Useful Past Tips: Direct Response Marketing: Direct Response Marketing Telephone Direct Response -- A Surprising Call A Direct Marketing Myth: Perfect Data Premiums Bring In Donors Mailing Tips For Frustrated Direct Marketers Using inserts as a marketing tool Know what your donors want Testing for high potential It is vital to test everything

1. Direct Response Marketing
The NPT editorial staff attends a multitude of conferences every year and has compiled a comprehensive list of direct response tips without which no nonprofit executive should go to the office.

• You will never have perfect donor data. Only an estimated 50 to 80 percent of your data will be completely correct. And, even good data degrades at an estimated 2 percent per month, according to Stamford, Conn.-based GartnerGroup.
• You will never analyze all of your data. "You have to place a priority based on reliability. Prioritize what is trustworthy and what will have a big impact," said Christopher Cleghorn, executive vice president for direct and interactive marketing, for Chicago-based Easter Seals.
• You will never have enough in-house marketing expertise. Nonprofits need to become more creative with compensation to lure good marketers.

2. Telephone Direct Response -- A Surprising Call
After getting home from a long day of work do you really want to be solicited by a marketer hawking or promoting, well, anything?

One technique of heading off the imminent telephone hang-up by a potential donor is implementing non-solicitation telemarketing to reach out and strengthen donor loyalty by saying "thank you" rather than "please give." In addition to thank you calls, other effective non-solicitation calls include:

• Those designed to welcome or educate donors or new members;
• A personal briefing, including a taped message or conference call;
• Reminder of a monthly commitment;
• A customer service call to offer resources;
• Donor surveys;
• Invitations to an event;
• A conversation about planned giving through a will.

3. A Direct Marketing Myth: Perfect Data
When an organization considers relationship marketing there are many myths to dispel. Several nonprofit direct response experts examined a list of "truths" by Stamford, Conn.-based GartnerGroup during a Direct Marketing Association conference and gave explanations of the so-called truths.

• You will never have perfect donor data. Only an estimated 50 to 80 percent of your data will be completely correct. Even good data degrades at an estimated 2 percent per month, according to GartnerGroup;
• You will never analyze all of your data. It's a matter of time, resources and technology, according to Atlanta-based consultant Lindy Litrides. It may not be realistic to analyze all of the donor information;
• You will never control every donor interaction. For organizations with many affiliates, the idea of control is a dream, said Kristin McCurry of Epsilon, a full service direct response firm;
• You will never be content with your in-house Information Technology expertise. Technology savvy people get pulled in a lot of directions because there is a lot of competition for resources;
• You will never achieve the vision of one-to-one marketing. Although this may be true, the American Cancer Society found that people are six times more likely to give if they or someone they know is a cancer survivor;
• You will never have a centralized marketing dashboard. There's always a gap in what's available in organizational capacity. Things are always changing;
• You will never be immune from legislation. Legislators and regulators are searching for ways to rein in the nonprofit sector especially on the fundraising and privacy fronts. Taking a firm stand on privacy, for example, is vital to showing a self-policing on the issue.

4. Premiums Bring In Donors
Name labels continue to be popular premiums in the nonprofit direct marketing arena. They are used to engage new donors and maintain existing ones. But now, even once "stodgy" organizations employ personalized pocket planners, notepads and pins, medallions, bookmarks and calendars.

Though they're not for everyone's acquisition programs, consider these premiums:

• Umbrellas - they can be costly, but the Humane Society of the United States found them to be viable.
• Coffee mugs - expensive as an up-front piece and being tested, but the perceived value could drive up average gifts.
• Personalized photo albums and pocket planners have been successful for St. Joseph's Indian School.

Such programs, however, need to be watched carefully. They may be successful in the beginning, but long-term donor value data is just starting to be developed. Donors attracted by expensive-looking premiums may give in the early going, but they can be difficult to renew.

While the per piece cost of the premium must be considered, don't forget the postage. Irregularly shaped items could drive up mailing costs.

Remember, premiums that have a clear tie-in with an organization's mission are more likely to succeed.

Just FYI, the March 15 issue of The NonProfit Times Direct Response Fundraising Edition will explore this topic in depth.

5. Mailing Tips For Frustrated Direct Marketers
Sometimes a subtle tweak to an envelope goes a long way in boosting response rates, according to a chairman of a direct response fundraising agency.

Greg Adams, chairman of Adams Hussey and Associates, Judith Maneval, president of Shanky Perlowin Associates and Barbara Sims, president of Carol Enters List Company, gave several tips at "Fundraising Day in New York" sponsored by The Greater New York Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Here are a few that may be the match that gets your direct mail response rates burning.

• Add a memorial/honorary gift promotion program as an extra mailing in your donor cycle.
• Be on the lookout for high dollar gifts that skew your data. Large gifts will falsely inflate your average gifts data on any direct mail test.
• Add letters to your renewals. Organizations should think about adding an extra renewal letters to their series.
• Know your deductions. Ask your merge/purge vendor to provide you with reports that back up all deductions you're allowed to take.
• Send more mail to your multiple givers. Send an extra appeal or an acquisition to donors with a history of sending multiple gifts annually.
• When reviewing test list suggestions, ask for usage information to confirm or justify the recommendation.
• Track first- and multi-year donors separately in the renewal series.
• Drive donor traffic to your Web site through mailings that invite them to visit a specific welcome page.

