Direct Mail

In her October 2008 story, FundRaising Success DM Diagnosis writer Kimberly Seville highlighted several opening paragraphs from a number of fundraising appeals, including this introduction from the American Bible Society.

How do you know what creative to test? How do you know which offer to try? How do you know which concept to give a shot? How do you know?

With the rise of social media, many marketers think that direct mail is not needed. While social media is great at engagement, it’s horrible at consummating the marriage. Direct mail can help close that loop and give your ROI a huge boost.

The days of mass mailings are over, thank goodness. Is it time to rethink how targeted, affordable and testable direct mail can be reworked to add more value to your measurable marketing campaigns?

Go back to the basics and your success may amaze you.

In her August 2010 article, "S(p)ending Money to Make Money," DM Diagnosis contributor Kimberly Seville explained how some organizations were mailing coins to underscore the importance of every penny raised.

"Sometimes teasers are like bad pick-up lines. And with the split-second decision your donor makes when she glances at your outer envelope, you don’t get a second chance to talk your way out of a poor first impression … you’ve already been round-filed."

It's a fact of fundraising that some donors only give once and never again. Others give multiple times but then stop giving. But just because that's reality, fundraisers should never calmly accept it. Instead, we need to fight to the death to keep our donors, using the weapons of creative strategies that are designed to retain or re-acquire our donors.

Direct mail can now deliver sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. That’s all five of the human senses. And guess what? So far, mail is the only marketing medium that can do all that. Likely, for the next few years anyway, direct mail will remain — and vastly improve upon — this full sensory capability.

Choice is good for fundraising. Even when the choice isn't very meaningful. Choice allows the donor to engage, even if she can't give. Or, in this case of this piece, to express her disapproval for a dodgy action while she gives. Choice does its magic even when it's meaningless. It can be better yet when the choice is meaningful.

FundRaising Success published its first issue in November 2003, which makes this our 10-year anniversary year. To celebrate, we'll be taking a look back at past issues throughout the year. This November 2007 article, "What Does Your Board Need to Know About Direct Mail?" by Willis Turner, helps you explain the importance of your program, in language you don’t have to be a mail nerd to understand.

Go big or go small, either way … but in fundraising, and perhaps as it should be also in life, it's not only "the thought that counts," but also what you do with your idea and how creatively you follow through.