1:20

direct mail is still the biggest driver of response.

1:25

And we have certainly seen that during last year, during the coven during this pandemic.

1:33

So the first reason is that direct mail is personal and targeted.

1:39

The reality is that most giving is done by individuals. If we see like in 20 19, Americans gave $449 billion away, and 69% of that came from individuals. And then another 10% came from legacy gifts, Gifts in their will. only 17% came from foundations. Only 5% came from corporations.

2:08

So obviously, small businesses typically, um, most likely fall under the individual piece. But that's why, again, giving is still done by individuals, and direct mail really, really works with that.

2:26

So I also want to start a poll. and I have a couple of these polls. What information, if you look in your nonprofit organization, what information do you have for your donors now?

2:40

Is it you only have the postal addresses. You only have e-mail addresses, You have Postal and e-mail addresses, or you're not Sure. So, just type in the answer to the poll, like, What type of information do you have? And, let's see, while you're doing that, just a couple of challenges, Finding a story, directing meals to businesses, acquiring lists, getting donors to respond in a timely manner, just getting direct mail, up and running. Getting people to open the mail, cost an ROI, not a high response, decreasing donor response cost, OK? And the high cost of postage. Alright? So those are a couple of challenges that you're seeing with your nonprofit direct mail.

3:26

All right, Let me close the poll now.

3:28

OK, all right, so it looks like, you know, most of you, 86%, have you have Postal and e-mail addresses, but you do see 6% of people. You only have Postal addresses four, and 4% of your donors only have e-mail addresses. And then, another 4% is not sure, so, that's obviously what's important, right? You can send direct mail if you don't have postal addresses, right. So you can send an e-mail maybe, but you can't. You can't do direct mail and vice versa. So here's why direct mail is, Is personal is targeted. So you're looking at like how many mailing addresses do you have in your donor base? How many e-mail addresses do you have in your donor base? How many phone numbers do you have in your donor base because you still want to talk to your donors as well, especially like what we saw during the pandemic donors love hearing from you.

4:25

Believe it or not, right? Especially older donors. And then obviously, you also want to start tracking, like, how many of your donors, do you have social media? Information for, How many can you reach via your social media?

4:39

You see there are a lot of people, you actually have both so that's fantastic. So that way you can do some cross-pollination, right? You can send a mailing and you can do an e-mail follow-up, right? But the key is like direct mail. People consider that it's expensive.

4:56

It is so powerful, you know? So the response rate is still 600% higher than e-mails. So let's take another look at it. How can you, what do you know about your donors?

5:09

Um, if you're a bigger organization and you're renting mailing lists and again, we're not going to go into a lot of detail about renting mailing lists.

5:20

There are a couple of other sessions about that, but, but if you are renting a mailing list, you can typically do like a demographic overlay. And find out, like, how many of your donors are female. How many are male? What are the age ranges? And there's a lot of information that you can uncover by doing some of these overlays or, you know, so I highly recommend that. If you haven't done that already, especially if you're using model lists, you can find out a lot more information that you may not be able to see just by looking at their name. Of course, you can see a lot by looking at females and males, right? But, but some of the age ranges, you know, like where they live, if they rent a house, or if they own a house, you know, So if they have pets, a lot of that information may not necessarily be sitting in your database, but you can add some more information to it. But what do you know about your donors?

6:23

Well, you should know what their past giving history is. How many times they've given when that they give? How did they give? that they give online that they give to an event that they give through mailings, right? What was their giving amount?

6:38

You know what your past response rates are.

6:42

But that's where it typically ends, but you can start generating additional information. Do you know what their interests are? This is where surveys come into play. Do you know if your animal welfare organization, do you know if they have pets, do they have cats or dogs? Have they purchased tickets if your museum or like a symphony Do you know? If they've purchased tickets in the past, have, they signed petitions If you're an advocacy organization, have the answer surveys, Right. So all of this type of information is something that you can add to your donor base that will help you personalize your direct mail fundraising appeals, even more, pass-giving pass response rate. Those are absolutely given. You must know that.

7:30

Now the reality is that the bulk of your donors falls somewhere in this giving pond, right? In the old days, we used to talk about the pyramid. Now, I like to talk about the giving pond, and it's a little bit flowier, right? When fundraising for nonprofits, a lot of the time, you have to do everything.

7:49

You have to acquire new donors, you have to bond with them. This is where your thank you letter comes into play. You gotta do some cultivation. Maybe you have a newsletter. So you kinda like trying to see, OK, can I get that second gift from that donor after they came on board, And then they feed into that general donor.