6. Using inserts as a marketing tool
Nonprofits have inserted themselves into tricky marketing arenas -- emphasis on insert. Building alliances with for-profits that share demographic markets can help with acquisition. Just beware of the risks.

The American Bible Society (ABS) used an insert as a marketing tool at Christian music concerts. Working with selected bands, ABS didn’t meet its goals of number of new names in the first four years of the program, but it sang of its success when revenue was better than break-even.

Those first-time donors found through concerts gave three times the average gift of those acquired elsewhere. The organization has also enjoyed a higher lifetime donor value from those donors.

But the effort requires dedication:

• Coordinate with partners who are willing to devote artistic efforts. Details about the organization and its relationship with the organization should be clear in brochures.
• Dovetailing that effort with on-stage endorsements enhances the ask.
• Having key phrases for marketing purposes can enhance the message from the stage.
• Make it easier for potential donors to respond at the concert. ABS included small pencils in the playbill.

Inserts also work through the mail, though there are challenges beyond working with for-profit mailers. Yet when postal rates rise, partners focused on similar demographics can offer an attractive way to share costs. St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital put inserts into appeals similar to catalogs, offering branded items.

Be careful to avoid Unrelated Business Income Tax by using inserts that are related to the organization’s mission. In the mid-90s Girls and Boys Town had limited success with an insert program through a for-profit gift catalog. The for-profit mailers enjoyed the image boost, but the organization had lower-than expected responses.

7. Know what your donors want
This isn’t some Amanda Bynes vehicle veiled as a movie. Kasha Lewis, a senior associate director at Wunderman, gave her thoughts on what every woman wants marketers to know about her.

• Time is of the essence. A woman never has enough time, according to Lewis, who presented at a recent Direct Marketing Association of Washington conference. Time evaporators include more dual income families, longer work hours, greater financial need, a full-time home life where traditional roles haven’t changed much, and more single mothers
• A woman needs solutions, not just products.
• Getting a woman’s loyalty means providing end-to-end solutions. Lewis said that Wunderman uses it’s a scorecard to determine the quality of lived experience among brand users. The information can also apply to nonprofits seeking to improve branding with women.
• Wunderman determined what drives product loyalty by having consumers rate brands on several different aspects such as “has an image I relate to," "a long history with the brand,” “adapts to my needs,” and “has rewards programs I participate in.”
• There are three factors: the brand meets needs, what the brand interactions are and whether the brand creates a world of which a person feels a part.
• Fundamentally, women and men have the same ability to engage in brand loyalty. Loyalty isn’t category dependent.
• Google, Starbucks, Microsoft, Kraft, and Home Depot are a few for-profit brands that “get women.”
• The key to attracting women is to make them feel comfortable and confident with your products. Women want to be empowered not rescued, a holistic approach to their needs, and to feel good about using a product.

8. Testing for high potential
Looking for a bigger bang for your buck? Some elements in a direct mail fundraising campaign are most likely to make a difference on the order of 20 percent -- or even more -- on your net returns. This is according to Mal Warwick in his book Testing, Testing, 1,2,3 (Jossey-Bass, 2003). If anything is going to give an organization's mailing program a big lift, it is probably one or the other of the following 10 items:

• Testing prospect lists;
• Suggesting a higher or lower minimum gift;
• Conducting a telephone follow-up;
• Offering a product (premium) to those who give;
• Enclosing a free product (premium) in the appeal;
• Using an involvement device, such as a survey or petition;
• Designing a new package;
• Redesigning the outer envelope;
• Making a sweepstakes offer.
• Be very cautious, however, if you elect to acquire donors by using a sweepstakes offer or by offering a product in exchange for an initial donation.

Your response rate may indeed be higher, but respondents to sweepstakes or premium offers may lack interest in your cause or organization, and their value over the long haul may be substantially less than that of donors or members acquired without such inducements. You may also encounter difficulties with the IRS or U.S. Postal Service if you are not careful.

9. It is vital to test everything
Direct mail fundraisers should not take anything for granted.

That is the advice of Mal Warwick in his book Testing, Testing, 1,2,3, in which he offers items from a fundraising forum held by Moore Response Marketing Services. One suggestion in the report was that fundraising situations are never identical and that what works for one organization may flop for another.

Among other highlights:

• One experienced mailer advised caution in the headlong rush to downsize packages now classified as “flats” under U.S. Postal Service rules. Despite their high postage rate, flats sometimes pay for themselves by yielding higher responses. Another reason: one mailer found that for his organization they yielded higher-dollar donors.

• A merge-purge bureau told of the time it suggested deleting names of deceased persons. The customer mailed those names “just one more time” and found results equal to or better than the rest of the mailing. Family and friends of the deceased responded. (Warwick cautioned against this strategy.)

• A national charity with many local chapters tested whether donors would respond better to an appeal from the local chapter or the national organization. There was no discernible difference.

• One participant urged large mailers to track donors back to the original lists from which they came and the original packages that attracted the first gifts. Five years of testing showed that lists yielding higher average gifts were a better long-term investment than lists producing lower average gifts.

• One mailer experimenting with recyclable paper and inks got a decreased response. Another organization reported no difference.

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