Part 2 - Unlocking the Secret to Effective Direct Mail Fundraising

Announcer: 0:00

Appeal letters are an important tool for nonprofit organizations to raise funds and engage supporters. However, with busy schedules, it can be challenging to grab the attention of donors of small to medium-sized nonprofits. In part two of this two-part episode, tim and Nathan continue to uncover the secrets to creating unmissable appeal letters that will captivate your audience and generate more revenue. Welcome to the practice of non-profit leadership, a podcast specifically designed for executive directors of nonprofit organizations. With a touch of humor, your co-hosts, tim and Nathan, work to provide encouragement, insights and practical strategies to help you be a more effective leader. And now here's Tim and Nathan.

Tim Barnes: 0:49

Welcome to episode 107 of the practice of non-profit leadership. I'm Tim Barnes and I'm Nathan Ruby. Well, welcome to part two of our series on direct mail, and if you haven't listened to part one, we would really encourage you to go back and listen to part one as well. They go together. There's a lot of good information here about direct mail. Now, nathan, before we get started today, I think you had some direct mail statistics that you've come across and you wanted to share with us.

Nathan Ruby: 1:20

Indeed, I do, tim. So yeah, just three kind of cool statistics. Number one consumers aged 45 to 54 are the demographic group most likely to respond to direct mail pieces. So 45 to 54. I was a little surprised by this. I just figured that that age demographic and it was the most likely, so the top age demographic. I just thought it'd be a little higher, like 60 plus, just I don't know, that's just kind of what I thought it would be. But 45 to 54, that probably represents a lot of your donors are probably in that age range. So that is good news for direct mail fundraising. So number two here is another interesting statistic Up to 90% of direct mail gets opened, compared to only 20 to 30% of emails. And you know up to 90%. So that doesn't mean that 90, all you know that's not the the number. It's not always 90% but up to 90%. So, and you know, when I go through the mail I look at every envelope. I do just to make sure that there's not something in there that's like really critical that I need to open. And so when I'm looking at that envelope I am. You've got me, you've got my attention for like three seconds or 15 seconds. And if you could convince me to open that envelope in those 10, 15 seconds, I'll do it. I'll open it Now. You know, maybe I'm not as good an example, because when I get a direct mail piece, I open 100% Because I want to. I want to see what they're doing, I want to see what, what stories they're telling, what graphics they're using. I want to see that. So maybe I'm not as good an example. But, tim, I don't know how. About you? What are you? What rate of direct mail that comes to your mailbox are you opening?

Tim Barnes: 3:29

Maybe 50%. It really depends on who it's from, and I try to figure that out first.

Nathan Ruby: 3:35

Yeah, exactly, and so you know if you had. But if your favorite charity whatever your favorite charity is if they send you an envelope and it's clearly marked, you could tell on the outside of the envelope that it's from, you know, xyz organization, you're probably pretty likely to open it to see what they have to say and you know the other part of that stat was compared to only 20 to 30% of emails. And you know what, what I do Tim and and other people are way better at this than I am but every usually I don't know once a month, once a month, once every other month I go through my email inbox and I am not a inbox clean person. I actually use my inbox as my, as my file cabinet for my emails. I've got emails back a few years. If I want something, I just keyword search it, oh, and there it is. Now I do go back. Every year I go back. It's a rolling. I think I keep four years worth, so it's a rolling. So at the end of December I'll go back and get rid of the fifth year. But my point is about once a month I'll go through and look at the. I get on all of these listservs and people are sending me emails and it's like I don't even know how I got on that list and so I unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe or I'll go through and I will bulk delete. If there's stuff in there, that's just. I don't want it all. So, and a lot of those emails I'm not even looking at. So I believe 20 to 30%, I believe that number. I don't know, tim, is that accurate for you or what do you think of that number?

Tim Barnes: 5:24

Yeah, I would say that's probably true. Especially, I don't do well with unsolicited email. I would tend to delete before I open. If it's it's like I didn't ask for this, I'm not really interested. So that's probably probably true.

Nathan Ruby: 5:37

Yeah, I am much more likely to open an envelope out of the mailbox that intrigues me than a email that may or may not intrigue me.

Tim Barnes: 5:47

I don't know, that's just really great, all right.

