Sometimes your customers donate money to you or your cause. So how do you thank donors?

Acknowledge Their Donation

One of my favorite podcasts is by the crew at Internet Business Mastery. Since I have found value in their informative podcasts, I mentioned them in an online forum at StartupNation.com. A month or so later, I was listening to their podcast’s segment where they give thanks for those that have linked to them. In that segment they mentioned my post in the forum and publicly thanked me.

Your donors may not ask for recognition, but when you give thanks, either publicly or privately, people feel validated in their decision to support you. Additionally, that recognition will motivate them to donate again or even spread the word about your organization.

Exclusive Membership

My wife and I recently donated to a political campaign. Although our donation was a small amount, it was received with great fanfare. We received a thank you letter from the candidate and a “membership card” showing that we officially supported the campaign.

We were now part of the club and were invited into the team to help our candidate succeed. Our little donation opened the flood gates of inclusion and through crafty marketing messages, we felt that we truly had an impact on our candidate’s success.

Do you help your donors feel like they are a key part of the greater good? Do your donors feel like they are making a difference?

Special Benefits

I use a simple personal organizer called PocketMod. After trying PDAs and other mechanisms, I always come back to this simple and portable organizer. PocketMod is free so I made a donation to the developer.

I didn’t immediately hear anything from him acknowledging my donation. However, several months later, I got an invitation to try out the new version of PocketMod during the exclusive beta period.

Do you give your donors special access or benefits? Are these surprises or expected results of a donation? You may need to balance the known incentives of donating with the occasional surprise bonus to help donors feel they are truly special.

Overcome Doubt and Concern

The easiest way to acknowledge a donation is to do nothing. However, this has serious consequences.

I have used online e-commerce software called Zen Cart on several of my web development projects. Since this software is free, I made a donation to support its continued development. Unfortunately, I never received any type of response or acknowledgment.

When donations go into a black hole, donors start to fill with doubts and concerns. Did they get my money? Was it lost? Embezzled? What happened?

Doubt and concern are major roadblocks as you try to develop a relationship with donors. Very few organizations only want a one time donation. You’ll want to count on the continued support of those that have donated in the past. Acknowledging and showing appreciation for their donations are foundational to a lifetime donor relationship.

Customers fear the unknown. Their minds swirl with doubt as they go through the buying process and if they aren’t able to collect enough good information in the process, they may even have “buyer’s remorse” after the fact. They are assailed by questions such as: Are you cheating them? Giving them a faulty product? Will your repair hold up over time?

We recently needed to get some plumbing repairs done around our home. We went with same company, ARS, that served us well before. Why did they get the repeat business? Three reasons:

• Pricing was clear and fixed up front. No surprises!
• They did a good job and fixed everything they promised.
• They explained everything along the way.

Your company’s performance on the last sale will dictate if there is another sale in the future. Consistency and reliability are key to fostering return customers.

With our latest plumbing repair, Ted the plumber explained what he was doing, showed me his work, answered my questions, and was patient. One of the things he fixed was a leaky faucet. To verify his repair, we sat and waited several minutes watching the faucet for signs of a leak. He took his time to validate his work, before assuming it was done.

Are you patient with your customers? Or do you rush on to the next task or customer? Ted the plumber was so good at what he did that his efficiency created the time he needed for good customer service and to verify his work was done properly.

The more transparent you can be with customers, the more they will trust you and be confident in your work or product. Be patient and take your time when necessary to not only verify quality but to tell the customer that you care enough to spend the extra time with them.

In his book Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites, Kevin Potts, an Internet veteran and blogger, offers a great guide to help you improve your current site or build the next one from scratch.

Throughout the book, the author clearly demonstrates his understanding of web users and provides solutions that best help turn them into customers.

Clear Examples

The strength of this book lies in its clear examples. Potts provides both screen shots and detailed analysis that will help you apply the principles to your individual situation. He covers everything from accessibility to navigation to corporate blogging and ecommerce.

This book compiles numerous best practices and usable designs that you will be able to leverage as you work on your website.

How-To Pointers

For the technically inclined, Potts offers some quick “how-to” pieces with examples of HTML, Javascript, or CSS. Additionally, he includes website references if you want to learn more about implementing some of his recommendations. This book isn’t a technical book as it mostly demonstrates best practices and then points you in the right direction for the implementation.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites is a great reference to have on your shelf. When it comes time to work on a section of your site, you can review the recommendations in the corresponding chapter. You probably won’t read this entire book in one sitting. Weighing in at over 350 pages, it is best to pick and choose the sections that are applicable to you.

Buy Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites on Amazon.com.

You probably do things for your customers that they may not even realize. Sure, they may realize the benefits but they may not know you did something extra for that to happen. This is an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with customers.

If your customers knew you went the extra mile for them, you’ll create some goodwill. When you give your customers stellar service or a fabulous experience, you keep adding goodwill to your virtual savings account.

So when can you take a withdrawal from your goodwill savings account? Odds are you don’t want to plan for it. You’ll need all that goodwill when you make a mistake. If you use up all your goodwill, there will be nothing left when disaster strikes.

On a recent Southwest Airlines flight, our plane arrived several minutes early. This usually goes unnoticed but this flight was different. The flight attendant announcing our arrival at the gate highlighted the fact that we were early and said, “remember that next time we’re late and we’ll call it even.”

In this case Southwest Airlines not only built up some goodwill with an early arrival, but they casually reminded us of that fact so we would be more merciful when they are late.

Are you building up goodwill with your customers? Great! Take those opportunities to develop your relationship with customers to make them loyal for the long term. A strong relationship, built on goodwill, will cushion the inevitable mistakes you will make.