Case Study #1: The Importance of Urgency

It’s easy to get so caught up in doing the work of getting your direct mail out the door, that you forget to sit down – with your entire team, creative people, numbers people, even program people – and examine the results of your efforts.

 

As a creative consultant, I’ll take writing over numbers-crunching any day of the week. But I don’t let myself off the hook because I know that taking a close look at those numbers can give me critical feedback about the direct mail I write.

Welcome to Case Study #1: The Importance of Urgency

One of my smaller clients is a regional educational institution. They mail 5 appeals a year to an average audience of 17,000. Response is fair, with appeals netting an average of $7,000.

Some of the mailings, of course, are blockbusters, netting twice that amount, while others fall far short of the average. And generally, the whole team can anticipate how any given appeal will do by looking at how a theme historically performs, how the time of year affects giving, and a host of other smaller factors.

(This is where having a good numbers person on your team can be such an advantage. I can only ballpark, but a numbers guru can spin magical calculations that can provide you with invaluable information!)

A few weeks ago, we sat down and looked at the previous year’s appeal results. We were surprised to discover that while overall, the appeals had performed better than in previous years, one mailing in particular had performed 84% less than average.

I was shocked. The theme was a touching one, the letter was packed with vivid imagery, and the package included the donor directly (i.e./it had plenty of “you” and “your” statements). But upon re-reading the copy, and comparing it to the other packages we’d mailed last year, I realized there was one critical element missing: the urgency.

We were asking for an ongoing program, one that was scheduled six months out. Yes, it was a fantastic and moving initiative. And yes, it desperately needed funding. But there wasn’t an urgency to the need.

I took that lesson and applied it to the next appeal – which ended up being the best appeal of the year.

Actually, I guess there are two lessons here: the one about urgency, of course. And another about failure. Look closely at those mailings that fail. They could tell you something crucial about your audience and lead you, ultimately, to greater success.

How often do you look at numbers? What have you discovered? I'd love to hear below!

Making Your Mail Work for You -- The Letter

I’ve already written quite a bit on the blog about how to write various direct mail letters, including Acquisition/Prospecting, Renewal, Appeal and Acknowledgement letters. But today, I want to take a moment to remind you to always consider the ultimate purposes of each letter you send out.

What’s that? There’s more than one purpose?

Depending on the type of letter, you may want to:

• Ask for money. Not all letters that you send to your donors will – or should – have an overt ask for money, but many will. So make sure you call attention to that ask. Highlight it by indenting the paragraph, underlining the ask, or bolding the type.
• Thank your donor! Every letter should include a show of gratitude – for their loyalty, their generosity, and their steadfast support.
• Educate and inform your donor about your issues, your organization or the people that you help. Your donors want to know where their money is going, so put that in your letters. Tell them what you’re accomplishing with their help, let them know about new issues that have arisen since you wrote them last, tell them how they can do more.
• Reaffirm your story. Each time you write to your donor, you want to tell them your story. Remind them why they gave to you in the first place. (And if you don’t have a story yet, get one!)
• Introduce key players. Are you getting a new executive director? Has a prominent celebrity thrown his or her weight behind your cause? Mention that in your letter.
• Hail your victories and cite the battles still to come. Letting your donors know about the victories you’ve won is another way to let them see what they help you accomplish. And telling them about the fights ahead reminds them why it’s so important to keep giving.

You may be wondering just how many people read every magic word of prose you put in these letters. Well, probably not many. Certainly not everyone. So focus on the things you know they’ll look at.

The Johnson Box and the PS nearly always get read, so make sure those two parts of your letter really shine. No Johnson Box? That first paragraph better be a grabber. If you can afford it, personalize your letter. Everyone likes to see their name, and if you get them to read the salutation, they just might keep on reading.

If there are critical points within the body copy of your letter that you want your donors to read, make sure to catch their eyes. Print a paragraph in color, if you can. Try a handwritten note, gripping headlines, bolding, underlines or italics…anything to make those important parts stand out. But do make sure they are important. You’ll lose credibility with your donors if you call their attention to boring copy!

Most importantly, your letter is there to bond your donor to your organization…and to point them to the next component, the Reply Form.

Making Your Mail Work for You -- The OE

Most nonprofit direct mail packages are fairly simple: an outer envelope, a letter, a reply form and a reply envelope. Four components.

Sure, you may include an insert of some kind, maybe a decal or other front-end premium. Or perhaps you print your letter and a detachable reply on one sheet of paper. But the essentials are the same. And each of those components must work for you.