Nathan Ruby: 5:50

Number three 51% of recipients say they find postcards useful. Now, I actually personally. I'm happy to see that because I do use postcards, especially on donors that have lapsed, donors who may not have given for two years or three years, and if I do a mailing trying to bring those back into the donor pool, I will send a postcard, because it's way easier for somebody to just flip that postcard over, see a picture and a couple of quick bullet points and a call to action to come back in. So I do use postcards and so finding that 50% of people find it useful, that's a good number.

Tim Barnes: 6:39

Well, I know you've got some more points for us today, so why don't we dive in? And what's the points about direct mail today?

Nathan Ruby: 6:47

All right, here we go. So number one for today is show impact and results. Now, fundraising is not a standalone activity. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. That's why it's really important that, as the executive director, you are including everyone meaning all of your staff in the fundraising process. So, while donors need to be moved emotionally, the larger gifts when you start getting up into larger gifts or into major gifts, that for those gifts, it is more important, or increasingly important, to show data. So data means concrete evidence that what your organization is doing, that what your organization is doing is working. So things like statistics, metrics, smart goals, testimonials from people that have benefited from your service all of these things demonstrate the impact that your organization is doing, impact of your organization's work, highlight the results you have achieved and how your donors support can help you to continue making a difference in the community. So an example of that would be last year, thanks to donors like you, we were able to increase our main deliverable whatever your deliverable is by 8%. We simply couldn't have done that without you. So that is, you are showing that, whatever the thing that it is that you do, you have increased that output by 8% and that you couldn't have done it without your donors. So that is showing impact. And it does take a kind of all hands on deck to do that, because when you start tracking statistics and metrics and smart goals and event testimonials, your program staff they have to get on board. Why are we doing this? Are your volunteers? Whichever the case may be? So why are we doing this? Well, we partially because it'll make our programs better, but also because of fundraising. And when you get to testimonials, well, now you're talking a little bit more of marketing and you're talking a little bit more it's fundraising, is not just the designated fundraiser or just the executive director, it's everybody, and so showing impact and results definitely will increase your direct mail revenue, but it's at all hands on deck. Everybody needs to be part of that.

Tim Barnes: 9:21

Now, in our last episode we talked about the need for compelling stories, and so we're not necessarily saying statistics or metrics to the exclusivity of compelling stories. We need both. So if we give a statistic, we're also giving a story about how that statistics playing out correct.

Nathan Ruby: 9:43

Yes, exactly Good point, tim. And in our last episode we talked about how, about 70% of the letter itself? If you're writing a direct mail appeal, about 70% should be the story. Well then, what you could do with showing impact and results is after, in the paragraph after the story, which paragraph could be only two sentences after the story. Then that would be a place where you could bring in this type of impact and results and giving a statistic of how your program is improved or grown or made a bigger difference. That would be the proper place to use that, and it doesn't have to be three paragraphs about it. Just a simple statement is enough, all right. Next one make it easy to take action. And Tim and I have talked several times before on several of our episodes here on the practice of nonprofit leadership that fundraising is both an art form and pure science. So what I'm talking about with making it easy to take action, this is pure science. If your donors are confused, they will not give. Period, end of story. Do not confuse your donors because they will not give. So in your appeal letters you need to make it effortless for your donors to give. So is your address. Clearly on the letter Sounds like a basic thing, but somewhere on that letter or on the response device, whatever on that letter you need to have your address there so somebody could send you a check. Do you have a response device? And a response device is the thing that you can cut off with the scissors or tear off and so they can write their name and the gift amount and any special instructions. And if they wanna use a credit card, there's room for the credit card number and then that's what they're checked, that's what they put into the envelope to send back. Oh well, there we go. Speaking of envelopes, did you include a return envelope? Yeah, it is gonna. It's a little more expensive. It does increase the cost of your mailing a little bit, but it's cheaper to not send an envelope, but it's also cheaper to not get a gift. So adding an envelope in there again, this is science adding an envelope, a return envelope, in your appeal letter or in your newsletter, will increase the response. You will increase your revenue by sending a response envelope. So another simple way we've got on. We're talking about direct mail. So we're talking about mail that goes out in the United States Post Office in an envelope or some type of mailing device. But even with that you can still do the QR code. So if somebody wants to give online, wants to give electronically, it's right there. And I don't, tim, I don't understand the technology behind the QR code. I don't know exactly how that works, but all I know is you take a smartphone, you take a picture of it and, poof, there it is. It's all right there and it works pretty seamlessly. So QR codes is another way to make it seamless and easy for your donors to give.

