A colleague received a mailing from Breakthrough Breast Cancer recently and I was intrigued by the response form they included.

At first I thought it was a great idea, now I'm not so sure.  What do you reckon?

 

I initially loved the idea of having the three tear off slips and the way they related the ask to a specific idea of what your gift could achieve. However, the more I thought about it, the more I was worried that people may have found it confusing, fiddly and a bit of a waste of paper. 

When you look at the reverse side the response form is repeated three times with the only change being the gift amount.

I'd love to know how it performed. My personal opinion is that less is more with response forms.  You need to keep it as simple and easy to follow as possible and with plenty of space to write in.

Do you agree with me?

The ever fabulous Denny Hatch has come up trumps again with an excellent checklist that every direct marketer that should print out and check against before sending anything.

The full list of over 50 items is at his blog, but here are the first ten things on the list:

"1. Does your message employ at least one (preferably several) of the seven key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that make people act: Fear - Greed - Guilt - Anger - Exclusivity - Salvation - Flattery?

2. Does your copy contain some or all of the 13 most powerful and evocative words in the English language: You - Save - Money - Guarantee - Love - Results - Proven - Safety - Easy - New - Health - Discovery - Free?

3. Since “you” is the subject of every sales effort, is your promotion about “you”—as opposed to "we," "us" or "our"?

4. "The prospect doesn't give a damn about you, your company or your product. All that matters is, 'What's in it for me?'" —Bob Hacker

Are you emphasizing your product and what it will do for the prospect rather than yourself and your company?

5. “Probably well over half our buying choices are based on emotion.” —Jack Maxson

“When emotion and reason come into conflict, emotion always wins.”—John J. Flieder

Is your sales pitch emotional (rather than analytical and rational)?

6. "People want quarter-inch holes, not quarter-inch drills." —MBA Magazine

Does your sales pitch highlight benefits (e.g., you get quarter-inch holes)—as opposed to features (e.g., buy a drill)?

7. "Your job is to sell, not entertain."—Jack Maxson

"Cute and clever simply don't work." —Nigel Rowe

Is your presentation cute, clever and entertaining?

8. Do you make an offer?

9. "You cannot sell two things at once." —Dick Benson

Are you giving the prospect too many choices?

10. “The right offer should be so attractive that only a lunatic would say, 'No.’" —Claude Hopkins

“If you want to dramatically increase your results, dramatically improve your offer.”—Axel Andersson

Is your offer the very strongest one you can field?"

Excellent, common sense advice, but it's amazing how many appeals/communications don't manage to check every box.  I include my own in this and will be working hard to get us ticking all the boxes.

Direct mail is in the news again this week, with Third Sector reporting that a fundraiser has quit the profession after being reduced to tears by the number of complaints that a cold mailing produced.

Now, my first instinct was that this was a bit of an over reaction and the person in question might be over sensitive and in the wrong job to begin with. However, I've thought of some of the distressed calls and letters I've received in response to direct mail over the years and wondered whether the money direct mail raises justifies the upset that it does cause to some people.

My conclusion is yes it does, but we need to continue to evolve our fundraising methods to reduce this to a minimum, whilst increasing the overall joy of giving.

Cancer Research UK seem to be having similar issues and I was surprised to read the first page of their latest door drop.  It talks candidly about how fewer people are responding to their appeals and explains why they send the letter. Here is the first page of the letter (let me know if you'd like a copy of the full appeal):

Then, over at Fundraising magazine (registration required) there is a debate about the use of enclosures in direct mail, with Stephen Pidgeon (Chair of the Institute of Fundraising standards  committee) giving the following warning:

"Last year, Fundraising Standards Board received 26,349 complaints from the general public about fundraising. 19,068 of them (practically 75%) were about direct mail. That's a staggering figure, and probably the tip of the iceberg. It frightens me rigid and it should frighten you. If charities lose the right to mail widely and without constraints, the loss in income will be catastrophic.

"And don't kid yourself it's not on the cards. A few months ago, I sat in the office of the then minister, Kevin Brennan, a bright and well briefed guy. He simply said he was being plagued by complaints about junk mail from charities. He had called us in to hear what was being done about it. This kind of action from government is new."

Stephen goes on to warn that constraints on the use of direct mail are a distinct possibility if we don't regulate ourself.

The final piece of bad news came from the U.S. where the Agitator reported on a 'slump' in direct mail use.

So should we all be worried and be abandoning direct mail?

Not quite yet...

As the Agitator goes on to say in a follow up article:

"Sadly, at a time when many nonprofits are clearly hurting and facing still further declines, I’m seeing many of the same, old, tired appeals, messages and techniques in my mailbox, clearly driven by plans that might as well be dated 1991 instead of 2010."

They then give some excellent thoughts and ideas on what needs to change and how you can do it.

I'll leave the final word to Jeff Brooks, who concludes in his article "Yet again is direct mail dead?", that:

"Fundraising is about connecting with people. You find the medium that connects you to the right people. If it works, it's not dead. Asking if direct mail is dead without first knowing a lot of other information is getting it backwards."

