Editor’s Note:  Between Christmas and January 7th The Agitator Global HQ is undergoing some renovation and renewal.  The bowling alley is being resurfaced which, in turn, produces a tornado of dust requiring a thorough cleaning of the library collection not to mention the work space of our poet-in-residence.

Consequently, we’ve decided to use this period of renovation and renewal to repeat 5 of our most popular posts of 2018. If you’ve already etched these gems in your mind we hope you’ll share them with colleagues. And, as importantly, we urge you to send along any suggestions for subjects you’d like to see covered in 2019. Send them to Roger@theagitator.net.

Today, we’ll lead-off with a piece by Nick on the importance of direct mail in the fundraising ecosystem.

—Roger

Earlier this year we talked about blockchains and voice-recognition systems and such.  BUT…none of this matters if you can’t block and tackle with mail.

That’s right, mail isn’t dead.  And I know you know it isn’t dead.  But from some recent discussions with Agitator Nation members, not all our bosses and board members know that it isn’t dead.

(Actually, you may want to cut at the line below so they don’t see that part about smacking them.)

So here are my arguments for continued use of the mail.  Feel free to print out and leave on the chair of whomever needs a swift reality check upside the head.

---

Mail is where more donations come in.  In the Blackbaud Insitute’s  2017 Charitable Giving Report, they found that six to 12 percent of total fundraising came in online depending on sector.  Yes, this is growing faster than offline.  But it still means that 88 to 94 percent of donations are made offline.

Mail retains donors (slightly) better.  The same survey found that 31% of first-time offline donors will retain.  Only 25% of new online donors will.

Ending mail acquisition is a flop.  American Cancer Society stopped mail acquisition in January 2013:

• New donors dropped by 11%
• New donor revenue dropped by $11.3 million in the first year
• The five-year impact on income: $29.5 million
• The ACS Relay for Life raised $25 million less than the previous year
• Looking at the ASPCA example, they likely also had a drop in planned giving

They started mail acquisition back up 18 months later.

Speaking of longer-term impacts, mail acquires large gift donors.  A study from Analytical Ones found that one out of every six $2500+ donors was acquired through the mail and a quarter of $1000-$2500 donors were as well.

Many (not all) donors like the mail.  A 2012 Epsilon study found that 73% of consumers said they prefer mail for brand communications and 62% like checking the mail. And, no, it doesn’t turn off young donors.

Mail engages the mind differently.  MRIs find that physical materials leave a deeper footprint in the brain.  They also have more emotional processing, which leads to greater memory.  They also have more response connected with internal feeling, with means the message is better internalized.  More details on this here.

Mail lifts all boats.  Geoff Peters gave a great attribution presentation at 2014 DMA.  In it, he showed an example from a museum that found that only about 13% of the revenue related to an acquisition mail piece actually went to the mail piece.  Almost 40% went to onsite donations, 26% went online, 17% went through their retail site, and five percent called in.  Without attribution or testing, you are likely missing revenues related to the mail.  In fact, a Dunham and Company study found that mail beats email as a way of getting online donations.

Mail can reach underserved audiences.  A Yankelovich Monitor Multicultural Marketing Study found that Hispanic households are 3.5 times more likely to respond to mail solicitations than non-Hispanics.  More than three-quarters of Hispanics won’t discard mail before reading it and over half of Hispanic adults responded to a mail offer.

---

So that’s it in a nutshell – direct mail still works in a number of ways.  Talking about it isn’t that surprising.  Its death has been predicted since at least 2009 and The Agitator has worked to debunk this in 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2014 again, 2015, 2015  again, and still more 2015.  I even ranted about it in my pre-Agitator days.

Mail is not perfect; nothing is.  Specifically, mail acquisition is tougher than it has been and will continue to challenge as we overfish the same waters.  Some donors don’t want it; we shouldn’t send it to them.  It can get siloed, but is best done in coordination with other channels.  It can get repetitive and tactic-driven.  And some of it contains tackiest tchotchkes landfills have ever seen in place of donor understanding and donor-focus messages.

But that’s the message and the tactic, not the medium itself. So let’s rededicate ourselves to the medium with the strategy and tools it deserves.

Nick