Tim Barnes: 13:16

Can I just say, nathan, at the very least, at least a link to where I can go to give online, because as I read, as I hear you talk, I'm like I can't remember. I can't remember the last time I actually wrote a check to anybody. And I'm an old guy, all right. So I think all that's really important there are people who still give checks is important to have the envelope, it's important to have all those things. But in the direct mail piece you probably also need a way for someone to connect so they know how to give online, because that's, I would say that's probably the majority of people, the way majority of people are giving in the world we live in today.

Nathan Ruby: 14:03

Yeah, excellent, excellent, tim. Another thing is just the give button on your website. Is it prominent? Is it on the homepage? Is it like top of the thing, right there when the homepage opens on your website, is the give button there? And another simple thing that maybe it's silly that I'm bringing it up, but test it. Go to your website, click on your button, go through the process, actually make a gift, see how that all works. Is it seamless, is it working? Are the links working or are the links broken? Test that every once in a while, but just any. The more ways that you can give for your donors to make a gift, the more revenue your direct mail piece is gonna make. It's just make it simple, make it easy.

Tim Barnes: 14:55

Hey, we're gonna take a break. We have some information about an event we're working on coming up soon, so why don't we go to that? And we'll be right back.

Nathan Ruby: 15:08

Fundraising can be difficult, but it doesn't have to be Just like learning anything else. You have to learn the fundamentals before you master a new skill. That's why Tim and I are offering a new class called Fundraising Fundamentals. In this free class, you will learn fundamentals such as why people give, how do I encourage people to give to my organization, how do I fit fundraising into my already overwhelmed schedule, and a lot more. This class will be fun, interactive and give you a solid base by which you can begin to build your fundraising muscle. If fundraising success has remained elusive, if you know in your heart your organization should be raising more dollars, but you just can't figure out how this class is for you, Click on the link in the show notes and you'll be able to register. It's gonna be a good class. We hope to see you there.

Tim Barnes: 16:07

All right, that's awesome and I hope you'll take the time to sign up for this class. It's gonna happen on October 19th. If you sign up, you'll get more of the details on how to access that, but we really do believe it's gonna be a very helpful and encouraging class. When it comes to fundraising, well, let's keep going, nathan. We've got a few more things we wanna share about direct mailing. What's our next point?

