Epsilon

Company executives say they are pleased to find that customers have been paying about 85 percent of the retail price of menu items since Richmond Heights, Mo.-based Panera Bread Co. turned the St. Louis Bread Co. cafe in May into its first nonprofit community cafe. The store is run through the company's charitable foundation.

Ron Shaich, Panera's executive chairman, admits that he was skeptical at first, too, unsure if people would pay when not required to. But four months into the experiment, he says the results have renewed his faith in humanity.

September 15, 2009, DMNews — Online purchases grew again in 2008, but retail sales were flat and call center sales declined, according to Epsilon Targeting, a recently formed data division of Epsilon. These were among the findings in its Annual Multichannel Trend Report, which is based on aggregated merchandise purchase data from the Abacus Cooperative database.

DALLAS, May 22, 2009 — Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE: ADS), a leading provider of loyalty and marketing solutions derived from transaction-rich data, today announced that its Epsilon subsidiary has signed a multi-year extension agreement with Washington, D.C.-based National Geographic Society to continue providing database hosting and marketing services. National Geographic, a large Epsilon database client since 1997, is also an Epsilon permission-based email and Epsilon Targeting client.

The latest in FundRaising Success' Educational Webinar Series, "Understanding and Maximizing Your Donor Database for Fundraising Success," featured 10 common mistakes nonprofits make in selecting donor databases and how to avoid them, detailed by co-presenter Robert Weiner, president of Robert L. Weiner Consulting.

When it comes to e-mail subject lines, shorter is better. Epsilon recently released the findings of a comprehensive study that examined more than a billion e-mails to determine best practices for creating subject lines and found that "shorter subject lines correlate with higher open rates and click rates … ," the company said in a recent press release.

Following is a sampling of new-to-the-market and newly managed lists.

“There’s a good chance that our [monthly donor] did not select her two favorite charities and then join their monthly programs. Most likely, she responded to the two charities who asked her first.” — Harvey McKinnon from “Myths of Monthly Donor Programs: Challenging the Myths About Monthly Giving Programs,” as quoted by Krista Harte Sassaman, senior account director at Epsilon, in her session, “Monthly Giving Basics & Beyond: Shattering the Status Quo With Your Sustainer Program,” at the DMA Nonprofit Federation’s 2008 Washington Nonprofit Conference last month.

Everyone had to be wondering the same thing I was wondering as we sat in a room at the JW Marriott Hotel toward the end of the DMA Nonprofit Federation’s 2008 Washington Nonprofit Conference in Washington, D.C., last week: How is Tom Gaffny going to pull off a session titled “‘E’ Is for Engagement: 65 Organizations, A Case Study”? I pictured the executive vice president of fundraising for Epsilon in a cowboy hat, scatting into a microphone like the auctioneer at a livestock sale. (I guess I was the only one who went that far, but like I said, the conference was winding down.)

We watch our open rates. We track our clickthroughs. But do we really know who we’re e-mailing? When we capture the all-important e-mail address, we’ve gained access to that person’s inbox (and, ideally, her approval — or at least an absence of disapproval) in order to communicate with her. Then we start sending e-mails … and more e-mails — and, for too many of us, we never look back. Yes, we track open rates, clickthrough rates, donations, number of new e-mail addresses and on and on. We do a great job of accumulating e-mail addresses and analyzing campaigns. But we’re leaving

With all the hype surrounding online fundraising, direct marketers are left with questions about the performance of online campaigns vs. direct-mail acquisition campaigns. Which perform better? How do you know which to use for your organization? The answer: It depends. As with most aspects of direct marketing, there is no cut-and-dry answer as to which method of donor recruitment is better, but rather unique characteristics of both channels. In an effort to uncover some of the benefits and challenges of online and DM acquisition, I moderated a debate at the Bridge Conference in Washington, D.C., last week. Krista Harte Sassaman, senior account director at marketing solutions