8:08

And then the key is, as fundraisers, right, We always want to get more money from our existing donors. So we're trying to upgrade them to higher-value donors, to major donors, and we're trying to convert them to monthly giving. Right. So that's where the pledge piece comes in. And then we're trying to ultimately get the ultimate gift. The gift from there. We'll write that RFP piece. But what we see is be donors also flow, they stopped giving, they might, they might not have given in the last two years they might not give given in the last five years right. They may be at risk of lapsing. They might be three streaming out of your donor pond. And this is where your win-back campaigns come into play, right? You want to I'm always trying to bring in new donors who want to try to re-activate your donors, your lapsed donors. And you want to try to get more money from the donors in the pool.

9:06

So how do we now do that? Well, again, it depends on your fundraising goals. But there are really four steps, and I love this process if you will. It was created by the Better fundraising company and it's so true with everything that we do as fundraisers, right, You have to ask the donor for money. You have to say thank you.

9:34

You want to report back and this is where that cultivation piece comes into play. You know, the storytelling comes into play, and then you want to repeat it. So that's how you grow your fundraising. Ask, thank, report. Repeat.

9:50

Really, really important. And again, the more personal you can make that, the better off you are.

9:56

So, I recommend, and, again, I know there are some people that say, Well, I don't want to spend the stamp. I don't want to spend the money, but, especially now. How can you tie? How can you get a donor, become more loyal to your organization? If you only send a thank-you e-mail, say they gave online and you only send a thank-you e-mail, Well, if you can send them a thank-you letter by mail, again, it's something they'll open. It's something that you're actually going to stand out compared to a lot of other organizations that are saying, Well, the minute somebody gives online, I'm not going to send them any there. Any direct mail, thank you letters anymore. And the reality is people will hold on to it.

10:41

It's another opportunity for you to tell a story of how the donor's gift has made a difference, so you can absolutely send thank you letters in the mail, and that can be highly personal and targeted, it has their amount in it. Right. You can send postcards via the mail.

10:59

Again, it's something that comes into play and will make it like, people can all die as, Oh, this organization makes me feel a little bit more special than just sending a thank-you e-mail. Right?

11:13

And again, you can make that very personal. You can send special updates based on the type and the size of the donor, and this is where your impact Report or your newsletter comes into play. And nowadays, the way laser, printing is done, you can even personalize the name of the donor in that impact report with digital printing. So, there are so many opportunities to make it very, very personal. So take a look at some of the things that you have, and how can you make it more personal, so that the donors can say, Wow, they really, really made me feel very special, right?

11:57

You can use the information based on the highest gift amount, based on their prior giving, and then customize specific versions in your direct mail. And again, I'm not going to talk a lot about, like, direct mail production and execution. But I just want to show you a couple of ways that you can use personalization to your benefit. And, again, you know, here's an example of, like, a little personal note that was sent to those donors who gave $250 an app.

12:31

Right? You can even send it back to the organization and have them handwrite a personal note. So there are lots and lots of different ways that you can do things with laser printing right now. Based on what you know about the donor, you can refer to the fact that you know, they have a dog or a cat, right? So, so all of the information that you have in your donor base could be used to personalize.

12:56

You can, personally, based upon location, if you wanted to do a very special petition for just people in Massachusetts, or in New Jersey, right? So, again, that's all fed by the information that is in your database. You can make versions based upon the level of gift.

13:13

If they gave more money, again, you see it here. This is a low donor, $5, is, like, was their last gift. And that's where you start, and then you, you'd always trying to upgrade.

13:25

And the second example here, $20, was the alas gift, and again, they're trying to upgrade to higher levels, right? And the name and address, and the code are typically obviously on the reply form.

13:37

So can you can be really, really personal and targeted by using the information about past giving about what you know about that donor. So in short, the trick meal is personal. It's targeted at the first tile. And it's customizable to suit your donor's needs, right? Again, all about making them feel special and asking them to make another gift right. That's the key here.

14:06

Now the other piece is direct meal is actually really cost-effective. It may sound like it's costly. And yes, the postage rates keep going up. But ultimately, again, there are certain ways that you can drive response via direct mail that you're just not going to be able to do online only. And I'm going to show you some statistics. So let's do another poll here. What is your cost to raise a dollar for your typical appeal? So, when you send a direct mail appeal if you sent out direct mail appeals in the past, what is, what do you, what's the cost, Teresa dollar for your typical appeal is less than 10% is between 10% and 30%, is it between 30% on a dollar or you're not?

