Telemarketing Case Studies #2
Can you, should you telemarket to high dollar donors?
Many of you are probably responding … “YECH!” “GROSS!” “My development director would rip my heart out!”
But Gabe Raff at Chapman Cubine Adams + Hussey thinks differently. And has the data to back up his approach.
Here’s a case study from Gabe on a campaign that targeted donors who give $1,000 or more annually to the Democratic National Committee. In this campaign, a series of five calls over the year cost $0.20 to raise each dollar, and generated $786 net per donor.
But don’t try this without very well trained callers. As Gabe notes: “The yearlong training these callers received practically made them an extension of the DNC’s finance staff.”
Tom
P.S. The Agitator has been doing some evangelizing for telefundraising lately — here’s Case Study #1 from last week.
6 responses to “Telemarketing Case Studies #2”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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Reminds me of a high value telemarketing campaign we did for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1999 – 2000. It was v effective!
The focus was seat naming, which is a great fundraising product for arts organisations – the donor pays to dedicate a seat in the new auditorium. The ROH’s seats could be named from £500 for a standing place in ‘the gods’ up to £15,000 for a seat in a Grand Tier box (or a bargain £25,000 for a pair).
How did we target the ask to each of the Friends? We asked them where they usually liked to sit when they came to the opera. And then we told them what it would cost to name a seat in that area.
Our best result was £10,000 on credit card to name a pair of Dress Circle seats. The caller (I think he was called George) handled it very well! They had all visited the ROH and had been given a behind the scenes tour so they really could talk to Friends on a level. I’d also reassured them that the Friends wouldn’t all be rich people with butlers, just lovely people who really liked opera.
But George did nearly fall off his chair when the lady giving £10,000 asked her butler to come to the phone to read out her credit card for George, as her eyesight wasn’t so good anymore…
I had a similar experience back in the 90s, Adrian. We took a few of our best-trained callers (who usually called for subscriptions and for donations part of the year) and asked them to make calls for building campaign gifts. The night one caller asked for – and got – $15000 was not one any of us could easily forget!
Like with you, there was already a relationship, and the callers were very good. In fact, I’d sometimes have donors who would only give after they’d received their annual call from one of those callers – they didn’t want to miss their chat with him!
Biggest we ever got when I was Client Services Director for The Phone Room was £100,000. The donor said “I’ll give a hundred” to our caller and she was a bit disappointed at first, because she thought he meant £100 and we were starting with an ask of £1,000 for that particular campaign. But he clarified for her, and the call room basically went mad when she put the phone down…
The client (who’s still a friend) was there – it was the first couple of hours of calling after the briefing…
Overall, I’ve found political donors ($1k+ donors to the DNC in this case) to be more receptive to phone calls and more willing to give this way than others. Candidates and political parties raise far more money by phone than your average nonprofit. Why? Because they ask more by phone. That’s the culture of political fundraising, at least in my neck of the woods in Massachusetts. So what came first — donors willing to give this way, or campaigns willing to keep asking this way?
My experience for a huge range of charities in the UK, not just the one I work for now, is that pretty much EVERYONE is more likely to give when phoned! It’s just that it’s seen as expensive because people won’t look beyond the immediate year 1 return – but the phone is an absolutely great vehicle for promoting regular giving, and is a key part of the donor retention toolkit as well.