Nathan Ruby: 16:33

All right. So next one is engage with visuals. Don't underestimate the power of visuals in your appeal letter. And here's what your donor actually is going to prioritize when they open the letter. You've got them to open the envelope. They're either standing out in the driveway which actually Tim, I don't know why I do that, but if I see something I'm gonna open. I will stand in the driveway and read my mail, and then it's like I feel kind of silly standing out here reading my email but anyway, wherever your donor might be or email reading the mail anyway. So here's what your donors are gonna prioritize, in order. First is pictures. By far, without any question, they will. The first thing they're gonna look at is any pictures that you have on the appeal, and this is kind of an important thing and you should really sit down and talk through your team and decide what types of pictures you want to use, because it is the one thing that your donors are gonna look at and remember, and it's also not only what type of picture you're gonna use, but what picture you're not gonna use. So there's a balance between showing your clients or patients, or whatever your end users are, in a positive light versus showing the human impact of what they are going through. So what do we mean by that? Well, think of you've all seen, probably fundraising appeals. Some of these have been on TV and it's the picture of the emaciated child with flies on their face, and those pictures are designed specifically to create an aggressively strong, raw response from the viewer. Now, that is a different picture from a obviously undernourished child, but with a smile on their face and a cracker in their hand. So I guess pictures are extremely powerful when it comes to direct mail. But talk through intentionally, what photos you are going to use as a example of the type of work that you do. So, for example, for my organization we have we don't always predominantly we are showing pictures that are smiling faces, and occasionally we will have photos that are what I would call a neutral expression, and so it shows the depth and the human emotion of what's happening without showing an extremely negative type of picture. So you're not gonna see a picture of a child with a fly buzzing around. We just don't feel that's respectful, and so anyway, but you have to decide for yourself what type of reaction you were going for. So pictures are the number one thing that people are gonna respond to or look at when they look at your letter. Next is graphs. So any type of a bar chart or pie chart or any type of a graph showing an increase in output or doing more or deeper or whatever graph you could have. Graphs are big, bolded or different color fonts. Those stick out. If you have something in bold last year our output increased by 10% that could be a standalone sentence. And again in when you're writing fundraising letters whether it's a direct mail, standalone appeal letter or a newsletter or even an annual appeal you do not have to write that when you shouldn't write that, like if you were writing a term paper to be turned in for your high school senior project. You can take some liberty in the language so you can have a one sentence standalone as a paragraph. You bold it and people will pay attention to it. So bolded and different color. And then another big thing is the PS. Everything I do appeal letters, direct newsletters and even the annual report I have PSs. People pay attention to the PS. It is your last shot. It's typically one of the last things they look at, but they will look at it. So if you've got like a top three thing that you're trying to get across. Putting one of those in the PS is a good place to put it. So your top tier engaged donors, so your donors that you know they respond to every letter. There's some of your top best donors, even not in total giving size, but just in. You know they're giving three, four, five times a year. Those top tiered engaged donors will read your entire letter. Your middle engaged donors, you know they may respond once or twice, maybe even three times a year. They're probably gonna respond to your year-end fundraising. They're gonna engage with the letter, they're gonna read the letter but they're probably just gonna look at the stuff above the pictures and the graphs and the bolded and different color fonts and the PS. That's gonna be kind of your middle donors. Your lower engaged donors maybe they are giving once a year, you know maybe they'll look at a bullet item or you know for sure they're gonna look at the pictures, but then they'll decide right there you know if they're gonna write a check or not. So you know it is kind of unfair sometimes that the piece that you spent 15 hours on and you've agonized over every sentence and you have just done your absolute best job on this letter and you know, to be honest, it's a pretty good letter. You are proud of it. And then your donor only, they only spent 30 or 45 seconds looking at it. But that's the way it goes and that's okay. Just use the pictures and the graphs and the bolded and color fonts and the PS and you're gonna be fine. Our next point is more, not less. All right, now hold on to your socks here. This if you haven't heard these stats before, this can be a little shocking. But a good rule of thumb, according to the American Marketing Association, is to deliver mail every 21 days. Now I could see Tim shaking his head saying, oh my gosh, and I would love to. If you would do this, just let me know ahead of time so I could zoom into your board meeting. But it would be fun to go to the next board meeting and say, hey, we're gonna expand our direct mail program and we're gonna mail every 21 days, and they just don't say anything and just see what your board has to say about that. But according to the American Marketing Association, this pacing so every one, 20 days is enough to prevent mail overload while still keeping your perspective and existing customers aware of new promotions and offering from your business. Now, all right, this is written in a for-profit, sales type perspective, so that's a little different than a nonprofit, I will give you that. But it is still viable, or still a number that is doable within the nonprofit world. Now you're gonna hear all kinds of excuses. You're gonna get a lot of pushback from your board. What about donor fatigue? And what if we have donors who call and are angry because we're mailing too much? And what about donor fatigue? Yeah, I know I repeated that one, but that'll come up from your board and other people all the time. Well, let me tell you something. Just here's a tidbit for you. You are so far away from donor fatigue it's not even funny. I mail my current mail direct mail program is six times a year. So we are mailing three appeal letters, three newsletters. Sometimes we mail a standalone annual report, so that would be seven. Other times we include it in the fall newsletter, which would keep us at six. So we bounce back and forth, but next year I am planning on bumping that up to seven. Now I'm not saying, I'm not suggesting, and don't go to your board and suggest that you do 17 times a year. 17 times, that would be every 21 days comes out to be 17 times. But I will tell you that to mail three times or four times it's not gonna kill you. It's not, it's gonna be okay. Now, if you increase the number of times that you mail from once a year to three times a year or five times a year, are you gonna get donors that send you a don't mail me anymore email or call you on the phone or take the response device and scratch across it and big letters take me off your list. Yeah, probably, but guess what, they're not donors anyway, they are not people that are responding to you, and so if they write you back and say take me off your list, guess what? You're not spending money to mail them anymore. So to me that's a win-win. Yeah, I used to run a program, a direct mail program, where we mailed. There was 13 times a year and we didn't mail in January and we didn't mail in July. So in 10 months we did 13 mail pieces and we had the donor file was like 12,000 people. Did we get people that said, hey, take me off your list, don't mail me anymore? Yes, every single time we mailed we got some. Out of 12,000 people we got two or three, sometimes four. Four would be a lot, so it wasn't a lot. And if somebody says, take me off your list, okay, you know. Say oh my gosh, you know, thank you for your pass giving, we'll be happy to take you off. You won't be receiving anymore. If you ever would like to receive them again, just let us know. We'd be happy to put you back on. That's all. And then you and then you move on. So two promises I will make two promises to you. One if you mail more, you will raise more money. It's just the more you mail you're gonna raise more money. Just trust me on that. Number two, second promise I'll make you If you have a board member who is bulking at this and if you were saying I wanna increase our mail from three times to five times a year because Nathan and Tim I'm looping Tim into this because Nathan and Tim said that if we mailed five times we'll generate more money and your board member is digging their heels in and is bulking at that, you call us up and we will talk to your board member and in 10 minutes I think I can't promise you this, but I think I can convince them that it's gonna be okay. So those are the two promises If you mail more, you're gonna raise more money. If you're having trouble with a board member, you call me and I'll talk them through it. So those are my two promises. So moral of the story on this mail more, not less. Last one is build trust and build trust is, yes, this is critically important on your direct mail, but it's also a broader than just that and, like I said earlier in the episode, fundraising does not happen in a vacuum. It's not a standalone activity. Your entire organization has to be behind, building trust with donors and the end users, the people who benefit from your organization, and board members and volunteers and the community. You constantly are building trust. If your donors don't trust you, then they won't give. Remember, giving is an emotional response to a need, because it's emotional trust plays an enormous role. Break the trust in fundraising is a killer. It will kill fundraising if you break trust. So every newsletter, you need to be sharing stories about all the great things that you're doing. In your social media, you need to be sharing stories about what you're doing and responding to people when they respond to your social media posts. In your thank you letters, don't forget thank you letters. Thank them for their previous giving. Add a story to the thank you letter. In your face-to-face interaction, are you doing what you say you're gonna be doing? Every interaction with a donor, whether it's online, in the mailbox, on the phone, via text, even telegram I don't know, people still do telegrams. I don't even know if you can do a telegram, but if you could, if you could do a telegram, tim. Even in telegrams, you are either building trust or you're tearing it down. Make sure that you're building trust and not tearing it down.

