4 Best Practices to Make Your Nonprofit Direct Mail Campaign Successful

Posted by Joseph Marie
3
Aug 10, 2015
138 Views
When it comes to marketing channels, they’re a dime a dozen these days. However, the one that has proved to be the most effective is none other than the age-old, direct mail marketing.

The challenge lies in its execution, though. While it is very easy to implement and run, most nonprofits either do it wrong or don’t utilize its full advantage, resulting in a poor return on investment.

So, here we have compiled a list of nonprofit direct mail marketing best practices that you should implement to increase your response rate and ROI.

Have a Clear Call to Action

If you don’t tell your target donor what you want them to do, they will most likely do nothing and your effort and investment will go in vain. The ideal solution is to have a clear call to action included in your mail based on your campaign objective.

You should also state your needs clearly and give them as much information about your nonprofit or campaign as you can, such as your mission, vision, past projects, and what the current campaign is about.

Make sure your message is easy-to-read by incorporating large print, properly spaced content, with good photographs and appealing graphics.

Offer Multiple Response Options

The lower the response options you provide, the lower the response rate would be, as your target audience may not prefer to use the channel you’ve opted for.

So, offer multiple response channels such as phone, fax, email, website, or even snail mail. This will allow them to respond the way they want and ultimately increasing the chances of a successful response.

Personalize Your Message

No one likes to read and respond to a generic message, so it is important that you personalize the message. Always address recipients with their names as it will create an impression that the message is specifically for them.

Make your best donors feel valued by using closed-face envelopes that are addressed by hand, acknowledging and thanking them for past donations and First-Class stamps.

Test and Analyze Campaign Progress

If you send a fundraising request to unprofitable and disinterested donors, you’ll most likely have a poor response rate. So, make sure you measure your campaign progress and use analytics to ensure that you’re contacting the right people.

Additionally, if you send the same message to multiple groups, some might not be as successful as others in generating responses. Therefore, you should always test the audience and your messages to determine the reason for the difference in your response rates.

Test everything from design to letter length, to the time of mailing the envelope. A single tweak can lead to significantly better results.

So what strategies do you use to increase the response rate of your nonprofit direct mail campaign? Let us know in the comments below, and thanks for reading!

LetterPrinting.net provides direct mail marketing services for nonprofit organizations, fundraising campaigns and small businesses, which include personalized postcards, hand addressed envelopes, newsletters, snap pack printing and bulk mailing.
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