How AI Can Be Used To Understand Blood Donor Motivations And Behaviors
The AI revolution is upon us. And with so many AI-powered tools hitting the market, including our own Betty Blood conversational AI bot, you may be wondering how you can harness the power of AI to drive more donations at your blood center.
In this blog from Incept Health, we’ll take a deeper look at the motivations driving donors to give blood – and how you can use AI to gain unprecedented insights and get more donations when you need them the most.
Understanding The Most Common Donor Motivations
First, let’s go over the most common donor motivations, as uncovered by a meta-analysis of available research published on the NIH website:
Convenience of collection site
Convenience is especially important for infrequent donors. Young people are also more likely to donate blood if the process is faster. A study by the NIH showed that younger people were willing to spend up to 45 minutes donating blood – while older adults would spend up to 1.5 hours giving blood.
Altruistic motivation/indirect reciprocity
Most blood donors are motivated by simple altruism. In other words, they want to do a good thing and help others, and giving blood is an easy way to do so.
Personal values
Most people value giving back to their communities, helping those in need, and doing good things for others. These personal values are strong motivators for blood donation.
Social norms
Social norms and, to an extent, peer pressure can motivate blood donors. For example, if a college student has a lot of friends who are going to a blood drive on campus, they may choose to attend and give blood as a way to fit in with their peers.
Perceived need for donation
We always need to be aware of overusing “blood crisis” messaging, but the fact remains that it’s an effective way to bring in more donors. If donors think there’s an urgent need for blood donations, they're more likely to give blood
Marketing communications
Whether it’s a newsletter, a social media post, or a flier on a telephone pole, marketing communications are effective at raising awareness and motivating donors to give blood.
Incentives
85.6% of blood donors donate for altruistic reasons, but 25.3% believe that incentives should be provided in order to encourage them to donate. The desire to receive incentives is more widespread among first-time donors, younger donors, married donors, those with a lower education level, and even “frequent flyers” who have donated more than five times.
According to the above study, the desire for incentives decreases with age. Older people are less likely to desire an incentive for blood donation. So as older Americans like Baby Boomers “age out” of blood donation, finding the right incentives for younger donors will become increasingly important. While it’s great for people to donate for purely altruistic reasons, blood centers will need to find ways to attract younger donors who feel that they deserve a little something in return for their donations.
How AI Tools Can Help Maximize Donations Based On Donor Motivations
Now that we understand the motivations and behaviors that drive blood donation, how can blood centers use AI-powered tools to build a more robust donor base? Here are just a few ideas:
Finding new blood drive locations
With big data and AI, you can create a map of your current donors, analyze it, and find potential locations where a blood drive would be the most convenient for your existing donor base.
Sentiment analysis of surveys and donor interactions
NLP (Natural Language Processing) tools can be used to quickly and easily analyze surveys taken by donors, interactions via text, SMS, and email, and even social media to understand how donors are feeling about your organization – and identify areas of improvement.
Predicting blood donation shortages
With today’s AI tools, it’s easier to assess past donation data and get more accurate, hyper-local predictions of when blood donation shortages may occur – and target past donors with custom-tailored messaging when a shortfall occurs.
Donor categorization and segmentation
AI makes it easier than ever to categorize donors based on demographics including age, location, gender, donation frequency, time since their last donation, and more. Breaking up your donors into groups allows you to create more effective, personalized messaging campaigns – for example, if you have a group of donors who are highly incentive-driven, you could offer them a larger donation incentive than a group who reports altruistic motivations.
Automated follow-ups with custom scheduling
AI tools like Betty Blood make it easier to send customized, unique follow-ups to past donors and reach out to set new appointments. You could even customize the frequency of interactions based on each donor’s preferences.
Ready To Boost Your Donor Campaigns With AI? Contact Incept Health!
At Incept Health, we take pride in using the latest digital marketing strategies and AI tools to drive more donations to blood centers. If you need help expanding your donor base and aren’t sure where to start, we can help! Contact us online to schedule a 100% free consultation with one of our marketing experts.