The Path to Success

Optimizing User Flow to Avoid Event Registration Roadblocks

Charity Dynamics Event Registration Study, August 2013

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Whitepaper  

Optimizing User Flow to Increase Peer to Peer Event Registrations - page 2  

The Path to Success

At Charity Dynamics, we are committed to helping our clients craft digital experiences that drive results, inspiring visitors to take action through that journey of web exploration. Through that work, we have learned that success is closely linked to the paths we send constituents once they decide they care enough about a cause to advocate, donate or register for that “run, walk or ride” fundraising event.

This whitepaper studies one critical digital pathway – the registration process for peer to peer fundraising.

Peer-to-peer events are a critical component within nonprofit individual giving portfolios, generating more than $1.68 billion in revenue1 for the top 30 programs alone in 2012. But before participants can start raising funds, they often need to register to use fundraising tools on a charity’s website. Our study of more than 500 local fundraising events unearthed some serious roadblocks in the registration process – and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in opportunity each year.

Using Google Analytics funnels to track user flow of more than 80,000 participants attempting to sign up for local events in ‘walk’ programs, ‘endurance’ and ‘third party’ fundraising programs, Charity Dynamics followed the six-step registration user flow that many top-notch event fundraisers use. The results were sobering, with only 40% of Walk participants finishing the registration process. Endurance events, with their greater financial and physical commitments had an even lower completion rate – just 8%.

The impact of those registration roadblocks become clear in the table below 2showing just how much revenue is being left on the table – revenue that could be captured with even a modest increase in registration completion rate through more thoughtful user flow.

                                                                                                                         1 The Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council, Run Walk Ride Thirty Report, March 14, 2013 2 * ”Typical” event metrics sourced from 2013 Blackbaud Peer-to-Peer Event Fundraising Benchmark™ Study

 

Whitepaper  

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Following participants through registration showed roadblocks at almost every step, with hints for how those roadblocks could be avoided becoming clear in a review of the tactics used to gather information and encourage participants throughout the process.

  The charts above show the falloff in registration at each of the six steps in a typical event registration process, with the greatest falloff coming in the very first step. After the initial drop, walk event completion rates settled down somewhat (although an additional 20% percent of possible registrants still lost their way in subsequent steps). For endurance events, there was also a significant falloff at the waiver, stage, where the rubber meets the road for many participants once they are presented with the financial and physical commitments required for those efforts.

Registration Roadblocks So what are the roadblocks to registration success? Our analysis uncovered four major ways that nonprofits make it difficult for people to do what they (and we) want them to do: raise money for our event.

Roadblock #1 – Muffing the Mobile Experience

In our study, an average of 20% of participants entering the process were attempting to register on a smartphone or tablet, with some nonprofits having as much as 30% mobile visitation. Yet “road tests” of the user experience for events not using a mobile responsive registration form, showed that it was impossible to select a Registration Type for an event – a key first step in the registration process.

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Roadblock #2 – Losing the Magic

Nonprofits invest significant time, energy and money on their event website – employing top notch photography and moving videos of enthusiastic participants and inspiring stories of lives changed by the organization. Many organizations also invest significant effort to make it easy – even fun – for participants to find their local event (a precursor to entering in the registration process in our study), employing stunning lightboxes and well-presented maps to guide participants.  

Yet we found that once a participant finds their local event, the user experience loses its energy and enthusiasm (and ease). With no pictures or graphics employed and phrases like “User Login” and “Returning Participant” dominating the screen, the experience stopped being about the donor and their goals for the event and became all about the computer program. In most cases, nonprofits did not even add some simple text that might better explain the process for users or paint a picture that would transform an antiseptic “Registration Type” into a portrait of someone making in impact – something all participants want to do.

Roadblock #3 – The “More is More” Mistake

At several steps in the process – Registration Type Selection, the actual Registration Form and signing the waiver, nonprofits fall victim to forgetting the paramount “less is more” rule, giving participants too many choices, asking for too much personal information without articulating a good reason and overwhelming them with legal jargon.

