And the Winners Are … the 2014 FundRaising Success Gold Awards for Fundraising Excellence
Additional Email ($10 million and over) Winners
SILVER: The Wilderness Society — Online Renewal Campaign (Submitted by ABD Direct)
The Numbers
Recipients: 181,241
Response rate: 0.53 percent
Total cost: $4,688
Income generated: $47,652
Average gift: $49.95
Cost to raise a dollar: $0.10
The goal of this campaign was to reinstate lapsed and soon-to-be-lapsed online donors, and it focused on emotional, mission-based language while testing a new subject line to lapsed donors in the first three emails. The new subject line, “Your 2013 Membership Card (Pending),” used a more straightforward approach than the previous campaign’s “Show Your Commitment to Wilderness.” The following two emails used a rollout of the (Pending) subject line, and results improved with each subsequent send. The second email in the series was a duplicate of the first message, and the final email utilized a “forward” technique to allow a third usage of the extremely successful creative.
In the end, the subject line test saw unprecedented results for The Wilderness Society. Open rates increased by 46 percent, clickthrough rate by 40 percent and revenue by 109 percent. The ability to roll out with a test subject line during the campaign allowed the series to rival year-end email campaign performance. Through the series, response rate increased with each send from 0.36 percent, to 0.55 percent and finally to 0.68 percent. Plus, 6 percent of the campaign donors became sustainers.
BRONZE: The Wilderness Society — Year-End Email Campaign — (Submitted by ABD Direct)
The Numbers
Recipients: 181,241
Response rate: 0.53 percent
Total cost: $4,688
Income generated: $47,652
Average gift: $49.95
Cost to raise a dollar: $0.10
In 2013, The Wilderness Society set out to increase revenue without degrading its file through donor fatigue or spiked unsubscribe rates. The organization increased emails from two to three in the final days of December, but it employed a number of techniques to keep recipients receptive, including:
