If one acquisition mail package has a response rate of 1.1% and an average gift of $28, you’d pick that over another with a response rate of 1% and an average gift of $25, right?  All other things being equal, of course you would.

That’s the trap – all other things are seldom equal.

Let’s assume that you have a donor identity of people who are directly connected to your mission (e.g., they have the disease you are working to cure, they have adopted from your shelter, etc.) and those who aren’t.  Let’s further assume that those directly connected to the mission are worth twice as much as those not directly connected.

If your “better” performing mail piece was only acquiring those without a connection to the mission and the “worse” piece was acquiring those with a direct connection, it’s clear that you would want to take the lower response rate and average gift to acquire and retain better donors.

This is not a challenge restricted to mail programs.  With online, we measure click-through rates, opens, and impressions often without knowing whether the right people are clicking, opening, and impressed.  The street canvasser likewise is using age as a proxy for quality, if quality is measured at all.

Working from a cost-to-acquire basis obscures all of these.  As a result, you see tactics like premiums abounding.  They are great at acquiring donors, but not as good at acquiring donors who will still be with you in two years if you aren’t continuing the flow of tchotchkes.

Retention begins at acquisition – by acquiring the right donors, you’ll make your retention job much easier.

But how do you know if you are acquiring the right donors?  While it’s a good strategy to look back on the acquisition campaigns of yesteryear to determine if the donors ever paid off, it’s not exactly a way to improve your campaigns in real time.

That’s why we’ve advocated for getting feedback from your donors immediately upon acquisition.  When you know things like the donor’s commitment, satisfaction, and identity, you can also make strong predictions about who will retain and how much they will be worth.

Yes, it’s great that you can focus in on donors who are high on commitment, but low on satisfaction, as a well-timed call from donor services can create real value.  But it’s even more important focusing your acquisition strategies on the donors who will matter most and retain best.