It’s time to leverage your ‘thank you’ pages and unlock their full potential.
Thank you pages. Nearly every charity or non-profit website has at least one.
Unfortunately, more often than not they are boring pages that add no value to the user who has landed on it. Usually they include some impersonal message like
“thank you for your email, we will be in touch shortly” or
“Thank you for donating today”.
The more I think about this, the more I realise this is such a waste of potential.
Charities spend copious amounts of time, energy and money trying to convert their visitors into donating, signing up or filling in a form on their website. Anyone who has spent any serious amount of time trying to improve conversions will know that this is rarely easy. Once someone has made a commitment to you, they are, at least in some way, interested in what you have to offer.
A thank you page is often a dead end. Just as you have got the user to commit to something they are abandoned. The end of the line. This is a huge waste of potential.
Reinforce, connect, grow, incentivise and communicate
How you go about improving your thank you page really depends on what action they have taken to get there. It might be the case that you need to think about multiple thank you pages depending on that journey.
Someone who has donated might be interested in hearing about case studies of how donations have made a practical difference. Someone who has purchased a gift might be interested in signing up for future discounts. Trying to serve all these users with the same thank you page probably isn’t appropriate.
It is probably worth adding a slight word of warning here though. Make sure the extra request you are making is related to the action they have just taken and is a realistic progression. If someone has just filled in a form to complain about something it is probably not a great idea to serve them up with a donate button on the thank you page.
Below is a list of some ideas of things you can offer on your pages that will help get extra value out of your visitors that have interacted with your site.
Not every idea here will suit your circumstances, but hopefully you will find something here that is useful.
It is a great opportunity to be creative!
Showcase some of your featured content or other actions
If there is nothing else you can think of, this is an easy win. If a user has filled in a contact form or downloaded a PDF you might want to show related content that the user might also be interested in. This will give them something else interesting on your site rather than just leave.
Tell supporters exactly what to expect next following their form submission
Laying out the next steps to the user can be a really good way of building trust. If someone has filled in a contact form and is waiting for a reply, why not let them know when they can expect it and who will be in touch? If you intend to follow up with an email then let the user know. This way they can be prepared and might be less likely to automatically delete it. If you are selling a product, give them a delivery date and provide information about what to do if there is a problem. (This should also be sent in an email).
Most people like to be in the know. Good communication is never scorned upon and can really help with building trust.
Invite them to participate in a survey
A user that has just interacted with you will be warmer to the idea of answering some questions and giving their opinion. This is especially true if they have just donated as they are clearly a fan of your organisation and cause.
A well crafted (and short) survey can be really valuable. It can help you understand how users are finding your content, responding to your message and buying into your mission.
Encourage visitors to connect with you on social networks and provide links for them.
I am not a huge fan of over advertising your social media accounts on your website. It seems counter productive to try and push your visitors away from your site. (Especially to a social media website that is full of all kinds of distractions). Instead we should be putting our energies trying to push traffic the other way.
I think the one exception can be on a thank you page as it may have been the end of users session on your site anyway. Encouraging users to connect, follow or share something on social media can be a way of getting a bit more value just before they leave.
Add some testimonials or social proof to reinforce their giving or contact decision.
This is a great idea for a thank you page at the end of a donation or giving process. A user that has just given money to help a cause can be reaffirmed by that message being repeated. Something along the lines of
“Thank you for giving to xxx today. By doing so you have helped xxx”.
Most people who donate want to feel good about having done so. It is called the benefit exchange. They give you money and in return get to feel positive about it.
Your thank you page can help reaffirm this.
Give them a promo code to incentive their next purchase.
This is something that many ecommerce websites do and if you have a shop on your charity site there is no reason why you shouldn’t do the same. Everyone likes a deal, and adding a simple incentive that might bring that visitor back some time seems to be a no brainer.
Give them the opportunity to earn a promo code for sharing with friends or social media.
A slight twist on the idea above. If you want to make your users work a little harder for their discount code you could ask them to share your site or a product with a friend or on social media.
This is obviously a bigger ask of your user, but means that you can increase your reach. You might have to increase the incentive.
As you can see there are so many different ideas and opportunities to optimise and improve your thank you pages. This humble little page that we so often forget about can actually be one of the most valuable and productive pages on your website. With a little bit of thought and creativity this page can be transformed to further engage and add value to the user who has already expressed an interest.
We shouldn’t think of it as the end of the journey, rather the start of the next one.
Have we missed any?
I am sure there are lots of other great and imaginative ways you can utilize your thank you pages. If you have any great ideas we would love to hear from you.
