20 Direct-Marketing Ideas for Small Nonprofits, Part 1

In the second example, the Lincoln Center actually tested a reduced level of personalization in the fifth installment of its direct-mail renewal campaign. Prior to the renovation, this direct-mail piece had a 6.93 percent response rate. After reducing the personalization, the response rate jumped to 7.17 percent. Thus, the result of reduced personalization in this renewal piece was a 3 percent increase in the number of gifts.

4. Experiment with premiums
Premiums are still used quite often in direct-response fundraising, so it's never a bad idea to test a premium offer against your control, as well as testing different types of premiums. The Lincoln Center did this in 2009, testing an up-front discount offer versus a back-end DVD premium. Its September 2009 mailing offered the introductory up-front discount, seeing a 0.35 percent response rate and $69.36 average gift. Then in December 2009, it tested a DVD premium for gifts of $150 or more, which resulted in a 0.5 response rate and $96.30 average gift. The result of changing the premium offer was a 43 percent lift in response and 39 percent lift in average gift.