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Marketing Forms enables station membership teams to create online donation forms using WYSIWYG editing tools that work for all listener's devices from a desktop PC to a smartphone. As a SaaS e-commerce application, Marketing Forms also manages the hosting and annual security audits required of online donation software for PCI compliance. In addition, Marketing Forms features support public media station fundraisers who manage pledge drives with visual premium display, real-time pledge reports, A/B and multivariate testing, export files for different donor database/CRM platforms, tracking through Google Analytics and different payment methods such as credit cards, EFT and sustainer giving through a compatible secure payment gateway.

Ways to Connect

Marketing Forms: 2016 in Review and January Update

By Jenny Golden & Sara Terpeny • Jan 10, 2017

When we first announced the launch of Marketing Forms three years ago, we worked with our Member stations to identify two key areas for improving our customized software: donation recurring payment data and pledge drive reporting.

Now that stations have over a year’s worth of live experience working the product, it’s time to evaluate the progress we’ve made and what future development would be most effective.

2016 in Review:

4 Steps to a more successful pledge drive

By Kate Faughnan • Jan 3, 2017

Before you get to work for your next pledge drive, make sure you're reviewing all the latest Marketing Forms updates for better reporting and measurement. 

Here's a peek into the features in Marketing Forms designed to help you make your next pledge drive your best yet:

NPR One: one more way to reach listeners during pledge drive

By Tamar Charney & Lauren Bracey Scheidt & Dan Newman • Sep 13, 2016

  As you gear up for your on-air membership drive, keep in mind that NPR One can help support your multi-platform messaging campaign. Many stations are reporting improved drive results when listeners encounter similar messaging across all a station's platforms. 

NPR One should be one of those platforms.

Just as you may support your on-air drive with web banners, follow-up emails, in-app messaging, and/or social media outreach, so can you coordinate your NPR One pledge spot to reflect your fund drive theme. However, make sure to tweak your key drive messaging to the younger, newer public radio audience that is using NPR One.

During pledge audio, NPR One listeners will be able to tap on their screen and go directly to the pledge page as you've designated in Station Connect. If you're looking to track donations direct from NPR One, you can use the same instructions for adding pledge audio and a pledge URL to NPR One, and input a dedicated pledge URL you only use for NPR One.

NPR One Membership Leads: Things to know and things to do

By Tamar Charney & Lauren Bracey Scheidt • Aug 17, 2016

Each month you download lists of emails of your NPR One listeners. But, then what?

That’s a question we heard from a lot of you at PMDMC in Boston. As a network, we’re still figuring out how to best use these leads to turn NPR One listeners into donors. We’re looking forward to working and learning along with you.

But we aren’t starting from scratch. Here’s what we’ve heard and learned from stations that are already engaging with their NPR One leads.

Marketing Forms Demo

By Sara Terpeny • Aug 2, 2016

Below is the recording and slides for the 8/1/16 demo of the NPR DS Marketing Forms, including information on the process for stations wishing to make the migration:

WEBINAR SLIDES (PDF)

Marketing Forms: Pledge Reporting Plans and Summer Releases

By Jenny Golden & Sara Terpeny • Jun 15, 2016
Sample sustainer upsell modal window
Visual design: Adam Kiryk

Below is an update on what's being worked on for the NPR DS Marketing Forms this summer. 

**Update** More information is available in the recording & slides from the Summer Updates Webinar held on 7/7/2016:

Marketing Forms: Payment Gateways

By Sara Terpeny • May 25, 2016
Payment gateway options with NPR DS Marketing Forms

A secure payment gateway is required to process payments through the NPR DS Marketing Forms.  Stations wishing to make use of the forms need to first create an account with one of four compatible gateways:

  • Sage
  • Paypal Payflow Pro
  • Authorize.net
  • Vantiv

All gateways may be used for securely charging a donor's credit card.  However, EFT/ACH processing is not available through Authorize.net with our forms.

Depending on your workflow for processing pledges, there are advantages and disadvantages to using certain gateways.

