Direct Mail

This video takes a look at year-end mailings from Project HOPE and Habitat for Humanity. Be sure to join Project HOPE's Richard Rumsey at the NonProfit PRO Leadership Conference, which will be held in Washington, D.C. on May 5. Register today!

If you're on a June/July fiscal year, you need to make plans now for a strong year's end. That means updating your messaging that you decided last July was the best approach. It means confirming or lining up your interviews for those story-based letters. It means making sure that you're still sending to the right segments.

Writing fundraising copy should be detailed and painstaking for you. Reading it should be fast and easy for your donor.

Adding some well-done visual design is great way to make your mailing stand out. Join NonProfit PRO sister brand Direct Marketing IQ Editorial Assistant Jeremy Zimmerman as he shows you how to take cues from three specific pieces from the California Institute of the Arts, Whitney Museum of American Art and Brilliant Graphics. To see these mailings, as well as thousands of others, login to your account at whosmailingwhat.com. If you're not a member, find out more and signup here.

Fundraisers, take note: Don't make the same mistake GEICO did in this direct-mail piece. Make sure you always know your audience.

Variable data printing (VDP) can be leveraged to make a direct-mail piece stand out to a prospect. In this video, Direct Marketing IQ's Paul Bobnak takes a look at how Patient First, a medical care provider with the mission to make access to quality medical care as convenient and cost-effective as possible, uses VDP on personalized maps in its direct mail.

Freemiums and premiums have long been staples of direct-mail fundraising. In this video, Direct Marketing IQ's Paul Bobnak takes a look at this practice with a little twist. He reviews the tried-and-true method of address labels included in a Paralyzed Veterans of America mailing and then lays out how both the Sierra Club and Doctors Without Borders utilize maps as engaging freemiums for donors.

It's the holidays, and many nonprofits are using this time of year to their advantage when mailing prospects and donors. Peggy Hatch, group president of FundRaising Success sister brand the Target Marketing Group, compares a pair of mailings from two housing nonprofits: Project HOPE and Habitat for Humanity.

If you're a fundraising copywriter, you already have most of the tools you need to go from good to great. The rest are available to you. All it takes to get them, and the persuasive power that goes with them, is a lot of hard work.

In a world pushing e-solicitations — for businesses and charities alike — does good, old-fashioned paper mail matter? My experience says yes.