As the number of older supporters adopting online technology grows, how can charities use digital to maximise their engagement with them? 

As our blog post yesterday highlighted, the number of older users of digital media is growing rapidly. As the uptake of tablets, smartphones and social media among the over-50s grows, charities who continue to focus their digital fundraising only on younger audiences could be missing out. Here are The Fundraiser’s 4 top tips for engaging older donors with digital: 

Create tablet content

Think about creating content for tablets. While it’s true that most online content is still viewed on desktops, tablet adoption is growing very fast among the older demographic. Tablets allow for a high level of engagement and are perfect devices on which to view video content, which is an excellent way of bringing your beneficiaries’ stories to life.

That’s not to say you should ignore smartphones: Those aged 65-74 are more than twice as likely to use a smartphone now compared to 2012.  

Think stewardship

The ROI winners for acquisition of older donors are still direct mail packs and telephone - but the retention opportunities that digital offers are very significant. World Vision, in its very successful child sponsorship programme, still recruits most of its older donors through direct mail, but their follow-up campaign is largely focused on digital content - and this has had a positive impact both on their conversion and retention figures. 

Stay ahead of the curve

Keep a close eye on those industries at the forefront of digital technology, and think about how older customers are engaging with them digitally. In the banking sector, for example, the second highest growth age bracket is 55-64 year olds in terms of adoption onto mobile devices.  

Be disruptive

When considering older donors, don’t be afraid to be both innovative and disruptive. These adjectives aren’t applicable only to the younger generation! Remember the Help The Aged campaign about winter deaths? Aimed at older givers, the advert used soft words but hard-hitting images; seemingly at odds with each other. It got people talking - and ultimately got the message across. How can that level of innovation be replicated digitally for campaigns aimed at older donors? It’s over to you.

Jenny Ramage is editor of The Fundraiser.