A Reminder About The Personal Touch

May 13, 2013      Admin

Here’s a curious little study — Post-it Note Persuasion: A Sticky Influence — forwarded to The Agitator by reader Tina Cincotti.

In this research project, participants were sent a survey packet and asked to complete the survey. Some packets included an affixed personalized Post-it note. Some packets had no note or other variations.

Those receiving the personalized Post-it note on their packet had significantly higher return rates, and returned their surveys more promptly with higher quality responses.

Now, the lesson here is not to rush out and put Post-it notes on all your mail. Obviously that’s impractical (although it might be wise to test this on a major donor appeal).

Rather, for me the study is just a reminder of the value of a personal touch … however you can accomplish that under the circumstances of any given mail or email campaign.

Note that telemarketing campaigns do this inherently — “Good evening Tom. Just calling to thank you …” — and that’s a major reason they (when properly crafted) produce strong results.

Use what you know about your donor, whenever you can.

Tom

P.S. I’ll stick with my conclusion. However, in fairness I should note that, as structured, this research showed that personalization alone didn’t account for the lift in responses, the actual use of the Post-it note made a difference. Here’s the academic conclusion:

“The Post-it message can be viewed by the recipient as a personal appeal or request for a favor, conjuring strong societal norms of polite, reciprocal compliance resulting in not only higher return-rates but also qualitatively enhanced responses, and a more prompt completion of the task.”

2 responses to “A Reminder About The Personal Touch”

  1. Claire Axelrad says:
    May 13, 2013 at 4:29 am

    Just want to say, anecdotally, that in my practice over the years I’ve often used the sticky note approach. And, indeed, returns on those appeals that received this treatment were much higher than returns on those without notes. Have also had volunteers write notes directly onto appeal letters, but never studied whether the response rate was different depending upon whether the note was affixed directly or via sticky. The personalization seemed to be what mattered, but it would be an interesting test.

  2. Denisa Casement says:
    May 13, 2013 at 5:30 am

    We used a post-it note last Christmas with great results. We didn’t do an exact split test but this is what we found. The post-it was pre-printed in a handwriting font. Other than the post-it, the packets were the same and included an engagement element.

    RR 44% $0-300 – no post-it note
    RR 50% $300-999 – post-it note
    RR 57% $1001+ – post-it note & personlized note on the letter

    We’re very aware that our Christmas response rates are a result of how we treat our donors all year and $1000+ end of the file would have received a bit more attention. This would still qualify as anecdotal evidence and not a split test. It’s great to see the social scientists wading in the proper testing!

Ask A Behavioral Scientist

    Behavioral Science Q & A

    The Agitator Tool Box

    Ideas, applications, tools, processes, and case studies of break-through solutions in fundraising, including: