5 Tips for Improving Direct Mail Fundraising Efforts

Before you launch your next direct mail fundraising campaign, consider these five strategies.

Direct mail provides the lifeline for any non-profit organization and can be the difference between a successful fundraising campaign and one that achieves a lackluster response. Even in today's world of ever-changing technologies, direct mail is still the key medium for fundraising, but numerous marketers fail to take the time to an analyze their direct mail fundraising efforts to make sure they are experiencing the greatest possible return on investment.

While there are many schools of thought regarding what truly makes an effective direct mail campaign, the bottom line is simply*...the bottom line*. A truly successful direct mail fundraising campaign is one that increases existing donor dollars and unlocks new donors. As many marketers gear up their campaigns for a new year, there are key factors to keep in mind to help improve the effectiveness of those campaigns. By following these five tips, you will not only improve your direct mail efforts, but you will also vastly improve the bottom line:

1) Integrate existing channels.

By effectively achieving this simple, but yet often looked method, non-profit organizations will see an immediate lift in a return on their fundraising investment. Why? Because oftentimes the investment has already been made. It's a sunk cost but most just accept it and don't continue to make their tools work harder for them. Take a look at your Web site, talk to your PR department. Gather as many outbound communications that your organization sends from all departments and leverage as much as you can from what is already taking place.

For example, find out what new "hot" publications your communications department will be offering this year and develop a direct mail offer incentive around it. You might want to simply pull articles or photos from an upcoming issue to offset some copywriting costs. Include great PR excerpts or newspaper clippings in your direct mail that shows how that organization helped someone in the donor's local community.

Work together with your marketing and communications department to drive prospects, donors or members to make a gift either through the mail or online by starting a human interest story or teaser in one medium and compelling donors or prospective donors to finish reading the story by either "watching for it in the mail" or by going to the Web site.

Oftentimes, marketers dismiss an integrated approach, because they believe it's too costly. However, it isn't the integration of the channels that is expensive. That just takes creativity, teamwork and fundamental marketing knowledge. The cost comes in building a multi-channel approach which most medium and large organizations already have in one form or another.

They all have Web sites, send out press releases, send direct mail, etc. All it will take for them to see higher returns and lower fundraising costs is to work together, rather than as disjointed departments. Integration can actually lower future fundraising costs by transitioning offline donors to electronic donors. In fact, integration will be key to lowering future fundraising costs as organizations begin slowly transitioning offline solicitations to less expensive electronic methods.

2) Empower your donors by giving them options relative to premiums.

Premiums and even personalized premiums are not a new idea in fundraising. For years, organizations have been sending address labels and other premiums to motivate a donor to make a small gift in return. Although premiums still work very well with many older donor audiences, organizations are also targeting the younger audiences, the "young senior" or the "young Baby Boomers."

It's a fact that this new generation of potential donors is very interested in your organization's mission, as well as how you spend their contribution. Sending dozens of labels could be seen as frivolous by many of these new donors. Instead, organizations should be testing premium teasers with the option of fulfilling additional free premiums for the donor either online or by mail.

For example, send one sheet of labels instead of three with a note that you want to make sure their contribution is working as hard as possible by limiting expenses-but then offer the donor an option of either going to your Web site or immediately returning with their donation an order for two free additional sheets of labels.

Other ideas include asking the donor to make a contribution with an option of several back-end premiums instead of just one. New print-on-demand technology has made it fairly cost effective for organizations to print back-end premiums when ordered rather than carrying large inventories. Also, rather than asking a donor to simply pay the cost of the return postage, which has already proven to be effective, why not ask them to cover the cost of the entire package to that donor with their additional gift? The cost is low and often the new generation of donors will be happy that you were up front with them regarding how exactly their donor dollars were being utilized.

3) Utilize the power of referral marketing.

Another tactic that is often underutilized is including something in your direct mail efforts that can easily be passed on to prospective donors' friends and family. Your donors give money to your organization because your cause is something they believe in, feel passionate about, have experience with, or connect to in their own unique way. However, unless you provide them with an easy, convenient method of passing along their feelings to others, the message is unlikely to be spread.

It is far more inexpensive to let your current donors distribute your material in a viral method rather than uncovering new donors on your own. Just like a good salesperson, your current donors can recruit new "leads" for you if you arm them with the correct tools to do so. There are several cost-effective methods to achieve this goal, but the most important aspect to keep in mind is that your donor wants to have a voice. They want to interact with you and participate more than just signing a check over to the organization.

Greeting cards, bounce back cards that can connect the donor to those being served by your organization, advocacy petitions, and even ideas such as sending two identical campaign packages--one for the donor and one to be passed along to a friend--can be very effective. Imagine someone receiving a pile of solicitations from various organizations, but then realizing a friend's handwritten note is attached to one of those packages. It is no secret that the chance of opening the package from the friend is greatly increased.

4) How Much To Mail?

It's always tempting to mail more pieces with the hope of achieving an above average number of returns. Chances are, mailing more with the right select strategy can in fact produce higher returns. Mailing blind on the other hand, may not get you the highest returns you need to offset the increased volume and increased cost of simply mailing more.

You hear about "mailing smarter" and "more selective" and there is great truth in both of these points. Like every long-term investment strategy, acquisition is expensive and requires extensive planning or mapping. Usually the "blind" expense is with printing and postage for sometimes hundreds of thousands of additional pieces that you are blindly hoping to perform well. Yes, you need to grow your constituents-members or donor base, but without understanding and calculating the consequences, this can be a huge pitfall in your overall fundraising efforts.

One major ingredient required to maximize the potential return is to understand statistical information and how to leverage historical, demographic and previous select data. Any organization serious about identifying and upgrading new, active or lapsed donors needs a fundraising database that tracks performance, predicts outcomes, manages constituent attributes, and provides for integrated marketing opportunities that support an organization's long-range plans. Arming yourself with this information and applying it to investment strategies will allow you to grow your constituency, and ultimately, your base of long-term financial support.

5) Spend the extra effort on package design and branding.

With increasingly fierce competition among non-profit organizations over a finite pool of donors and donor mistrust regarding issues that have come to light in the media it is simply impossible to raise funds or continue to grow your revenue sources without raising awareness and credibility. You have seconds to stand out among the clutter of mail that your donors' receive each day and with more and more regulations on other forms of communication, it is likely that you will be competing with even more mail in the future.

The only way to guarantee that you will get a response from a prospective donor is to connect with him or her emotionally, visually or conceptually. Potential donors are easily distracted so it is important to provide a reason for them to "pause." By making your packages look consistent and branding yourselves well across all communications, you are telling donors subconsciously that you are a legitimate, well-run and well-organized organization.

By leading your direct mail with powerful messaging concepts (which must be strategically placed) you are telling your donors that you have something in common and you want to start a relationship with them. Visual impact is immediate and is more powerful than any other element of the appeal. Just remember the saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words."

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Brian Renda is president and CEO of Brickmill Marketing Services, one of the largest full-service marketing and creative agencies in New England. Organizations collaborate with Brickmill to create an integrated marketing vision with services such as brand design & development, interactive programs, direct marketing, fundraising, advertising, event branding and public relations. Brickmill serves a worldwide clientele from non-profits to B2B marketers, including North Shore Animal League, Tire Warehouse, University of New Hampshire, Citizens Funds, Habitat for Humanity, Defenders of Wildlife, KANA Software, Guideposts and others. For more information call (800) 535-3863 or www.brickmill.com.