As tempting as it is to learn as much as possible about participants, nonprofits need to take a lesson from their other successful digital, direct mail and face to face fundraising efforts, where testing has shown that too many donation levels or requests for additional information can overwhelm donors, causing a falloff in response. This feeling of overwhelmed was most evident in the Waiver stage of the process, where longer waivers, filled with paragraphs of legal jargon led to a significantly higher abandonment rate.

Uninspired Login screens and presentations of Registration Types shift the look and feel of the registration process dramatically, undercutting the positive emotions created early in the experience.

 Short and uncomplicated waivers significantly increase completion at this key registration step.  

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Overcoming Roadblocks and Creating Pathways to Success While our first ever Event Registration Study uncovered impediments to user engagement, we prefer to see the potential for how some simple practices caught during event configuration can make a big difference in results. Start by considering these six steps to event registration success:

• Make sure your event registration process works for ALL users, regardless of what device they are using. With mobile visitation increasing by leaps and bounds nonprofits cannot ignore that anywhere from 20 to30% of their participants are trying to register on smaller screens.

• Get out of the Login box. While many event registration software platforms can be difficult to customize to continue to inspire participants as they go through the process, make sure you use every opportunity you are afforded. Use explanatory text to help participants navigate “New” versus “Returning” participant status. Better yet, experiment with using more easily customizable web surveys or other information gathering forms to replace “out of the box” user login screens.

• Remind participants why they care at every step in the process. Including a judicious amount of inspirational language at every stage in the process can help to affirm a participant’s decision to fundraise for you – and get them through that step in the process.

• Balance your information needs with participants’ needs. Study the impact of multiple Registration Types and suggested self-pledge amounts on your completion rates. And make your waivers as short and simple as possible. You may find that – as in many other direct response programs – less is more!

• Respect your participants’ privacy. Think carefully about asking for personal information during the registration process. Do you really need it? Could you ask for it in a follow up step in the process? If you do need to collect extra information or want to offer participants the opportunity to opt in to receiving additional information from your organization, explain WHY you are making the request. What’s in it for them to sign up for more information? How will providing age, income or connection to a particular cause or disease help them raise more money (or help you find more cures)?

• Test the User Experience. While many event platforms make it difficult to perform A/B user testing, that doesn’t mean you can’t test. Invest in live user testing of process configuration, form language, registration fees and other elements. You will be amazed at how a small investment in live testing can yield key insights that can drive higher results.

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Methodology The overriding goal of our first-ever Event Registration Study was to gain a baseline understanding of Event Registration completion across our client base.

In establishing a “benchmark”, we sought client organizations that had consistent (if not identical) user flows. Ultimately, this lead us to identify and include six organizations within the Study, all powered on the Blackbaud TeamRaiser™ platform.

Entry across all participant user flows was measured on the TeamRaiser-powered Participant Registration Selection page. Exit was measured on the TeamRaiser-powered After Payment completion page. Greeting pages or event selection pages were not included in the measurement as configuration and use varied wildly across organizations studied.

Program types evaluated included four walk programs, two endurance programs, and one third party program – equating to 566 individual events studies overall. With such a limited sample size, results are far from statistically significant but can provide directional insight.

The examination period was the full month of April 2013.

 

About Charity Dynamics

Charity Dynamics was founded in 2004 with

the vision of empowering nonprofits with

the technology expertise needed to help

them change the world. Through the years

the company expanded to meet the

demands of rapidly changing technology and

nonprofit needs. Starting with strategic

consulting and now offering creative

services, innovative technology and platform

expertise, Charity Dynamics remains true to

our vision.

The Charity Dynamics team is a powerful

combination of experienced nonprofit

veterans and technology mavens. Our

industry experts focus on providing

nonprofits with responsive and results

oriented solutions, from concept and design

through execution their processes, and

identify their resources to create integrated

technology solutions that deliver long term

value. We contribute to a client’s cause, not

take away from it.

We can help you too. Please visit our Web

site, charitydynamics.com, email us at

info@charitydynamics.com,

or call us at 512.241.0561 to find out how

our services can help you transform your

engagement results.

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