A couple of weeks ago I picked out a couple of interesting items of direct mail from my mum's post.  I've just received the latest batch of Christmas appeals (plus items other colleagues have given me) and unfortunately there's nothing interesting to report.

It's not that the Christmas appeals are bad, it's just they are fairly formulaic and pretty much follow this format:

• Cover letter with urgent Christmas headline.
• Plenty of underlining, bold and subheads.
• A p.s.
• An accompanying leaflet.
• Some sort of Christmas wish list.
• Another lift item, such as stickers or a Christmas card.
• Response form with lasered in gift amounts.

There is nothing wrong with this per se (indeed the Christmas appeal I signed off for work contains many of the above elements) and I'm sure they will be successful, but from this blog's point of view there was nothing new and interesting happening.

It may just be the appeals that my mum received, but I'd love to see some examples of Christmas appeals that don't follow the formula set out above.

However, all is not lost and there have been a couple of other fundraisnig campaigns and projects that have caught my eye as being a bit different.

First up is this interactive poster from Barnado's that thanks people when they make a donation. 

Connor Byrne has also found three or four Christmas campaign's that are a bit different.

Aline highlights her favourite fundraising communication of the year.

A great way to use graphics to help get your point across.

Donor magic in action: charity:water getting volunteers and staff to handwrite 4,500 thank you / Christmas cards to supporters.  How great is that? 

Mark on an I-Phone app that is being used to engage Salvation Army volunteers at Christmas

Finally, this month has seen the launch of Ploink!, a great new way to give small, regular amounts to charity.

My mum is a kind hearted soul and gives to a number of charities.  In her mid 50's, she is the sort of lady who is a sucker for a sob story and, much to my dad's annoyance, can't say no if someone rings her up asking her to sell raffle tickets, take a home box etc.

As such she gets lots of charity direct mail. This comes from charities she has previously supported and also unsolicited as she must be on just about every cold charity mailing list out there.  Last Christmas she received nearly 40 appeals in November and December!

Anyway, I thought I would take advantage of this and have been asking her to save the appeals and send them on to me to look at and add to my direct mail library.  I've been sitting on the last bunch for over a month, but have finally got round to having a look through and picking out a couple of interesting bits.

The Camphill Trust

I always take a close look at the Camphill Trust mailings as they do direct mail wonderfully well.  They have a warm, friendly feel and tell great stories about the work they do.  This newsletter mailing was no different, but what really caught my eye was the mistake at the bottom of the first page.

As you can see, the bottom of the first page has a line or two missing.  Now most people would put this down to a genuine mistake, but I'd be surprised if this got through all the relevant proof stages without being spotted and it got me wondering whether it was a deliberate mistake?

Why would anyone make a deliberate mistake you ask? Well, I remember reading somewhere (and for the life of me I can't locate the article - can anyone help?) that when there was an obvious mistake in a letter then the response rate increased.  The theory being that people like to be helpful and point out the mistake and at the same time make a gift. 

Now it's not a strategy you can use often, but I did wonder if the missing line was some sort of elaborate test to try and boost response? What do you reckon? Am I being overly cynical?

Plan

The only other thing that caught my eye was this response form for Plan.

There was no gift aid declaration to tick, which I've never seen before.  Instead they asked you to call up to make an oral gift aid declaration.

Thinking it through I came up with three possible reasons for this:

1. My mum has already made a gift aid declaration to Plan and so they saved some space by not including it.
2. It was an emergency appeal and so the form may have been designed quickly and the lack of a gift aid declaration is an oversight.
3. Plan are encouraging people to call so they can have a conversation with supporters, tell them more about the appeal and maybe secure a larger gift than they would through the post.

Again, would be interested if anyone has any thoughts.

My mum has a big pile of Christmas appeals that she is going to send down to me (after she has chosen which ones to donate to) and I'll pick out any interesting observations from these in the next few weeks.

It was great to read in Third Sector about the Institute of Fundraising's crackdown on rouge direct mail.  I was particularly pleased that it has written to 22 charities that it believes has broken its code of conduct and that it will report those who don't respond to the FRSB for further investigation.

It would be nice to know why the IoF decided they broke the code and to be given a few more details on what constitutes a breach.  For example, was it because they sent an umbrella through the post, as one charity did to a relation of mine recently?

What is not so great is the lack of sanction available to both the IoF and the FRSB due to a catch 22 situation. 

Both organisations can only punish members and most of the very fundraising charities giving the sector the bad name are not members.  Even more frustratingly the FRSB constitution doesn't even allow it to name the charities who are in breach, but who aren't members.

Whilst I think it's great that action is being taken, it's a real shame that there is no meaningful sanction (a fine / ban on posting via Royal Mail / public naming & shaming etc would all send a strong message) that can be handed out to the culprits who do untold damage to the sector as a whole.

