It came to my mailbox with convincing handwriting on the envelope. Inside the flap, the deception continued. It was a printed email, addressed to me, donned with a sticky note begging me to get back to the sender quickly.
A few minutes passed before I detected the fraud. The “handwriting” had been printed lightly by a laser printer, not indenting the paper as actual freehand would have. And my own email address was missing from the email message.
Though the email implied someone really wanted to buy my car, I soon realized that clever marketers had pulled my Hyundai’s make, model and year from a database. They did not actually have a buyer waiting for my decision.
So while the strategists behind this piece had me considering whether the solicitation was legitimate, they did not have me considering selling my car. This was an intriguing direct-mail piece, to be sure, but in the end it was ineffective. After some consideration, it was recycled among many other creative attempts at getting my business.
Might this be an example of a last-ditch effort in the now dying art and inconsistent science of direct mail? Novel enough to make us pause before trashing it, but not compelling enough to move us to action? In a world pushing e-solicitations — for businesses and charities alike — does good, old-fashioned paper mail matter? My experience says yes.
I recently received a small, bright orange envelope in the mail. Thanksgiving was approaching, and our city’s soup kitchen was making a compelling request for funding. The organization laid out the price of each meal and offered tear-off cards to fill out — the very cards that would grace the table as clients enjoyed a warm, nutritious meal. I was hooked — so my check followed.
In the nonprofit industry, direct mail can be our best friend, as long as we operate with fresh ideas that communicate our core mission. After all, creativity gets the envelope opened. A tangible tie to our work gets the envelope sent back … stuffed with funding.
Why direct mail still matters
Despite the pleas of dozens of webinars, direct mail is not dead. Instead, it is one of the most reliable ways to garner funds from the masses.
“You'd be crazy to jump ship entirely from direct mail at this point,” says Tom Harrison, chair of fundraising agency Russ Reid and Omnicom's Nonprofit Group of Agencies, and chair of the FundRaising Success Editorial Advisory Board. “You'd be swinging before the pitch.”
The reason? Harrison says the majority of nonprofit dollars come from donors over 50. And though the Web is fast, affordable and the wave of the future, Harrison advises: “Meet today’s donors where they are, not where you wish they were.” For the vast majority of donors, he says, that means direct mail first, followed by TV, digital, events and radio.
If you just spent thousands optimizing your online giving page for mobile devices, you don’t have to shy away from direct mail either. According to a 2010 study by Dunham+Company, donors are more likely to give online when sent a mail solicitation than they are when sent an email solicitation. That’s right: Direct mail matters to online giving even more than email does.
But as the masses clamor to crowdfunding and other digital means, let’s not forget that we need the right pieces to drive them there.
In fact, Michael Kaiser-Nyman, founder and CEO of auto dialer provider Impact Dialing, argued last year in the July issue of Chief Marketer that outbound, or direct, marketing is key when your product isn’t a high-demand commodity. Though giving is alive and well, no one philanthropic cause seems to be in unmatched demand. Therefore the viral, inbound marketing tools of Web and social-media campaigns often can’t compare to the fundraising ROI of direct appeals.
The formula for success
In order to get ROI, we need both curiosity and mission-driven messaging. Applying both is American Farmland Trust’s “ready-to-eat” appeal, which took home the Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association’s Package of the Year Award for Renewal Direct Mail.
The campaign envelope features color photography of fruits and vegetables, and unfolds into an unexpected circle. Flip the address side of the mailer over and you’ll reveal a farm scene set on a circular clock motif, reminding us of America’s declining agriculture industry and claiming, "Time is running out!" Add a letter, a remittance envelope and an illustrative four-color piece, and you have an uncommon package with an uncommonly good tie to the farm-focused organization that birthed it.
When faced with a struggling fiscal year-end for Calvin College, I tried my own hand at a campaign that would mix medium and message. But I strayed from direct mail just a bit, making the heartbeat of this particular campaign an interactive website.
As a college that has long been known to believe and teach the idea of theologian Abraham Kuyper that every square inch of the world matters to God, we offered an interactive website that would allow sponsorship of a symbolic “square inch” of campus for $10. Hundreds of users scrolled over the map and placed their names on areas of campus that were particularly meaningful to them. And for many, a direct-mail piece got them there.
Online, over $29,000 worth of square inches were purchased. We were pleased.
But, offering an alternative of giving through direct mail brought in more than $56,700 — over 60 percent of the mixed-media campaign’s revenue.
Mission and mail
It seems that even when a website offers novelty and a mission-driven focus, it will still be beat out by a mail piece that offers both. Direct mail is surprisingly reliable in this technological age.
But, for the young strategist angling to get on the Web, direct mail is your friend too. The Internet and direct mail are not enemies, but two pieces of the same fundraising puzzle.
“If you use multichannel, you'll do much better,” Harrison says, speaking in terms of both the number of gifts and their size. “All our experience shows that the more channels you use to connect with a donor, the more she will give.”
So the next time you’re looking to engage donors, make the old way new. Create a must-open, must-read and must-respond mail piece. Pair it with a cutting-edge Web campaign if you have the money and the expertise, but never forget to pay attention to what the prospect will hold in her hands.
Everything in fundraising is changing, and that includes direct mail. But don’t count on it going away.
Amanda Greenhoe is manager of alumni and development communications at Calvin College. Reach her at amanda.greenhoe@calvin.edu
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