Exploring the Endless Possibilities of Merge/Purge

Conventional wisdom says that the purpose of a merge/purge is to limit an acquisition campaign to sending a single mail piece to people who are not current donors. Yesterday's live FundRaising Success webinar, "Exploring the Endless Possibilities of Merge-Purge," explored how the impact of merge processing goes well beyond the acquisition program and how information gleaned from the process can be turned into actionable data to make more intelligent decisions around who to mail and what to mail them.

The big takeaway was that merge/purge has a new face and a new place in the fundraising world.

"In the past, merge/purge was about finding the duplicates. Now it's about finding the donors," said Martina White, senior analyst at A.B. Data. "It can help you identify the people that will be more likely to become a donor and stay a donor with modeling. "

Merge/purse also can help you mine your existing base of donors, she added, identifying best prospects for monthly giving, high-dollar programs, major-gift prospects, and other special asks and opportunities.

Co-presenter Amy Houke, list media manager at DMW Worldwide, agreed, adding that companies that offer merge/purge services increasingly are becoming more involved partners with the organizations they work with, going far beyond list deduping and focusing on how organizations can get the most out of the names on their files.

"You're paying for the service anyway; you might as well use the information in every way you can," she said. Merge/purge isn't about just subtracting anymore; now it's about adding. The key is to work closely with your list manager partner to make sure you get the best use out of the information."

But the webinar wasn't just about the changing role of merge/purge in nonprofit fundraising.

White, along with fellow presenter Grecthen Littlefield, president of Infogroup Nonprofit, listed these 10 ideas to take away from their part of the presentation.

1. Prioritize lapsed names in your merge to save cost, and test creative treatments for revenue gains.
2. Test a higher ask string to male names in acquisition. The fact remains that men give more than women. That's changing, but it likely will be 20 years before the reverse is true.
3. Update your housefile with address changes and deceased hits out of the merge.
4. Change salutation to deceased hits. You don't have to stop mailing them, but be very certain to change the name of the person you are mailing in that household.
5. When you become aware that someone on your list has moved, mail to the old address as "resident" because demographics studies show that the new people who live at the address could be very similar in many ways to those who moved out.
6. Mail a "new mover" package.
7. Use individual dupe level, and mail the appeal ask string to a member household.
8. Look at highly interactive lists, and alternate orders in consecutive campaigns.
9. Know your fill-in name pool (modeled, co-op, warm prospects).
10. Put your organization's most "off-limits" list into your next merge and see where the overlap is. That doesn't mean mail to these names; just put them into the test. Once you have an idea how they will perform, use the data to make a case for mailing to them.

If you missed this free, informative webinar, you can still access it on-demand for 90 days. Click here to find out how.