The industry trendline is well worn – fewer and fewer people giving.  The saving grace has been those left giving more.  This is hardly a winning strategy.

Your only path to sustained growth comes from increasing the percentage of prospects that know you.  There’s a huge chasm in likelihood to donate and lifetime value between “know you” vs. ‘heard of you”.

Those who “know you” will cite your brand name when open-endedly asked to name a charity in your category.   Those who’ve only heard of you can’t.   The lifetime value of the former is 50%-150% higher.

Since the vast majority of charities have little to no brand spend budget they must rely on fundraising spend to do that job.  Chances are your direct response campaigns are aimed at the same people who already know you.  That’s problem #1, lack of exposure to your prospect universe.

Problem #2 is that your direct response fundraising likely falls short on creating memory associations with your brand name.   You wouldn’t be alone.  For years, Miller beer advertising during sporting events helped Budweiser.  Why?   Bud had created such a strong mental link between it’s brand and the occasion (watching sports) that competitor spend accrued to them.  People literally watched Miller beer ads during sporting events and thought it was Bud.

The key to building “know you” memory associations is multi-faceted but suffice to say, repeating your brand name is one of the ingredients.  And there is turbo-charger value in saying and writing it.

This research shows the relationship between the number of times the brand is mentioned in a communication and it’s impact on likelihood to recall your brand with only a generic category prompt.   Digital advertising is well suited to carry a mandate of 2-3 brand mentions with a mix of aural and visual to place you at the top of the black line.

It’s also worth noting there’s very little brand gain in direct mail from writing the brand name over and over, per the blue line.  And what this doesn’t account for is the downside of an appeal that feels disjointed and reads the opposite of a personal letter with the org name repeated 7 times, yielding likely lower conversion and no upside on brand recall.

What’s in a name?  Apparently, the answer is “more” if you can combine sight and sound.

Kevin