Effective LYBUNT campaign strategies for publishers

What is a LYBUNT?

First things first: What is a LYBUNT? LYBUNT stands for “last year but unfortunately not this [year].” It’s an audience segment of lapsed supporters who gave in the previous calendar year but not in the current calendar year.

A similar audience segment is the SYBUNT: “some year but unfortunately not this [year].” This includes the wider audience of all former supporters who gave in a prior year, but not the current year. While this can be a good segment to re-engage with and move back into the audience funnel, focusing on the LYBUNT segment means you’re reaching more recent supporters who will still be familiar with your publication’s work and the reason they originally supported your publication.

Why use a LYBUNT campaign?

A LYBUNT campaign allows you to send a specific message to your recent, lapsed supporters that reminds them why their support is valuable and how they can easily support your publication again. You can send one-off LYBUNT campaigns throughout the year and work LYBUNT messages into larger campaigns, like a midyear series or end-of-year series.

In BlueLena’s EOY 2023 series, the LYBUNT campaign — an optional send at the end of December — had an average open rate of 42.83% and an average click rate of 2.61%.

Best practices for LYBUNT

Check your segment

Having an accurate segment is imperative for a LYBUNT campaign. Create your segment based on the reader revenue data syncing with ActiveCampaign, whether that’s from Donorbox, Stripe, Memberful or another payment processor. Often, you can use a date field to identify supporters who made a contribution during the previous year.

Personalize

Craft the message with the reader’s propensity to support your publication again in mind. Note what reporting and projects their support funded, and what another year of support could fund.

Reference the last gift

As a former supporter, you likely have information about them. Use merge fields to include their first name in the greeting and other details where relevant. For instance, you may want to reference the amount they contributed previously or the membership or subscriber level they joined.

Ask for more

Use your data to create a dynamic support appeal that suggests not only the amount the former supporter contributed, but also an increased amount. Depending on your data fields and email platform, there are a few ways you can accomplish this, including using a “Perform Math” automation or importing your dynamic amount into a specific data field.

Time it right

LYBUNT campaigns work well when they coincide with a supporter campaign, like a midyear or end-of-year series. The LYBUNT segment can be included on other campaign messaging to warm them up to the appeal, then sent their personalized LYBUNT campaign.

If your LYBUNT supporters are approaching the anniversary of their gift and have not made another contribution or become a recurring supporter, use similar messaging to send a one-off anniversary campaign to remind them of why they contributed and, if relevant, that their membership is expiring.

If you’re interested in reaching your LYBUNT segment, BlueLena has templates available that can be customized for your publication. Fully custom LYBUNT campaigns and assistance with creating a dynamic ask are also possible with the use of support hours.

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About BlueLena

BlueLena is a strategy consulting and audience management platform founded in 2020 to support the sustainability of independent local media. By combining cutting-edge technology with expert-driven services, BlueLena helps over 250 news organizations across North America develop and manage subscription, membership, and donation models. Its unique shared-resource management approach provides publishers, regardless of size, with access to enterprise-level tools and personalized support, enabling them to focus on high-quality journalism while building loyal, revenue-generating audiences. 

BlueLena is majority employee-owned, and backed by investors including Automattic (the parent company of WordPress), the Local Media Association, and Old Town Media.