Willis Turner-Fundraisers: Watch Your Back

By Willis Turner

The solution, though, is simple: Back testing.

You back test by mailing your winning package a second time, in order to confirm its results. Unfortunately, back testing is not talked about, or done, nearly enough. After all, people reason, running the same test is expensive and time-consuming. And the test did prove itself after all.

It's perfectly normal to want to save all that time and money just to prove something that already seems obvious. But the sad fact is that the direct-mail highway is littered with packages that failed to live up to their initial test results.

And in the long run — after new rounds of testing and more months of waiting and analyzing results — those packages ended up costing a lot more time and money than the back test would have.

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Willis Turner Author's page

Willis believes in expressive writing, exceptional fundraising, and exuberant living.

Willis Turner is the senior copywriter at Huntsinger & Jeffer. He was an experienced writer and creative director in the traditional advertising world for more than 20 years before making the switch to fundraising nearly 15 years ago. In his work with nonprofit organizations and associations, he has written thousands of appeals, renewals and acquisition communications for every medium. He creates direct-response campaigns, as well as collateral materials and communications, that get attention, tell emotional stories, and persuade people to take action or make a donation.

Fundraisers: Watch Your Backs