Let's Get Personal

Let's Get Personal

Feb. 7, 2006

By Abny Santicola, associate editor, FundRaising Success

Direct mailers, most nonprofit direct mailers in particular, are missing the golden opportunity that's personalization, says Tom Keller, captain of all that's direct mail at international fundraising consultancy Smith, Beers, Yunker and Co.

Using nothing more than a prospect's ZIP code, mailers can go beyond merely personalizing the salutation at the top of a letter, using personalization to add relevancy to messaging by talking about mission-related issues that hit close to home and "bring the message to the doorstep of the person who is receiving the mail," Keller says.

Keller gives as an example a mailing he worked on with Disabled American Veterans that includes details such as the location, the telephone number of the nearest service office and the nearest veterans association medical center, and the number of disabled veterans in the recipient's state. "The information increases the size of the gift but, more importantly, it increases the response rates because people can see that the organization is not only a big, monolithic veterans charity, but it's active locally in their own community," Keller adds.

Organizations wishing to increase personalization in direct-mail campaigns should determine what their local offerings are -- e.g., if they have local or regional offices, issues they might be involved in on a regional or state level, etc. -- and create a table that separates these variables out according to ZIP code areas, and incorporate this information into their messaging.

Tom Keller can be reached via http://www.sbyco.com