Direct Mail

There’s a lot to be said about failure. Mainly that it stinks. No, seriously — failure helps you appreciate success a little more, right? And on a less existential level, it can teach you a lot about what not to do next time around. That’s no more apparent than in the world of direct-mail fundraising efforts. And from what we hear, it happens to the best of them. So to prove you’re not alone when one of your ideas isn’t as all-fire successful as you had hoped, here are a few failure stories from fundraising pros. Hear Ye, Hear Ye … Don’t Traumatize Your

Recession is looming. Direct mail is dying. E-mail has fallen short of its bright promise. Donors are cynical. Contributions are drying up faster than the ice caps are melting. It seems like everywhere you turn these days, prophets of doom are predicting dark times ahead for fundraising. If you’re not careful, you might almost start to believe that things aren’t going so well. Maybe it’s time to take a deep breath. Yes, there is cause for concern. But there also are plenty of good reasons to hold on to your seat and ride out the storm.

In her report “Ten Common Mistakes Made in Nonprofit Direct Mail,” fundraising consultant Sandy Rees lists the following big boo-boos: 1. Failure to ask for a gift. 2. Using a dirty list. 3. Failing to personalize. 4. Bad timing. 5. Asking for the wrong amount. 6. Ignoring automation benefits. 7. Asking for generic help. 8. Poor quality letter. 9. Paying too much for postage. 10. Failure to measure. Read the complete article here.

No one has taught me more about effective communication than Richard Nixon. I was 21 when the White House tapes were published. And as much as I loved the inside view of the politics, I was even more taken by reading those verbatim transcripts of actual speech. Listen to Nixon speaking about Vietnam: “ … we have to take the hard line now. We’ve got to — we’ve got to keep our guys flying out there. It’s all we can do. We have no other choice. And if you start indicating anything about ceasefire or coalition government or anything like that we’re not

The second time I received multiple affinity credit card offers on the same day, I started paying attention. At first glance, with the exception of the nonprofit logos on the corner card of each outer envelope, they seem identical. All shout the 0 percent fixed introductory APR until 2009 — but smaller, thinner type qualifies what month the offer ends and that it’s only for cash advance checks and balance transfers. All but one have a personalized teaser letting me specifically know that this particular card is “The most rewarding card of all®.”

The age of corporate responsibility is here, and many direct mailers didn’t see it coming. And many don’t know what to do. Mal Warwick — founder and chairman of Mal Warwick Associates, a Berkeley, Calif.– and Washington D.C.–based fundraising agency specializing in direct marketing — got a head start more than a decade ago, when being socially and environmentally responsible wasn’t necessarily profitable. Now he serves as a model for direct marketers everywhere who want to achieve the so-called “triple bottom line” — social, environmental AND financial success — that actually is more profitable for most of the companies that pursue it. Warwick

In “Star Wars Episode IV,” Luke Skywalker struggles to convince Han Solo to help him save Princess Leia, stuck in the detention block on the Death Star. “But they’re going to kill her!” Han Solo’s cold response? “Better her than me.” So Luke changes tack, and after a beat says, “She’s rich.” Han Solo comes back with, “How rich?” Encouraged, Luke blurts out, “More money than you can imagine.” Han smiles, saying, “I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit.” You know the rest of the story: Han opts in, Luke and Han take some significant risks, the Princess is rescued, and then

Encouraged by green prospects, pushed by the DMA and sometimes impelled from within (perhaps to simply slim down a package), many mailers already have begun to test into green packages. Some, however, don’t know where to begin. So, whether you consider these baby steps or giant leaps, here are three ways to create the green mail piece. 1. Make a New Year’s resolution As if hit by a green tidal wave, many direct mailers feel overwhelmed by the new information. Fortunately, the DMA helps with two significant resource materials. First is the DMA Environmental Resource for Direct Marketers (www.the-dma.org/environmentguide), updated in 2004 and available

In the forward to his classic work, “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It,” author Michael Gerber says of great businesses: “The only way [for small businesses] to reach something higher is to focus their attention on the multitude of seemingly insignificant, unimportant and boring things that make up every business. … Those mundane and tedious little things that, when done exactly right, with the right kind of attention and intention, form in their aggregate a distinctive essence, an evanescent quality that distinguishes every great business you’ve ever done business with from its more mediocre counterparts.

We all learn from our successes and failures. But it’s easier to focus on the successes and to ignore the failures. That’s why this magazine is called FundRaising Success. No one wants to discuss their failures with colleagues. Whoever’s mug is on the cover of this issue surely wouldn’t have posed gladly if the magazine’s moniker was FundRaising Failures instead. Nonetheless, let me pass on to you a few of the fundraising mistakes I’ve played a role in, with the hope that these stories will be just as informative as crowing about some of my successes. Always practice safe mail While working with