If you are looking to improve your ROI on your direct mail piece (and who isn’t?), it is important to get the lowest costs possible.  Tri-Win employees work hard to allow our customers the best printing prices and postage discounts.  If you’ve sent a lot of
direct mail, you already know that postage expenses are usually the most costly
portion of a direct mail campaign.  Our staff has experience in a variety of mailing products and we know what it takes to obtain postage rate incentives.

There is a lot to be said about the different “co” programs that are available now from the United States Postal Service – commingle, comailing and copalletize.  All are ways to save money on postage, and when combined can offer significant discounts on mailings.

When we first started working with BAI and their Midwestern client they were mailing
350,000 to 400,000 pieces per month of nonprofit letter size mail destined for
areas throughout the United States. Realizing that much of their mail was not
receiving any kind of entry discount when dropping it locally, we suggested the
process of copalletization.  If you are unfamiliar with the term – let’s look
at what copalletization can offer.  In copalletizing, mail trays that have been addressed and sorted are combined on the same pallet with trays from multiple customers going to the same destinations.  These full pallets are then entered in the USPS’s National Distribution Center (NDC) nationwide or into one of the Sectional Center Facilities (SCF).  The SCF is a USPS processing and distribution center that serves a designated geographical area defined by the first 3 digits in a zip code.

At first BAI was hesitant as they did not want their client’s mail pieces to
experience any longer delivery time. We provided them with a study showing the
rate at which a 12 million piece sampling of mail was delivered using the copal
process. This study showed delivery times on par with what they were currently
experiencing mailing from Dallas. The added perk for their client was that
after all logistics costs were taken into account there was an average savings of
$2,500 per month in postage.

By entering the mail at a NDC or SCF, our customers benefit from:

  • Greater postal discounts
  • Better tracking abilities
  • Faster shipping as copalletized mail enters the USPS closer to the destination

Tri-Win saved BAI and their client over $30,000 in 2011.  Can we save you money on your
mailing campaigns?  We are postage professionals at Tri-Win and will work with you to ensure your piece meets all USPS regulations and that you receive the best postage rates in the direct mail industry.  We can also help you design your piece and provide you with an accurate mailing list. Give us a call at (866) 809-8998 and let us show you how to save money on your next direct mail campaign.

New blood. Fundraisers are busy trying out non-direct mail channels (email, mobile, social media) in varying efforts to retain their current donor bases. But regardless of how successful these channels are for any nonprofit, you can only go back to the well so often.

In other words, the donor stock must be restocked for a nonprofit to survive today, and by far the best way to acquire new donors remains direct mail. That was the topic of the recent DirectMarketingIQ webinar, “Acquiring New Donors through Direct Mail: Best practices and case studies from leading fundraisers.”

Besides speaking during the webinar, Bob Merrigan—President of Merrigan & Co., a Kansas-City based firm specializing in strategy and messaging for non-profits—took time to answer many questions from attendees.

Here were a few highly relevant questions and answers:

Question: What is the best delivery for your direct mail piece? #10 envelope? Taped flier? Color? Plain?

Merrigan: Ask yourself, “How can I get attention in a way that sets the stage for for my ask, but doesn’t give the prospect an opportunity to say ‘no’ before being asked?”

There’s no single solution. I tend to prefer having the organization clearly identified; we all want open relationships … why would you start out as a mystery. I tend to prefer printing design/copy rather than leaving the envelope blank. That’s valuable real estate; you only have a few seconds to get attention and you need to use it. I like to invite (tease?) the reader into the package.

There are economic realities to deal with, too. Most acquisition efforts won’t support a closed-face, hand-addressed envelope, but that may work well with higher dollar donors. We’ve tested four color vs. two color. Four color typically gives a lift in response, but it really depends on your mail quantities and production capabilities. If I were starting out (not much reference in terms of return to expect) I would probably go with 2 color.

Similarly with self-mailers … I would start with a letter and flyer in an envelope and establish some benchmark patterns. Then I’d try to test in a self-mailer to see if the expected drop in response is more than offset by the cost savings.

Question: Can you provide “best benchmarks” on average cost to acquire a new donor, average cost to retain an existing donor, and average cost to convert (2nd year) across your NP clients? And you mentioned that the first gift amount is really important in the long term investment return. What did you mean?

Merrigan: First gift tends to be indicative of future gifts. It’s much harder to take a $5 donor to a $25 gift level than vice versa. The first gift tends to be indicative of the donor’s giving tendencies—not always, of course, but indicative.

Lifetime value is always going to be determined by average gift size x frequency x longevity. An effective fundraiser is going to establish benchmarks in each of those areas and constantly look for strategies to implement that could bump up those numbers.

Question: In your experience, is there a major difference if the letter is written in first person by the organization’s client, instead of written by the President/CEO?

Merrigan: I’m a huge fan of personalizing the organization … through its clients, through other supporters, through volunteers, through key employees. I would encourage you to collect and tell those stories in as many ways as you can.

