Turning service users into engaged donors with data-driven personalisation

Challenge

RNIB is the UK’s leading sight loss charity, it offers practical and emotional support to blind and partially sighted people, their families and carers. It raises awareness of the experiences of blind and partially sighted people and campaigns for change to make society more accessible for all.

But RNIB has an organisational ambition to maximise cross-product conversion. They realised to achieve this, they needed greater visibility of holistic lifetime value across products and its touchpoints. 

One of the biggest opportunities identified is that only 5% of historical service users support RNIB financially. The hypothesis being that service users haven’t received an invitation to donate. Our focus was to engage service users, some who had not heard from RNIB in 3 years  asking them to become financial supporters, increasing from 5 to 7% in year 1 .

Within our sector, it’s almost taboo to ask our service users to support financially - but if engaged in the right way, with the right message, at the right time, they can be a movement for change and our biggest ambassadors.

Solution

manifesto implemented a hands on, four-sprint framework using design thinking approach with the double diamond—Discovery, Define, Design, and Deliver—to help RNIB achieve their objectives. During the discovery phase, we analysed RNIB's audience, segmenting them into four groups based on support needs with their mindset and experience with sight loss and donation propensity.

 This data-informed segmentation guided our research approach, with tools like Synthetic Users (a quick and efficient platform that uses AI to create accurate synthetic interviews that are representative of a defined audience) validating hypotheses with the aim of understanding sight loss experience, perceptions of RNIB, and communication needs. In the design phase, we mapped user journeys tailored to each segment’s needs and current emotional state around their experience with sight loss. From the research key deliverables included warm, welcoming and engaging email campaigns using personalised narratives, addressing misconceptions about RNIB, and fostering emotional connections through shared experiences to build community.

Testing was central, from initial check-in emails achieving 59% unique open rates (84% above average) to personalised videos from employees at RNIB with experience of sight loss, surveys and community building initiatives with invitations to share their story and hopes for the future. These initiatives improved segmentation by 125%, revealing actionable insights into user preferences and communication needs.

Impact

manifesto empowered RNIB to unlock potential in their Customer Experience Platform, Dotdigital to deliver personalised, data-driven experiences that deepened engagement and strengthened donor relationships. The campaign achieved significant results, including a 54% click-to-open rate that is 84% higher than average for RNIB.  The second email with personalisation achieved an 18% CTR,  63% higher than our scenario plan. Recipients of the emails responded positively, with one sharing, “The email shows that you care and lets me know you’ll be in touch again soon to see if there’s any support I need. This really means a lot, thank you.” This approach not only enhanced RNIB’s digital maturity but also created stronger emotional connections with their audience. Additionally, the process equipped RNIB with lasting frameworks for hypothesis-driven testing and personalisation, enabling continuous refinement of digital campaigns. There was a 61% increase in the RNIB team’s confidence in planning and executing customer journeys at the end of the customer journey optimisation programme compared to the beginning.