How (Dis) Loyal Donors Process Direct Mail from You and Your Competitors
Let’s first get a definitional piece addressed up front. We define loyalty based on how Committed Donors are to a brand. This is attitudinal loyalty, derived by what they think and feel about an organization and we have proven its link to donor behavior.
A behavior based view of loyalty is often spurious. Using both, attitude and behavior is best as we discuss in more detail in a previous post.
Now that we’ve covered the definitions, let’s move on to a recent finding from a couple of academic researchers and as reported in Science Daily. They found customers loyal to a particular brand process competitor advertising very differently from those who are not loyal. Namely, the loyal look at competitor advertising and find DIFFERENCES between their preferred brand and the competitor in a way that further strengthens preference for their existing brand.
Said another way and applied to non-profits and direct mail; if you work to increase commitment among your donors, the solicitations of your competitors can actually increase donor loyalty to YOU. That’s right, the competitor direct mail piece can actually reinforce the emotional connection to your organization among those already loyal.
What about the non-loyal? They look for SIMILARITIES. This means the competitor direct mail piece does exactly what the competitor hoped it would – leads to stealing of wallet and market share. The non-loyal donor looks for similarities and once found, has no reason to not switch since both brands are more alike than different.
In the non-profit direct mail world this translates into the disloyal donors regularly switching from one group to another or “spreading” out total wallet based on randomness, thus making past behavior a very bad predictor of future behavior.
The only way to truly address this is by focusing on increasing donor loyalty and creating high levels of donor commitment – i.e. Retention through high commitment to the organization. Then you can start letting your competitor marketing work for you.
Behavioral Science Q & A
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