to another type of context.
And so, yeah, so that was a really good journey to go on to understand that
there's not necessarily like a sacred and secular divide as a follower of Jesus
when it comes to work.
I believe I'm commissioned to work for the glory of God in whatever context I
(41:02):
find myself in.
Obviously there's some where that's automatically negated, but yeah, so I
think that's kind of the journey that I've been on in understanding that, man,
I think the age that we live in, the time that we live in, we have such an
opportunity to again, take the tools that we've been given, the data that we're
(41:23):
getting every single day through these tools.
And I'm also a big fan of using these platforms in healthy and sustainable
ways, right?
So oftentimes it's ironic that like I run a digital marketing agency, but like
I'm barely ever on social media for myself personally and, you know, helping
(41:44):
people understand like their own, you know, personal limits and boundaries
around these things and what's healthy and for their own lives.
But anyways, I digress.
Yeah, that's kind of what my journey has looked like.
But yeah, I mean, I'd be curious to hear from your perspective as well what
that's looked like for you.
Yeah, that's me.
Good as Josh.
(42:05):
I don't remember if we talked about this much because my story is similar in
some ways.
Like I spent, after movie, was seminary for me for four years.
And then it was after seminary, it was, I don't know what I'm doing because I
didn't end up being a pastor or in ministry or something like that.
And it took me a while to figure out, hey, I can be in the marketplace and love
(42:28):
Jesus and Jesus could love my work in the marketplace.
And that was a fluke some kind of mentors.
It took me a few years to get there.
And now I've had a great deal of joy and fulfillment in the marketplace.
So, yes, I think there's some probably parallel journeys that we were going on
in that space.
Yeah, I'm echoing the same thing in terms of just I thought my career goals
(42:51):
were to either be a seminary professor or pastor in a church.
And as I was going through seminary, I was working at a job that had me doing
all the formulas.
And it was like I got bit by this bug that I just wanted to know more about
rows and columns.
And that doesn't mean a lot to a ton of people out there.
(43:14):
But if you're a data geek, it's like that's where it all starts.
And it just kept snowballing from there.
And I was like, you know what?
I'm finding passion and fulfillment in the work that I'm doing.
And it's something that I felt gifted in.
And so learning that, like you were saying, that theology of work where there
isn't this divide between secular and sacred, that everything I do is something
(43:36):
that glorifies God is important.
And so, yeah, I'm glad that I'm able to do that in the nonprofit Christian
spaces that I've been in.
But wherever we're called, I think that's a neat opportunity.
So since we're on the topic of, you know, theology, seminary, those kinds of
things, I got some Bible trivia for you guys.
(43:59):
All right?
My question is, who's the only person in the Bible who doesn't have a father?
It's not going to be what I want to say.
Yeah, it's going to be some trick question or something.
It's Joshua.
I don't even.
Because he's the son of none.
(44:20):
Son of none.
Son of none.
This guy.
All right.
This guy.
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