That said, I’d ask myself before putting your cover letter over that signature, “Is this the most natural/comfortable way to make this ask?” It may be that the ED can tell the story of a client … or set the stage, include the client’s story, and then make the ask. It might be that the story is on a buckslip.

The key question is this: What is the “voice” that is most likely to elicit a response? The fact is, sometimes the president/CEO is not able to balance the need to maintain their personal voice and also be the voice of the organization.

Another consideration is how many appeals you are making. Do they all need to come from the same person? If your prospect is receiving multiple asks, it may make sense to try having some of them come from different people.

Ethan Boldt is the chief content officer of DirectMarketingIQ, the research division of the Target Marketing Group and publisher of special reports, how-to guides and books for the direct marketing industry

Originally posted on targetmarketingmag.com

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NEW YORK & AMSTERDAM–(BUSINESS WIRE)–At a time when the marketing industry for nonprofits is witnessing a convergence of direct mail and digital mail, Quadriga Art International (QAI) says the old practice of including a premium gift in a direct mail package is making a comeback. QAI – the leading marketing firm for nonprofits – says several organizations in Europe including UNICEF, Cancer Society, Care International, SOS Children’s Villages and Handicap International are all seeing higher response rates from using premiums.

“We are even seeing donors call the charity to thank them for the gift and ask for another one.”

QAI has seen premiums double or triple response rates and raise ROI simply because more people open the direct mail package with a smart gift seen inside and want to give to the charity.

“Getting donors to open a direct mail package is half the battle in a market that is flooded with direct mail and where charities keep mailing the same old mailings to the same old list with the same old results,” says Mark Schulhof, CEO of Quadriga Art. “Adding a smart gift such as personalized address labels, pin badges or cards not only gets the donor to open the package but we are seeing it add rather significantly to donor response rates and ROI. When people get a gift they feel more like giving one.”

QAI suggests charities be smart when using premiums. For example, the company says a charity should use a gift that is directly related or represents the nonprofit’s main mission which helps brand the charity. Schulhof also says a premium should be practical so that a donor can proudly use that gift which can further tie the donor to the charity’s mission. Such gifts could be tote bag from an environmental group produced from green materials or a stuffed animal from an animal rights group both of which have been receiving extraordinary response rates.

“Charities should feel good about the premium they choose and the cost of the gift and package and the extra cost of using a premium gift more than pays for itself due to higher giving rates and ROI from the direct mail package,” says Schulhof. “We are even seeing donors call the charity to thank them for the gift and ask for another one.”

 

May 31, 2011 (Business Wire) — Blackbaud (Nasdaq: BLKB) today announced the publication of the 2011 donorCentrics Internet and Multichannel Giving Benchmarking Report, which features research on nonprofit online giving in the context of an integrated direct marketing program. The Report also includes an extended analysis on the value of multichannel giving.

> View the full Report at www.blackbaud.com/multichannel

Developed by Blackbaud’s Target Analytics company, the Report finds that although multichannel giving has become a popular objective of nonprofits as a way to build constituent support, it is not widely practiced. The large majority of donors give through only one channel and use only direct mail as their vehicle for donations. According to the Report, the only donors who do significant multichannel giving are new donors acquired online. Large numbers of these donors switch to direct mail giving in subsequent years. This is the group of donors for which multichannel giving is crucial for garnering repeat gifts and realizing true long-term giving potential.

“The Internet is becoming an increasingly important acquisition channel but has not proven to be as effective for retention,” said Rob Harris, Target Analytics’ director of analytic products and a co-author of the study. “It is the ability of online-acquired donors to use another channel – that is, to start giving through direct mail – that significantly boosts the long-term value of this group of donors. The most successful organizations have integrated online and offline marketing teams and CRM systems to develop effective multichannel communication strategies that can maximize donor value.”

The research also finds that for donors already on file, evidence of past multichannel giving is not a predictive factor for future retention or long-term value. Traditional direct marketing segmentation variables such as recency, frequency, and gift amount are far more predictive.

Other key findings about online donors include:

> The majority of gifts are still received through direct mail, although it has become increasingly common for new donors to give their first gift online.
> Online-acquired donors are significantly younger and tend to have higher household incomes than mail-acquired donors.
> Online-acquired donors tend to give much larger gifts but have slightly lower retention rates than mail-acquired donors.
> In aggregate, online-acquired donors have much higher cumulative value over the long term than traditional mail-acquired donors. However, long-term value varies depending on the donor’s origin gift level, and the substantially higher gift amounts given by online-acquired donors can mask issues with retention.

The data presented in the Report comes from the most recent transactional data available for the 28 organizations participating in Target Analytics’ donorCentrics online benchmarking service in 2010. The organizations that participate in these online benchmarking groups are prominent national nonprofits covering a range of sectors, including animal welfare, the environment, health, human services, international relief, and societal benefit.

The complete analysis, including a list of participants in the 2010 online benchmarking groups, can be found at www.blackbaud.com/multichannel.

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Originally posted Gamutnew.com