20 Direct-Marketing Ideas for Small Nonprofits, Part 2

[Editor's note: This is part 2 of a four-part series. View part 1 here.]

There are many strategies smaller nonprofits can employ to get results that mirror or even top those of the big players in the sector. In their session, "20 Big Direct Marketing Ideas for Small Nonprofits," at the 2012 Washington Nonprofit Conference, Eliza Temeles, senior account executive at MKDM; Jill Batcheller, membership manager at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; and Alicia Toles, annual giving and donor data manager at Food and Friends, shared 20 direct-response fundraising strategies tailored to smaller organizations. Here are ideas 6-10.

6. Explore homemade modeling
Build your own model with the data you have, Temeles said. Consider building your model with data such as:

• Date added
• E-mail behavior
• Event attendance
• Volunteer history
• Purchases
• ZIP code
• Gender

"Use as much data as you can to develop models to target your donors and prospects better," Temeles said. "A commercial model often has a significant outright investment, but an in-house model is cheaper. There is still a cost in time and effort, but it is a smaller investment. Don't disregard your own internal information. Put it to work."

7. Get offline donors online and online activists offline
"In order to have a successful multichannel campaign, you have to have e-mail addresses as well as mail addresses. It's worth the investment," Temeles said.

She said it's possible to do this organically and provided the example of the Family Equality Council (FEC).

On its direct-mail piece, FEC included an e-mail collection tool on the reply device. However, the collection tool wasn't to sign up for the e-newsletter — a common offer to try and capture e-mail addresses. Rather, it was an offer to take an action, which encourages greater participation. There was also a drive to "put your gift to work faster" by going to the website, and the URL was included in different places — on the reply, included in an insert to share your story — with different calls to action.