Direct Mail - still relevant?

Direct mail is still king as far as fundraising goes. Even with the advent of email addresses, blogs, online sign ups etc, the most money is still being raised from direct mail. We also know that if you sign up people on line you will need to convert them to direct mail if you want to keep them for more than a year.

In a recent survey conducted by the magazine Fundraising New Zealand, six organisations were asked to provide details about their direct mail campaigns in 2011. For all full run down on the results contact Tony Pilalis(you can find him on Linkedin) or view the www.foresee.co.nz website.

However I wanted to draw your attention to the changes in the average donation. The survey found that over the six organisations, the average donation had increased to $60.92, up from $33 in 2003 and $52.96 in 2008. Does this size of donation surprise you? Does it fly in the face of anecdotal comments you have been hearing? This shows the importance of getting the numbers right by testing. You don't want to be asking people for $25 if they are happy to give you $65,  When preparing your direct mail campaign, make sure you don't undersell yourself by asking for too little.

The other influencing factor in a successful direct mail campaign is to segment your database to make your correspondence more personal and the size of the request more appropriate. There are a number of ways of segmenting, for example according to size of previous gifts, number of previous gifts, average of the last year's gifts, whether they have ever given before, how they signed up, when they signed up, reference to personal interests. Can your database give you this information? Are you even collecting this kind of information?

The Habits of Successful Fundraisers

If you are looking for New Year fundraising resolutions that really make a difference here are some of my top recommendations:

1. phone 5 - 10 ten donors every day. Thank them for their support and check their details against your database
2. spend half an hour reviewing the database every day to check for duplications, spelling errors, incorrect or inadequate addresses. Familiarise yourself with your supporters. Every correction saves you money
3. post a tweet, a blog or facebook entry every day to keep your supporters active
4. run a telephone campaign with volunteers to thank all new donors (it will pay off next year)
5. establish or review your systems and processes (saving money by doing it right first time)
6. review and evaluate all fundraising activities. If it doesn't work, do something else