Tim Barnes: 30:52

I gotta say I think that's one of the most important topics that we've talked about in these two episodes. All of them are important and very practical and I hope you take them to heart, but building trust that you're doing what you say you're doing and that people know that if they give you money to do your mission, that you're actually doing it, like you say. How important that is in every aspect of what you're doing.

Nathan Ruby: 31:23

Yeah, if your output, if your organizational output is Y or that's not Y is confusing, let's say it's A, we're doing A, this is what we do, this is our vision, this is our mission, this is our output. Then your donors building trust is stories about doing A. You know, this is what we do. This is a story about it. Here are some metrics we have increased A by this percent or we have done seven more or whatever, and here's the pictures and here's the graphs. And then we're talking about that and when somebody responds oh, I just got your, we just got your newsletter and it's so great to hear that you're doing A, and that comes in on Facebook While you're responding. Well, thank you so much for your response. We sure love doing A or whatever. And when you're seeing people in the street or in the hallways and saying A is so important and thank you so much for your piece of helping us do this. It's constant and once an organization and this is true for any company for profits, nonprofit. But, tim, I think it's more important for us. It is because the expectation some big corporate conglomerate, I think the trust in institutions around the world is probably less, maybe less than it's ever been. So maybe there's an expectation that big corporate America or big corporate whatever country you're in maybe there's a little bit more leeway in that. But in your organization and your nonprofit, that's your leading oh man. Trust is job number one, because if you lose that, you will lose donors, and some of the first donors you'll lose will be donors that respond to your direct mail pieces.

Tim Barnes: 33:17

Well, Nathan, thanks for all these things that you've shared. They're so good. Kind of bring it all together for us.

Nathan Ruby: 33:24

Yeah, every executive director must have a well thought out fundraising plan that is implemented every year. Should direct mail be automatically included in every single plan? No, Not every organization is designed to be successful for direct mail. However and this is a big however, most organizations will benefit from a strong direct mail program. If you decide to include direct mail in your annual fundraising plan, follow the things that we've talked about in this episode and in our last episode, and they will put you in a good position to see increased revenue.

Tim Barnes: 34:06

Thanks for listening today. Can we ask you a favor? Would you take some time to rate and review this podcast? It means the world to us that you listen to us, and we'd like others to be involved as well. So take some time, let us know what you're learning, how you're benefiting, and give us a review on whatever platform you're listening to. And also don't forget to sign up for the fundraising fundamentals. That's all for today.