Here’s why donors won’t let you forget about freebies.

By Paul Barbagallo

The Task Force extended the free-subscription offer in both prospecting and renewal efforts, and has witnessed staggering results. According to Robbins, since adding the premium, prospecting efforts are pulling an average gift of $55; without the incentive, $42. What’s more, renewals are fetching an average gift of $68.91 — after a 15.25 percent response to the first drop.

The Task Force’s standard annual membership rate is $35, but Robbins opted to increase it to $40 to cover the cost of the subscription offer. And even though the organization has built a strong rapport with The Advocate, subscriptions could not be donated due to Audit Bureau of Circulation rules. So Robbins purchased a block of 5,000 yearly subscriptions — valued at $39 each — at a deeply discounted rate.

Since November 2003, the Task Force direct mail program has generated about 5,000 subscriptions for The Advocate. “Not only did the mailing pay for itself, it actually brought in more revenue,” Robbins says. “It’s the best thing to happen to our program.”

A ‘miraculous’ response
For faith-based charities, however, the matter of pinpointing a relevant premium offer is a bit more taxing. Most lack the funding required to maintain a successful back-end premium program, and some have exhausted the popular religious-themed front-end offers of name-and-address labels, greeting cards and notepads.

A direct mail prospecting package with such a challenge and stigma arrived to the Who’s Mailing What! Archive recently from Food for the Poor, a Deerfield Beach, Fla.-based organization that ministers to spiritually renew impoverished people throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. FFP mailed a 43⁄4-inch-by-61⁄2-inch, three-dimensional box mailing carrying a unique front-end premium: a pewter necklace with a grape-sized pendant of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also known as “The Miraculous Medal” to Catholic audiences.

FFP first tested the package in January 2003, and as Director of Development Zach Hinton attests, it was a complete smash.