While Google is king of online advertising revenue, it still uses direct mail for a very good reason. Direct mail is still relevant and still gets results.
I had several emails from Google over the summer about this special offer regarding a free ad credit if I spent money advertising my business through them online. I received my first piece of direct mail from Google in August.
I received another in late September and then, below, you can see the post card I recently received reminding me of their offer of free ad credit if I spend $50. While I am a long time advocate of online giving and communications, print still plays an important role.
Customized
An important thing to notice is how the first piece is customized. It calls me by name, it mentions the town I live in twice. Nonprofits would do well to follow this example. The days of “Dear Friend, Thank you for your recent gift” are over. Addressing a donor in this old manner makes them feel like one of a large faceless group you are addressing, not an important contributor to your organization’s success. Through mail merges for print and data exports for emails, it is easy to change such generic greeting to one that is more personal, i.e., “Dear John, Thank you for gift of $250 on November 7th”. That helps the recipient feel that you are noticing the details of their support and acknowledging them in a specific way, not in a generic “one greeting fits all” way.
Print vs. Electronic
I’ve heard from some nonprofits that they have cut out their print newsletters in favor of electronic newsletters. I understand that moving to an e-newsletter saves money. For most organizations it costs around $2.00 to send a piece of direct mail and about 20 cents to send an email. However this decision does not incorporate the opinions of the recipients, who are the reason these communications exist in the first place.
A better practice is to encourage subscribers to a print newsletter to sign up for the electronic version – relentlessly. You must continuously ask, prod, cajole and entice subscribers in order to get them to move to a different channel. Even with this effort, you may end up with a group of folks that will not budge and that want your print newsletter. I recommend you respect that choice. You never know when a major donor may be among those who love your print newsletter, will never sign up for the e-newsletter and who you may lose as a supporter if they stop hearing from you via print.
Donations
Online giving continues to grow as a percentage of donations for almost all organizations (see the Network For Good Digital Giving Index). This is good news as more folks become comfortable with giving online, as it is a more cost effective way to accept donations. At the same time, for many organizations the majority of donations still come in through check. I assisted with the Monterey County Gives! project a few years ago and 70% of the donations for that community fundraising effort came in through check, despite a robust website and much encouragement to give online. This is the reality now, so those that are working on growing their individual donor base would do well to use both direct mail and email in their fundraising campaigns.
I am an online donor and I know how much more expensive it is for nonprofits to send me a direct mail piece. I especially hate when they send me address labels – who sends letters anymore? But when I ask the nonprofit staff, they report that when they send out those labels, they get a higher response rate and more donations than when they send out a request without them. Of course that has to do with the demographics and age of their donor base, but most money in this country is still given by folks over 60 who have used checks and traditional mail for most of their lives, so it is important to keep them in mind when deciding how to manage your print vs. electronic communications.
Take a tip from Google and ensure you have a coordinated effort across your print and electronic communications. The emails I get from Google about their special offer almost directly match the print pieces they send through the mail. Being coordinated across channels is the best way to ensure your message gets through and folks take the actions you desire.
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