List Management

List hygiene might not be at the top of your list of key focus areas when it comes to building a successful direct-marketing program, but it should be. I think of list hygiene like a car’s engine. It’s not the flashy part of the car, and it’s not something that you might think of every day; but if neglected, it could significantly reduce your car’s performance. To ensure you’re building a solid, clean donor list, use business rules to determine what constitutes a valid donor record. For example, do you need to have a full name and complete address? Or is it

A clean e-mail list is essential for effective e-mail marketing and fundraising campaigns for several reasons. First, if you’re sending out a terrific fundraising campaign, but 20 percent of your list is bouncing, you might hit an ISP’s ‘bounce threshold’ and end up on its blacklist. That increases your expenses, because you’re still paying for those e-mails to be deployed, and decreases your revenues, because a portion of your base isn’t aware that you’re seeking donations. Plus, it will take a lot of painful time and energy to get off the blacklist. Second, a clean e-mail list allows you to stay in compliance with

10. You can use it to get insight on which donor demographics respond best to various strategies. 9. Donor data becomes outdated quickly. 8. Good data will help your organization successfully reach more potential donors. 7. Bad data = missed contributions. 6. Use it to target donors who might be ready to make larger commitments. 5. High-quality data will help you save on direct-marketing expenses. 4. Use it to generate awareness and visibility for your organization. 3. Effectively tracking donor behavior is a direct result of good list hygiene. 2. Two words: generate donations. 1. Because a well-maintained list is crucial for direct-mail success. Tom

If you’re a fundraising professional spending a huge chunk of your organization’s precious development budget on direct mail, these figures should make you sleep a little less soundly tonight.

By ELIZABETH KORSUN and ERIN DOLAN Even in the face of diminishing returns, fundraisers tend to stick with a “safe” group of prospect lists — in other words, donor files. But these days, if you’re only working with primary-market data to grow your membership, you’re fighting a war of attrition. What an organization really needs to flourish is new blood, an infusion of new people excited to learn about how it’s making the world a better place. Americans already have shown how spontaneously charitable they can be. A tremendous outpouring of support for tsunami victims came from a staggering number of American households,

For those of us who manage prospecting campaigns, there is a span of a month or two between ordering lists and dropping the direct-mail appeals in the mail stream. Usually that time is spent putting the finishing touches on the creative packages and getting the materials ready to go.

But while we fuss over the creative, something else is happening that’s every bit as important to the campaign. Down in the data crypt, thousands, and perhaps millions, of names from many sources are brought together for a complex process called a merge/purge.

Nonprofits with missions based on religious foundations face special challenges, and the fact that they answer to the Higher Power can work both for an against them.

With bare-bones donor acquisition budgets, regional nonprofit mailers must be smart in their list planning. In direct mail in general, lists can account for 50 percent to 60 percent of the success of a mailing. Here are three tips for improving results:

Don’t get complacent and mail only the same tried-and-true lists over and over again, advises Bonnie Granger, president of Mary Elizabeth Granger & Associates, a list brokerage firm based in Baltimore. “Every donor acquisition campaign should include a number of new lists to test,” she says. “That number depends upon the size of your mailing and the availability of new files that match your donor profile.” Here are some other tips Granger shared recently: * Consider exchanging names with similar organizations rather than renting your entire mail quantity. Not only will this reduce your donor-acquisition cost, but you will have access to the most

For the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy “think tank” based in Washington, D.C., a typical budget is to mail 4 million to 5 million pieces. “We have a rough budget, but how much we mail depends on the year. For this year, plans are to mail 6 million pieces, looking to build on the opportunities created by the economy and the election year,” says Carsten Walter, director of membership programs for the organization. In mailing, Heritage follows a multi-level approach, the key determinant of which is the initial gift size, Walter says. “The higher initial gift size is obviously more desirable,” he explains.