14:53

Sure and while you're doing that, let me see.

14:59

OK, alright, and I just want to let you know, two is like, I'm not sure how much time we have for questions, but please feel free, at the end of this, You will find my contact information. So, please feel free to send me specific e-mails after Because once, Once I leave this webinar, I will not have access to those questions. So, So please feel free to follow up with an e-mail after.

15:23

I'm very, very responsive to the e-mail. OK, so let me close the poll now, all right, so it looks like 15% says them across the raise of dollars between 10030% great, 15% between 30% on a dollar, and two-thirds is ... 3% less than 10%.

15:44

Awesome, great, because that is a really, really important factor in evaluating how your direct mail appeals are doing. It's not the total cost, but it's the cost to raise a dollar. So, you really want to make sure that you know the key metrics for every campaign that you do. Number, mailed number responses, gross revenue, and cost that will then go into what's the net revenue? What's the average gift? But more importantly, what is the cost to raise a dollar? So, how do you calculate that?

16:26

It's as simple as cost, and that's typically like the direct mail costs, so that's the copy, creative, print, production, mailing, Postage, so anything that goes into getting the direct mail appeal out the door.

16:41

So, it's not typically your time, but it's, it's, it's anything that it takes to get it out in the meal. The cost is Divided by the gross revenue. So, say it costs you $5000, and you raise $25,000 with that appeal. The cost to raise a dollar is 20%.

17:03

OK, so, that's really important. So, you might say, Well, $5000, sounds like a lot of money, but, ultimately, $25,000 is what was raised. So where'd you get that in? The stock market, right? Even the stock market is doing really, really well, but the cost reasonable is 20%. 20% is the industry average right now when it comes to existing donor appeals.

17:27

Here's a chart.

17:29

If you've never seen it, highly recommend, printing it out. Give it to your board. Give it to anybody that's like, I don't know, but this direct mail.

17:37

Because, as I mentioned, industry average, direct mail to donors, to existing donors, cost to raise a dollar is 20% Direct Mail Acquisition. So if you're trying to fish for new donors, that usually does cost a little bit more. But once you have them, then they feed into your donors, and they're going to start raising even more money, right? So this is a really important chart to keep track of.

18:04

So let's take a look at like a very simple direct mail appeal, right? That's highly personalized. This is an organization. They serve meals for people with multiple health issues and they've been doing really, really well during colvin.

18:26

So, again, you can see here how personalized it is.

18:30

It's like all of the amounts are personalized, the name, and address is personalized, the salutation is personalized, And it's just a simple number: 10 package that goes out. Right?

18:43

So this was a very simple, tracked mail appeal that, you know, you see a lot of, and you give them the chance. Now, why do you think I'm going to do another poll. What do you think? What's the cost to raise a dollar for this particular appeal? Was it less than 10% was it between 10% at 30% between 30% to a dollar or you're not sure? So take a guess. What do you think was the cost to raise a dollar for this particular appeal?

19:17

All right. I'm going to give Lee: Yes, staff costs are typically not included in the cost to Jet, to cause for generating an appeal, because it's really hard to calculate. Right.

19:34

Right, let's see. Key to close it, and, again, of course, this is not really a fair question, right? So, OK, so 16% less than 10%, 61% at 61% says, between 10 and 30%, OK, 10% says between 30% in the dollar and feel that 13% is not sure, OK, And the answer is I'm going to tell you because direct mail is really, really trackable, right? So, they mailed 11,140 donors. Right? They had a 12% response rate. They raised $157,000. The cost was $5389. So close at $5000, I just shared that the average gift was $118.

20:19

Again, this went to their existing donors, and the cost to raise a dollar was minimal, right? It was tiny.

20:30

It was teeny tiny, so it was like 3%, three pennies, right? So this is the power of direct mail.

20:40

Alright and you know, so in this disorganization meals about like every six weeks or so until they've, they've been mailing and they're typically doing about like three to 5%, sometimes like 10% to raise a dollar. So this is the power of, like, seeing how, wow. Oh geez. It sounds expensive 50, $389 but you know you raising $157,000. That's just a fantastic rate. So direct mail is trackable, right? And again, so, so take a look at that and see how your appeals are doing the other reason is why direct mail is so, so powerful. And I hope that you can, can find and hear my excitement about direct mail. Because, again, I've been doing this a long time.

