The Online Yield From Direct Mail
Stacy Guidice at Grizzard sent us these interesting stats on the extent to which first-time online gifts are driven by direct mail.
Analysts at Grizzard matched first-time online gifts against mailing lists used in parallel for one of their clients, Rescue Missions.
A median of 35% of first-time online gifts could be matched back to direct mail appeals — with highs of 62% and 60% in two cases.
Maybe you online fundraisers out there owe your direct mail colleagues a bottle of wine!
Anyone else with direct mail > online stats like these to share?
Tom
9 responses to “The Online Yield From Direct Mail”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Thanks so much for raising this. Yes, capturing donor information can be helpful for stewardship like newsletters, thank-you letters, impact updates. But how you ask matters. Forcing full data capture introduces friction that can significantly depress conversion, many donors may simply abandon the process. Beyond the friction itself, required fields also shift the emotional experience […]
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Unlike holidays that everyone already knows, Giving Tuesday is a created event. Many donors recognize the name but not the exact timing, so referencing it becomes a helpful cue. It serves as a reminder and taps into social norm activation (“everyone’s giving today”), which boosts response. However, we still want it paired with the mission, […]
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When a subject line leads with the match (“Your gift matched!”), it risks triggering market-norm thinking: the sense that giving is a financial transaction rather than an act rooted in values, identity, and care. This shift reduces intrinsic motivation and, over time, can weaken donor satisfaction and long-term engagement. It also makes the email indistinguishable […]
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There’s no evidence that QR codes suppress mid-value giving; all available research suggests they either help or have no negative effect. In fact, behavioral and usability research consistently shows the opposite: reducing friction at any point in the donation process increases completion rates and total response. And that has nothing to do with capacity and […]
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What you’re experiencing is very common. Resistance often isn’t about capability, but about motivation quality. If board members feel pushed into fundraising, that triggers controlled motivation (low quality motivation) i.e. obligation, guilt, or fear of judgment, which often results in avoidance. Instead, we need to create conditions for volitional motivation (high quality motivation) by satisfying […]
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That’s a really thoughtful question, and you’re not the first to raise it. Many of our clients have been cautious about placing the ask at the very end. To address their concern, we’ve tested both approaches, and the results are clear: when the ask comes last, even if that means it appears on the second […]
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I’ve long suspected this. It’s why being in multiple channels is so important. A rising tide raises all boats. Thanks for sharing!
88% of our online gifts in this last FY were directly attributable either to our telephone or direct mail appeals.
At Amnesty USA, we did a similar analysis and found that 25% of a fiscal year’s worth of online revenue from first-time donors was contributed by recipiants of, but not respondents to, a DM acquisition piece.
Thanks for the call out Tom! I’m looking forward to seeing others comments and experiences. “A rising tide raises all boats” is a great saying for this by Claire.
I hope the online fundraisers and their direct mail colleagues are having a glass of wine while developing the initial strategy. Great results.
Tom, it is great to see more organizations recognizing the value of one channel driving gifts to another. We have been doing this type of analysis for over 10 years for our clients and find that we can attribute anywhere from 27% to over 40% of online gifts to a mail piece. In addition, to jump on last week’s telemarketing bandwagon we also see a spike in mail and online gifts from donors who say “no” to a telemarketing call. This reinforces the importance of keeping messaging consistent across channels.
Bless you guys for being a voice of sanity. Thanks a million for sharing results, all.
It’s worth considering the baseline of the ratio when doing this sort of analysis. “x% of online revenue was contributed by recipients of a DM acqusition piece” actually tells you about overstating the online revenue – which is interesting, but not normally decisive. “Income from a DM acquisition piece was increased by x% when online revenue from the recipients was also taken into account” provides clarity on the real ROI of the acquisition activity, and is critical in determining allocation of spend.
The two ratios are of course related, but not in concert with each other. Unless you stick to one, less numerate colleagues might get confused.
Yes! Finally someone writes about channel.