I loved this cartoon by Hugh.  I'm a big fan of Hugh's work and would recommend you check out his blog.  I've just ordered his new book and am looking forward to reading it.

Anyway, in a timely coincidence, there were a number of good posts about the dangers of design by committee last week and I wanted to share them with you.

First up, Jeff Brooks wrote about an interesting piece of research that analysed 1.5 million words of fundraising copy.  Sadly the results weren't great and Jeff put the blame firmly on the curse of the committee.

Secondly, Marc Hurst talked about his recent experiences at the Acme Company (think it might have changed their name to protect them) who refused to change different parts of their website due to their own self-interest and opinions.

It got me thinking about the times i've been subject to decision by committee. Early in my career I was getting increasingly frustrated by having copy sent back to me with various amends.  My fundraising letter was being passed around various departments and each took their turn to remove certain phrases or words they didn't like.  The result was a bland, insipid letter with all emotion removed. I was fuming.

Luckily I had a supportive boss at the time and they sensed my frustration.  They took a bit of a risk and decided to do a test.  They sent the committee letter to half of our supporters and my letter to the other half.

I'm pleased to say that my letter had about 3 times the response (the committee letter was criminally bad) and a higher average gift.  Our point was made and future appeals were subject to much less editing and we asked for only comments on facts and not opinion.

If you're facing a similar dilemma i'd always recommend taking the 'act first, repent later' course of action as you tend to get far more done by doing so!

Seth is talking about nostalgia, how it is a basic human emotion and much under-utilised by many marketers.

This complements an article at Third Sector (registration required) in March about a study that showed how nostalgia could, if harnessed correctly, encourage donors to give (although Jeff had his doubts.)

We sometimes forget in fundraising to look backwards and see where we've come from and share past memories and stories with our supporters.

For nonprofits with long histories I definitely think it is something that you should look to test. 

My nonprofit has recently done a nostalgic test mailing to donors with a connection to our founder and it's had some fantastic results. 

Some donors who haven't given for years have given again.

The average gift is over £50 ($75)

In a number of cases the nostalgic element has prompted people to give their largest ever gift (in one case over 50 times their previous largest donation) and has produced a stream of correspondence (together with a gift) as people recall meeting our founder.

As some wag once said, "nostalgia ain't what it used to be", but it is certainly something that can be used successfully by fundraisers to the right audience.

Had this in my in my in-box for the last week and finally got round to reading it.

I'm a big fan of Tom Ahern and used (and recommended) his newsletter book time and time again. His monthly e-newsletter is another 'must-subscribe' for anyone who is involved in donor communications.

You can sign up here.

This month features a good article on writing cases and has a link to the following blog, which i've subscribed too and will keep you updated with any good content.

Another 'must' at his website is his critique of real life fundraising newsletters and anyone who writes and designs newsletters should check it out. Don't worry if you don't subscribe to his newsletter, i'll keep picking out the highlights and presenting them here.

A great direct mail checklist from the First Monday newsletter:

"1. Does the mailing comply with the Code of Advertising Practice? If any part of it is not factually true, then it doesn't, and opens the charity up to censure by the ASA. Any charity (or any mailer for that matter) can send a proposed mailing the the CAP copy team for vetting first.

2. Have you included Gift Aid and is the wording such that all previous donations right back the last six years are covered?

3. Have you included the right Data Protection Act wording to cover capture and use of data. This is essential if you plan to re-mail, swap or rent the list. Check out our website for useful guidance on this: http//:www.eurodm-drfgroup.co.uk.

4. Have you included clear directions as to who the donor's cheque is to be made payable? It's surprising how often people get the charity's name wrong if you leave this out.

5. If you are using a direct mail agency, double check whether they are a "Professional Fundraiser" under the Charities Act or not. If they are, stringent rules need to be complied with, including a clear declaration to the donor that a professional fundraiser has been used and how the professional fundraiser is being paid. If this declaration is not made, a criminal offence is committed.

6. If you are using a different reply address to your own HQ address, make sure this is included as the "If undelivered, please return to" instruction on the outer envelope. Otherwise you may get sacks full of gonaway mail on your front doorstep!

7. Have you remembered the charity number. Without it, results will be poorer and you won't be able to claim full VAT exemption on the costs of the mailing. Ideally, this should appear on every item you send.

8. Have you remembered to include a code that enables you to identify which mailing list a reply came from and, if doing any creative tests, which version?

9. It is a good idea also to identify stationery items by a specific code, rather than a word description and to use these codes when instructing a mailing house. Remember, competent mailing houses will almost certainly be dealing with a number of charity appeals at any one time, so it pays to be absolutely certain that only your material ends up in your envelope."

I'd also recommend that you have a good team of proof readers at hand to look over print proofs. It's easy to overlook a typo if you've seen the same copy 5 or 6 times. Iwould recommend sigining up to the First Monday newsletter and checking out their website, as it does have a number o useful direct mail resources.