WHY IS THE CAMPAIGN FAILING?
A PRACTICAL CAMPAIGN CHECK
Start with what is actually happening.
This is not a score and it is not a promise made by a machine. It is the order we use after running roughly one hundred campaigns a year, sometimes more. Choose the problem that looks closest to yours.
Almost nobody answers
Check the people and the calling time first.
A brilliant caller cannot save a conversation that never begins. The numbers may be poor, heavily worked or being called when the right people are unavailable. Do not blame the opening or the agent before proving that enough real people answer.
See what falling contact rates do to a campaignPeople answer but end the call quickly
Test the opening, then the caller.
The person has not heard enough to reject the whole campaign. They are rejecting the first few seconds. Put proven agents on the work without warning them. If they meet the same wall, the opening or the campaign is wrong. If they do not, the caller needs help or different work.
See why the first 30 seconds decide the callPeople talk for ages but do not act
Interest may be hiding poor targeting.
You may be reaching people who care but cannot afford to act, or people who enjoy a long emotional conversation but never intended to act. Long calls can show a good caller while still exposing the wrong audience.
See why a fundraising audience cannot be too generalThe people are right but the result is still poor
Read the opening as if the person knows nothing.
Do not build the call on an email, letter or advert the person may never have read. One campaign rose by 400% when we stopped talking about an unread letter and made the call deliver the actual message.
Read the 400% opening changeCallbacks agree, then disappear
Return the callback to the person who earned it.
The person gave their word to a caller they liked, not to the next free voice. The original agent should own the promise, the notes and the second conversation. Same-agent callbacks perform about 70% better on average across our charity and research work.
See why the same agent must call backEven the strongest agents cannot make it work
The campaign has failed the best-agent test.
We quietly put about ten proven agents on struggling work without telling them it is struggling. If people who perform across campaign after campaign all fail in the same place, stop damaging the wider team and fix the work.
Read how ten proven agents expose the problemTHE ORDER MATTERS
Reach. Audience. Opening. Caller. Callback. Result.
Changing all six at once teaches you nothing. Check the first broken part, make one clear change and watch what moves.
Want us to find the broken part?
Tell us what is happening. You do not need to arrive with the answer.