21:27

But, as we found with a coven in the pandemic Trekked meal has definitely gained. Another role again, so it's certainly not dead. It has a longer shelf life. People are going to hold on to it, right? They're gonna read it and we read it, right? So you see here, each item of Charity Meal is red and revisited an average of four times 92% of charity meal is engaged with, right? 65% say they're likely to give male their full attention, so it's but it has a much longer shelf life than e-mails.

22:04

It also helps you with storytelling, right? I mean, that's what we want, right? You have more space to do it, right?

22:11

You can You can help under, you know, donors understand the story that you want them to hear. Right? You can use as much space as you need.

22:24

You know, so here's just one example. You can put some examples in there. You know, so there is really no end to creativity. You can get to it as far as direct mail is concerned. But as some copywriters are going to tell you in, as some, like, designers, are going to tell you, like, you want to, you know, have that fine balance between pictures and design, and you don't want it to be true, overdesigned either, right? It's gotta feel and in it as personal as possible, it's gotta feel a little bit, like a letter that you might be writing to your mom or your grandmother, right. But you have the space to tell this story. And you can pop in some information. Some, some other donors, and have them tell their story, why I get, right? And this particular, this particular example is actually in the door in the organization's newsletter rate, but newsletters are also direct mail. So, again, you have the space to do it.

23:23

So, Direct Meals, really, is also, donor-centric, right? It's all about the donor. It helps build trust in your organization. It makes them feel valued. They can read it and respond in their own time. Some donors might say, Well, I'll do. I look at it next week, right, or I'll do at the end of the month when I get the peak, right? It all depends. And they can: They can control what they receive and see, you know, like, and, and look at it. When they do, they feel like it's really all about convenience. For the right. So, it's not like they have to bust through their e-mail inbox, right? So, so, direct mail, there's definitely a great role for that.

24:03

But ultimately, trek meal is the biggest driver of response. And, again, it kinda looks like what can you do, what can you ask the donor to do when it comes to direct mail. And, again, you can drive them to the website. A big factor, right? You can ask them for a kind donation, and they'll send it in. So, there's lots and lots of things that you can, you can do with direct mail. You really ask the donor to take action. It's all about a call to action, right? So, it doesn't matter, you know, where they are and at what time of day. So let's look at the same organization that I shared earlier, right. So what if you only did e-mail? Now, again, they have very close to like pretty much.

24:55

all the mailing addresses, also have e-mail addresses.

25:00

They e-mailed 11,140 people, they had an open rate of 20 points 39%, which is about the industry average right now, right. So, they had 2271 opens.

25:12

Almost 13% of people clicked the links in the e-mail.

25:18

They had 295 gifts, a hundred $18 average gift, very similar to what they were seeing in the real direct mail, and it only generated $34,810. So that's what would have happened if you only send an e-mail.

25:38

Now, let's remember what the direct mail results were, right? 11,140 people They had 12% response rate to those are actually people sending in a donation of hundred and $18. average gift cost to raise dollars. 3%, right?

25:55

So, again, these are just a couple of things to evaluate. What if you looked at those e-mail addresses are, of course, if you only have an e-mail address, that's what you will do right in.

26:08

And again, we don't have time to go into it, but there are ways you can get me dealing with free e-mail addresses as well, so that you can send them, stop thinking in.

26:24

in just to get the complete information.

26:30

That's the power of direct mail or direct.

26:35

Is it less than 5% E percent more than 15% or you're not? Sure.

26:43

Look at. Right. So long as we typically do 2% a year or leave money on the table, pretty much I can guarantee you. Yes, probably we typically do send in May and November across raise dollar wizardry meals around three to 4% per dollar, so that's great.

27:01

Yes, You are most likely leaving money on the table, So, I recommend adding one and seeing what happens right in.

27:11

Sarah says, Should you include a return envelope with a stamp on it, you typically do not need a return envelope with a stamp. You just need a return envelope. Asked the donor to pay for the stamp if they don't have a stamp and they will most likely go online.

27:31

Alright, let me see, or I know I'm rushing through this, but I have a lot of great stuff here. But let's see here. I'm going to close it, OK, so 26% of you say was between five and 15%, 7% say more than 15%, and 53% is not. Sure, so definitely recommend, going back after this webinar and seeing what are my results for my appeals, because that's where it starts. You always want to create your own benchmarks, just like Logan just said, right?