  

What’s new for Core Publisher, Analytics Service, Composer 2, and DS Marketing Forms in 2016?

By Stephanie Miller & Jason Butler • May 5, 2016

For Core Publisher stations, we are launching the next generation of Community Calendar, replacing our old Public Interactive Events platform that we will retire at the end of this summer. We hope that you’ll be able to use the updated events functionality to engage your audience in real life, not just over the air or on your website.

NPR DS MARKETING FORMS: Feedback Needed!

By Sara Terpeny • May 2, 2016
Sample sustainer upsell modal window
Visual design: Adam Kiryk

As we confirm our Summer 16 feature release schedule for Marketing Forms, we have opportunities for you to provide our team with valuable feedback on these upcoming features:

1. Real-Time Pledge Reports Survey (May 6)

Thank you for your feedback about using our two real-time pledge reports (Member Comments and Pledge Revenue Summary) since our initial release last fall. As part of improving these reports, we need some more information about your expected use of reporting during pledge drives in order to plan future development.

Marketing Forms Q1 Winter Release: March 2-3, 2016

By Sara Terpeny • Feb 19, 2016

**Update 2/29/16 - The deployment of the new code has been delayed until the week of 3/7/16. Sara Terpeny will be contacting stations to confirm the new deployment schedule**

Our first 2016 Marketing Forms update is ready for release to all sites on March 2-3rd. In order to deploy this update, all NPRDS Marketing Forms will require a maintenance window, in which your site can be unavailable for up to 30 minutes. In our last quarterly deployment, most sites were back live within 15 minutes.

Updates to NPR DS Marketing Forms and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, December 2015

By Sara Terpeny • Dec 17, 2015

Below is information on recent updates made to the NPR DS Marketing Forms and the Salesforce Marketing Cloud email marketing service.

MARKETING FORMS
 
Universal Analytics Update

On October 27th, we updated all sites to include a new tracking code within the Marketing Forms pages to support the NPRDS Station Analytics System’s move to Universal Analytics on December 1st.

Now Available: Offline Mode for NPR DS Marketing Forms

By Jenny Golden & Sara Terpeny • Aug 26, 2015

Offline forms allow staff members and volunteers to enter pledges with options that are not available to your web visitors, including:

12 NPR Member Stations Testing New Online Fundraising Tool

By Jenny Golden • Nov 28, 2012

Twelve NPR member stations are working with NPR Digital Services this month to pilot a new Web-based form tool from KIMBIA, a leading online fundraising platform. 

This month, 12 NPR member station membership teams are working with NPR Digital Services to pilot a new Web-based form tool from KIMBIA, a leading online fundraising platform. 

If Your Site Has a Support Landing Page, It's Costing You Revenue

By Steve Mulder • Jun 7, 2012
Flickr: 401K

I'm guessing that headline got your attention. Many stations have an informational web page that explains all the ways people can support your station. Our testing shows that you'll bring in more revenue during pledge drives if you skip over this support landing page and send users directly to the pledge form. And we have the data to show it.

The idea for this particular test came out of a proven rule of thumb from the for-profit world: If you're trying to get users to give you money, fewer steps in the process translates into a higher conversion rate. The fewer pages in the funnel, the more people end up finishing.

We wanted real data on whether this truth applies to our online pledge funnels as well. So we ran an A/B test to find out.

Driving Online Donations: A Real-World Test

By Steve Mulder • Mar 23, 2012

During pledge week at stations all across the country, every boy's and girl's fancy turns to one thing: Show me the money. Teams focus on the best ways to drive awareness (and conversion), and we wonder how to best use our web site as part of the package. So we try everything: 300x250 ads, big banners, lightboxes, interstitial pages, and more.

But here's the question: What actually works? Which of these online formats actually drive increased conversion rate and pledge amount? And do the intrusive ad formats negatively affect user engagement -- do they annoy people so much that it discourages them from using the site?

We decided to run a test and find out.

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