For the next few posts, I’m going to talk about what each of these components does for your mailing. Yes, each one has a purpose beyond the obvious. Curious?

First up: Outer Envelopes.

The Outer Envelope – or OE – is, arguably, your most important element, at least to start with. Nothing’s going to happen unless you get the outer envelope open. So the words, type, pictures and other design elements you put on your outer envelope need to aim for one thing: getting the recipient to open their mail.

Here are a few things you might find on a typical non-profit mailing’s Outer Envelope:

Name

This can be the organization name, the name of the letter signer or both. But you should make sure some name appears on the OE. People don’t want to open mail if they don’t know who sent it. Besides, these are supposed to be personal letters from the signer to the donor.

Address

I always advise clients to put their actual, physical address on the back flap. Again, since it’s a personal letter, your donors want to see where it’s coming from. And while you may get your mail at a PO box, a street address gives them something more concrete.

Teasers

As I mentioned last week, a lot of direct mail and fundraising professionals will tell you that teasers are old-fashioned and scream “direct mail”. Maybe it’s because I work primarily with activist organizations, but my experience has been that a strong, intriguing teaser will still beat out a blank outer envelope much of the time.

But if you can’t come up with a strong, intriguing teaser, go blank. A blank envelope will almost always beat a bad teaser. (And try mailing a blank closed-face envelope for an even better open-rate. Nothing says personal mail like a closed OE.)

Photos and Other Graphic Elements

We all know that a picture’s worth a thousand words…so why not include one on your OE? Photos and sophisticated graphics have become increasingly common on OEs in the last few years, as design software has become more accessible and printing costs have come down enough to make graphics affordable.

But remember, you want people to OPEN the envelope, so make sure your photo (or graphics) are intriguing, compelling and emotionally resonant. Don’t scare your donors by using something too graphic or unpleasant.

Above all, tailor your outer envelope to your mailing…and test, test, test. The OE’s sole job is to get opened -- so make sure you test different techniques to see which approach gets the best response from your select group of enthusiastic supporters. While one organization or mailing theme can use photos and splashy teasers, another will need to go subtle and sedate. The only thing that matters is that you get your donor moving on to the components on the inside of the package.

Next up: The Letter.

What Makes a Good Teaser...and Do They Really Work?

I see many people saying teasers are old-school and scream “direct mail”. Often, that's true. But that doesn't mean you can breathe a sigh of relief and ignore the teaser-writing portion of your mailing campaign. Direct mail, like most things, is cyclical, and while the current wisdom is that a blank envelope beats a teasered one, that may change.

And in my experience, a strong, intriguing teaser can beat out a blank outer envelope.

That said, it’s not easy to write a strong, intriguing teaser. Like writing good headlines, or coming up with a killer title for your book, writing teasers is an art.

What’s in a Teaser?

Your teaser should sum up the essence of your package without “giving away the store.” Imagine receiving an envelope in the mail that said, “Here is a letter with a really sad story that will also ask you for money.” Would you open it? Or would you toss it in the recycling without a second thought?

A teaser that tells the donor too much about what’s inside won’t get the envelope opened – and if your donor doesn’t open the envelope, they’re probably not going to respond to that piece of mail. Likewise, a teaser that is too up front about the ask inside the package probably won’t be effective, either.

Donors want to hear your story before you ask them for money. If you make your case compellingly – in your teaser, in the letter, and on the reply form – they will be excited to give.

So, ideally, your teaser will generate an emotional response, and make your donor ask some key questions – questions that you’ve answered in the letter inside the envelope.

How Can I Write a Good Teaser?

Spend some time with this task. Don’t just relegate it to the last five minutes before you send your instructions to the designer. Sit down with your letter copy, a notepad and a pen. Pull out a few key phrases from your letter – a call to action, a particularly outrageous or heart-warming quote, a moving story. See if you can re-work them slightly to make an energetic and impassioned teaser.

Run it by other people – those who have read your letter, and those who haven’t. Ask them if it makes them want to know more. For those that have read the letter, ask them if you’ve answered the questions raised by the teaser in your letter.

Also consider a small over-window teaser that calls attention to the donor’s name. Donors love to see their name, so anything you can do to highlight it – in a positive way! – will help your fundraising. Try “Special Report Prepared for:” or “Time-Sensitive Material enclosed for:” or another appropriate variation.

What If It’s Just Not Working?

