Direct-Mail Testing Tips

* Courtesy Reply Envelope versus Business Reply Envelope. A BRE costs nearly $1 for each reply. Maska and Neill said CREs perform as well as BREs for many nonprofits and save on postage costs. They recommended testing it both in prospect and house file mailings.

* The placement of the credit card payment option. In the case study, the organization had the credit card option on the back of the reply slip but wanted to see if putting it on the front would draw more response. In the end, having the credit card option on the back of the reply resulted in greater net revenue.