28:05

what is your typical direct mail response rate? Take a look at that. And you may actually be really, really pleasantly surprised, right?

28:14

So, so let's start there. What is your batch work, right? And here's the reality. Donors are three times more likely to give online in response to a direct mail appeal than an e-mail.

28:28

Really, really interesting, this is the latest statistic from the pandemic year, right?

28:35

So, overall, almost 13% of total fundraising last year came in from online gifts.

28:46

So, what does that mean?

28:48

That means that 90, sorry, 87% of giving steel comes offline, namely through the mail or walk it, right. So, it has gone up. absolutely has gone up. And you see to like, what types of organizations are seeing the biggest growth 18, almost 19% of an online gift for smaller organizations that are generating less than a Malian, right? And then, 9.4%, for bigger organizations that raise $10 million or more.

29:26

So, it absolutely is growing, but it's not growing as much as, um, no, you might think it does.

29:36

And, again, a lot of this online giving has actually been generated by the mailings as well. So it's a mix of online and offline.

29:46

But, you know, 87% of the money comes in offline.

29:53

Now, you may ask, well, how is this with like, the type, the level of donors, and the age of doors? Right? I'm a Baby Boomer. And, you know, Baby Boomers represent 43% of total giving, 40% of those gave and responds to a direct mail solicitation, or at least once the matures those are 68 and an over there, 26% of total giving right now, but a lot of those people are most comfortable giving my meal 52%. Now, how about those generation-wise axes?

30:27

They start to grow up, right? They're starting to represent a big portion of taller giving, 11%, 20%.

30:35

And they are starting to generate, you know, a give by mail as well.

30:41

Now, why did I ask you earlier to look at your e-mails and your mailings because those donors that are giving both ways?

30:51

they're even more powerful, right?

30:53

So, donors who give both online and offline, they're worth 234% more than online-only donors, and 210%, more than offline, only donors. So, this is why you want to send direct mail, and you want to send e-mails to the donors. This is why you want to try to get that e-mail address for your donors. Because then, you can complement the mailing. You can send announcements, you can send follow-ups, right? So that way, it becomes even more powerful. So direct mail and online, go hand in hand with trade. So it's all about multichannel are all online. You know omnichannel. How, wherever they're crawling that right now.

31:38

But, again, donors are Everywhere, right? Doing this. Might be sitting on their phone somewhere. And you send them an e-mail, you, some might send them a text view of sending it, and then they come home and they find the mailing piece that you just send them, Right, So you gotta really look at all of those pieces.

31:55

So, in short, there are five reasons why direct mail still scores. So, many home runs. It's personal and targeted. You can do a lot. Direct mail is cost-effective. Even though some of the postage rates might be going up, there's still no other better way to reach those, those donors are trackable. It facilitates storytelling and is still the biggest driver of response.

32:25

Ultimately, you can't stop fishing where the fish are, right?

32:30

If nearly 70% of your donors demonstrate a preference for direct mail, you want that in your mix.

32:39

And this is Steve Mclachlin from Blackbaud and they do an amazing study every year on the impact of online and offline and multi-channel.

32:47

So so again, that's what it is, right? You gotta keep fishing. where they live, where the fish are, where the donors are. They get your meal. They do get your e-mail. But together, it's so tremendously powerful.

33:03

So that's it for me, um, as I mentioned, feel free to send me an e-mail if you have specific questions about this and about anything to do with direct mail. and I see that I went way over my time. So, but again, there's got some great questions there and I Knew there was a survey after this feel free to answer the survey and we really appreciate this, and like as I mentioned Good luck on your direct mail, and Reach out to me if you have any questions And lots of great other direct mail sessions that you can, you can check out as well.

33:46

So that's it, thank you.

33:48

Wonderful, thank you so much Eric, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. I just want to mention that I've posted a link into the questions box to a place where you can submit a short video testimonial if you decide to do that and share with us your experience with the charity. How to We will give you a premium webinar completely for free. Let us know the name of the webinar to date, you would like to attend. And we will register you for free, just for submitting that video testimonial. So I'm going to post a link into the questions box right now, again. So it's videos that charity, how to dot com.

34:27

And there you go click on Etsy Redbook Market, and get back to it whenever you want to take advantage of that opportunity. Thanks again, everyone! Please stay safe and healthy. And we hope to see you again on another CharityHowTo webinar.

34:41

Bye. Thanks. Thanks, Bye.