With some letters, coming up with a fantastic teaser is going to be a near-impossible task. If that happens, it might be time to re-think your approach.

Perhaps this hard-to-tease mailing deserves a more personalized approach, with the name of the letter-signer in the cornercard (where you write your return address when you’re sending someone a letter) and no teaser at all. Use a closed envelope, if you can afford it, for a personal touch…and often an even better open-rate.

If you can afford it, TEST a Teaser vs. No Teaser envelope. Test it more than once. If you're getting consistent results, you can probably choose a direction and go with it. But you'll want to test it again next year because you never know when the trends will change!

How do you feel about teasers? Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Tell me below!

Five Ways to Use Your Celebrity Supporters

Yesterday, the always interesting Michael Chatman raised this question on Twitter: Does celebrity participation in a non-profit charity influence you to donate money? Or, is their participation overrated?



I answered Michael's question briefly on Twitter, saying that I think their participation is mostly overrated, but can be very useful in targeted efforts, like in a high-dollar giving club.


But I wanted to take some time to expand my thoughts. Because a lot of organizations I've worked with have celebrity supporters and allies, and how best to leverage their support has come up in nearly every strategy meeting I've ever attended. 


First, a "celebrity" isn't just a famous actor or musician. It can be anyone related to your specific community who has name recognition and credibility. For a health-related nonprofit, that might be a super-star physician, for a science advocacy group, a former astronaut or Nobel Prize-winner. For fundraising purposes, a "celebrity" is anyone your supporters will recognize and relate to.


Five Ways to Use Your Celebrity Supporters

1. Ask them to be the Chair (or Honorary Chair) of a specific Membership group, probably a high-dollar giving group. This can involve anything from simply signing fundraising materials directed at the group, to taking a more active role, depending on their interests, time and level of commitment.
2. Ask them to sign a Prospecting Letter or a Lift Letter in your Acquisition package. NRDC and Friends of the Earth both use celebrity signers -- actors known for their environmental passions -- in their acquisition packages to great success. 
3. Ask them to make a video expressing why they support your organization and asking others to do the same. You can post this on the Web or send it in your e-mail newsletter as an extra endorsement for what you do.
4. Ask them to host (even in an honorary capacity) a major special event. A good name will draw more people to your event, and their participation can lend a "stamp of approval" that inspires others to give.
5. Present them with an award at a major special event. An alternative to asking them to host, this technique can also up attendance at your event. And it could be a first step to a more fruitful relationship with that celebrity, ensuring they help you more in the future.

There are, of course, some sticky issues with using celebrity supporters to assist in your fundraising. If your celebrity becomes embroiled in a scandal, for example, your association with them could hurt your organization more than help. And obviously, you should always treat these supporters with respect and gratitude. Don't push them to do more than they're comfortable doing, and don't take them for granted.

But if you have a loyal celebrity supporter or two who is willing to use their acclaim to call attention to your cause, and you target that attention in one of the ways listed above, you can give your fundraising a boost.

How does your organization harness the wattage of its celebrity supporters? Tell me below!

Writing for Activist Causes: Strategy

Earlier this week, I started my Writing for Activist Organizations Series with instructions to choose a compelling issue and craft a strong message. Today, it’s time for Tip #2:

Present a Comprehensive Strategy 

Donors to activist organizations are passionate about making a difference. And they want to hear exactly how you’re going to use their contribution to make that difference.

One very effective technique I use is to pick 4-5 action items and highlight them in the letter, using bold headlines or bullet points to call attention to the fact that these paragraphs are important. They are telling the reader something he or she needs to know.

Do these have to be different for each and every issue? The short answer is “Nope.”

The truth is, you’re going to have a few tools you reach for again and again. For some activists it’s the OpEd – hard-hitting, informational pieces that get read widely. Other groups are great at throwing splashy demonstrations to call attention to their issues. Still others are, at heart, policy wonks, making changes from the inside that impact each and every one of us.

Whatever your tools are, tell your donors about them. Remind them over and over again…because chances are, your unique set of tools are a big part of what inspired those donors to give to you in the first place.

And be as specific as you can. Don’t just say you’ll have meetings with high-level officials. Tell them you’re meeting with the head of the EPA, or the Defense Minister of France. Publishing an OpEd in The New York Times? Tell them what it was about and, if possible, the impact it had.

One great bonus: thinking strategically for your donors can lead you to think more strategically for your own in-house efforts, too.

What strategies to you use in your activism? And how can you communicate those to your donors? Tell me about ‘em below.

Three Keys to Writing for Activist Causes

You’re a rabble-rouser. A go-getter, you don’t sit around and wait for the world to change…you’re out there making it happen. You’ve got a problem, a plan to solve it, and the skills to pull it off. You’re an activist organization.

I’ve spent the majority of my career writing for activist organizations, and there are distinct differences from a typical nonprofit. With activist organizations, it’s not enough to tell your story, acknowledge the donor’s importance, and make your ask. You’ve got to engage your donor in the cause you represent.

Choose a Compelling Issue and Craft a Strong Message.

First and foremost, activist organizations must have a compelling issue to mail on. Time and again, I’ve worked with activist organizations who try to bring in other, non-activist asks to their program, or who embrace an issue that is slightly out of their normal wheelhouse…only to have those mailings fall flat.

Stick to your core issues, the issues you know fire up your donors. If you’re an environmental organization dedicated to preserving wildlands in the Pacific Northwest, for example, stick to that topic.

Does that mean you can’t ever mail on Global Warming or dam removal? Absolutely not! Simply use your core issues as a framework for discussing broader topics and how they effect the things your donors care about.

Remember, they give to you because they believe in what you’re doing. When you send them a communication about something outside of your core mission, they a) probably won’t give and b) could even lose interest in your organization altogether.

So choose your theme well. And then craft that theme in the strongest language you can muster. State the problem you’re going to solve up front, use decisive, action-oriented verbs, avoid passive sentences…

…and check back later in the week for Tip #2!

Obstacles and Opportunities: Time and Effort

This week, I’m talking about knocking down those barriers we often put up that keep us from doing our best fundraising. Cost is usually the first reason I hear cited for not moving forward with a bold idea. But time and effort are right up there.

I just attended Wordstock, the Northwest's largest book and literary festival. Which is mounted by a paid staff of three.

Obviously, they didn't pull the whole thing off all on their own. But those three people coordinated board members, consultants, volunteers and committees, engaged teachers, drew writers, assembled literary panels and attended to the tremendous amount of detail required to create a weekend celebrating literary arts.

I’ve often watched people sit across from me in a meeting, rolling their eyes and crying, “That’s too much work!”

And quite often, they’re not wrong. I know the folks at Wordstock would certainly vouch for how much effort they had to expend over the last few months. When you’re working on a shoestring, with limited staff and old equipment, it can take a tremendous amount of work to accomplish almost anything.

One of my favorite quotes – something that sits on my desk as a reminder – is Nelson Mandela’s “It always seems impossible until it is done.”

So instead of moaning about the impossibility of the task, think instead about how you can break your project down into smaller, more doable tasks. Is there a way to ferret out new resources or forge new relationships to help make the project happen?

A big project is not an insurmountable task. It’s an opportunity to find new efficiencies, engage volunteers, uncover hidden talents, and build teamwork.

Got examples of people coming together to create something great, despite the hard work? I’d love to hear about it below!

Obstacles or Opportunities: Cost

Earlier this week, I talked about Hildy Gottlieb’s assertion that we can – and must – turn our obstacles into opportunities. And the number one obstacle for most nonprofits is cost.

 Yep, direct mail is expensive – and it gets more so every year. But according to the Blackbaud Index of Online Giving, most organizations “found that, on average, online revenue accounted for 5.7% of their overall fundraising revenue.” 

While that’s actually pretty good news – online giving continues to rise – your web efforts still have a ways to go before they become your go-to revenue source. You still need your direct mail programs, which in part drive donors to your online presence.  So instead of moaning about the cost, start looking at what you can do with that investment. You will, of course, raise money. You’ll also inform and engage your donors about your issues.

 

One of my favorite things to do is take a set of strict cost parameters and try to come up with the most effective package possible. How can we make a 2-page letter just as compelling and informative as the normal 4-pager? What envelope treatment is going to get more people to open it? Is there an action-item we can include to help motivate more people to give?

Look at cost constraints – or any constraints – as a framework from which to build your program. Like writing a haiku, the options, even when you’re limited by a lack of funds, are still almost endless.

I’d love to hear how your organization has overcome cost constraints to create a winning direct mail campaign. Comment below!

Obstacles or Opportunities?

When you sit down to make your fundraising plan, are you looking at the obstacles in front of you? The money you’ll need to spend, the limits of the medium, the staff and consultants you’ll need to corral into doing the work, the difficulty of coordinating it all?

 

Or are you looking at the task at hand and getting it done?

This post over at Wild Apricot has a video of Hildy Gottlieb, nonprofit consultant and author of The Pollyanna Principles: Reinventing "Nonprofit Organizations" to Create the Future of Our World,  talking about obstacles and challenges we bring into the room when we’re looking at the tasks before us. She urges people to take away those “negative stopping words” and look at barriers as “empty conditions” we must meet.

Your fundraising program is a complicated set of tasks full of conditions that must be met. Are you relying primarily on direct mail, personal solicitation, or online giving? Are you coordinating those efforts, or is each team working independently? How are your resources allocated – staffing and financial?  

All of these questions and your organization's specific conditions can be overwhelming to the point of paralysis, but it’s far more valuable to consider how you’re going to meet the requirements in front of you than to worry about all the reasons you can’t.

This week, I’m going to talk about three of the most common “barriers” clients throw at me when talking about their direct mail: cost, time and effort.

What are your barriers? What conditions are you working with? And how can you meet those conditions and be successful?

Five Great Fundraising Posts

In my ongoing effort to stay sharp, I spend a lot of time reading what other people have to say about direct mail fundraising. I love hearing others’ perspectives and discovering new ways to think about what I do. I wanted to share a few articles with you -- articles I wish I'd thought to write! -- that can help inspire and inform your fundraising.

Ever wondered why nonprofit direct mail packages look like they do? Here’s a helpful comparison of fundraising mail vs. other types of direct mail from Adams & Hussey. 

I’ve written about using emotion and passion in your fundraising before. But here’s a great article from Contributions Magazine that lays it all out for you. 

I wrote a whole series on appeal letters, but if you want another excellent summary of the things you need to address in your fundraising appeal, check out this article by Katya Andresen and Julie Stofer. 

I just blogged on why you should always remember to thank your donors, but here's another simple – but very effective – reminder of the importance of acknowledgements. 

I also really loved these tips from Karen Zapp on reviving a flagging direct mail program. 

What books, articles or sites inspire you? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section!

Nonprofits and Social Media -- to Dive or Not to Dive?

I was cruising through Nancy Schwartz's Getting Attention! site, when I stumbled across this thoughtful and thought-provoking article about social media and nonprofits.

I've noticed quite a few of my nonprofit clients -- and really, the rest of us ordinary folks, too -- wondering how to use social media for marketing purposes, how much time to spend on social media, and how to measure its impacts on our marketing or fundraising efforts.

As Nancy reports, there are a lot of social media fundraising success stories floating around, seducing nonprofits into jumping whole-hog into social media. But are those organizations getting back what they're putting in? And, even more important, are they sacrificing the tried and true for what's hot right now?

Nancy's emphasis is on the "marketing cornerstones -- from planning to getting to know your audiences, crafting relevant messages, defining the best channels to engage those folks in productive conversation and action, and measuring the impact of your work."

I agree.

Look, social media is a fascinating frontier! I enjoy Facebook. Twitter keeps me in the loop on what's going on with my industry and in the worlds of my clients. I'd love to spend more time getting acquainted with all the features on LinkedIn. And I am certain there are other social media tools I haven't even heard of that could revolutionize the way I work.

But I owe it to my clients to devote my energies where I know they'll make a difference, with the proven techniques that got us to this place.

Don't get me wrong. When I'm working on a direct mail letter, I take a minute to think about how to incorporate the theme or campaign into social media. A few months ago, a client was working on a "Top Ten" campaign, and I suggested Tweeting one item from the top ten every day for ten days as a way to inform their followers (and their followers' followers through re-Tweets) of the campaign, drive traffic to their website, and, hopefully, boost awareness of and response to the direct mail campaign. It was one of their most successful fundraising efforts of the year so far.

But would that campaign have been so successful without the more traditional cornerstones of marketing? If their "Top Ten" hadn't been so honed specifically for their audience? If they'd ignored direct mail -- for them, a proven fundraising tool -- in favor of a web-only ask?

The Twitter portion of this client's campaign almost certainly enhanced what they were doing, if nothing else, by raising awareness among a slightly different population using a new medium. But it couldn't have replaced the other legs of the campaign.

It's important for everyone to start thinking about how to incorporate social media into their marketing/fundraising plans. But social media shouldn't take the place of a solid, multi-faceted marketing/fundraising plan. Or in other words, go ahead and dive in, but make sure the water is deep enough.