Posted on Tue, Jul 06, 2010
By Bill Goldstein, Vice President, Client Services
Yoda would have made a fantastic marketer. Being a diehard fan of the Star Wars films (yes, even the prequels); I cannot tell you how often his little nuggets of wisdom apply to our roles as direct response marketing strategists.
As we look forward to developing smart and innovative tests to grow our clients’ membership sizes, retain members, reduce expense, and improve revenues, consider some of these great quotes and how we can take them to heart in our testing strategies.
“Size matters not ... Look at me. Judge me by size, do you?” Too often, the tests which have the largest impact on our programs revenue and performance are the ones with the smallest changes to our packages and segmentation strategies. How many times has something as simple as 1st vs. 3rd class postage, a return address envelope vs. business reply envelope, or removing an insert dramatically improved results? It is important for us to be innovators. It is just as important to use best practices.
“Mind what you have learned. Save you it can.” Have you reviewed your client’s past testing results? Have the winning tests been rolled out yet? A strong testing agenda builds on what has been done so you are not repeating the same tests over and over again. If you have tested BRE vs. RAE multiple times, what is the consensus? You can save a client considerable expense by not repeating tests that are clearly one-sided.
“Always two there are, no more, no less: a master and an apprentice.” We spend considerable time and expense developing new messages, creative and testing strategies to improve programs. But all that work is for naught if the control and test are not correctly set up. Make sure you have isolated only one variable that you are comparing, such as segments; there is a stratification of the data; and a large enough sample size to read results.
“Always in motion is the future.” A smart marketer never accepts the status quo. As direct marketing strategists, it is our job to always test the conventional wisdom for our client’s programs.
"Reckless he is. Matters are worse." While it is criminal to rollout 2 million pieces of acquisition mail without a single test – we also do not want to throw a bunch of tests into a large campaign to say we did testing. Test smart and test with a purpose! If possible develop a testing agenda during the budget process and lay out your strategies for the next 12 months.
May the force be with you.
Let us know what testing strategies you use? What’s made the biggest impact?
Posted on Tue, Jun 22, 2010
By Suzanne Kirkendall, Production Manager
Regardless of the state of the economy, direct marketers and their clients are always looking to save a buck. The production process is the most costly part of the direct mail process, and as a result offers the most opportunities to save money!
1. Try downsizing. Take a look at your current packages and consult your production team about alternate sizes for components – newsletters, calendars, brochures or other inserts, for example. Sometimes even a minor change in size may provide cost savings if it means running more efficiently on press equipment – a better fit on the press means less paper and less waste.
2. Change paper stock to help offset rising paper prices. Consider reducing paper weights – Instead of the usual 60# paper stock, try 55# paper for your letters, or for a two page letter or insert use 50#. For some inserts, you can even try a lower paper grade. Small changes can lower cost without lowering quality.
3. Use existing dies. Is a custom die cut necessary for a window envelope or address labels, or can you design around an existing die that you’ve used before, or a printer already has in inventory? You can save hundreds this way in die cut charges.
4. Gang run your printing. You can significantly lower your print costs if you can gang run whenever possible. For example, you may be printing for a large prospect mailing and you plan to use same or different versions of some components in subsequent appeals. Gang printing these components can save on costly set up charges and lower costs on your overall budget.
Are you printing OEs and BREs for an ongoing acknowledgement or renewal program, but can’t print for 6 months or a year? Often you can work out a lower negotiated price with a printer if you can commit to an annual volume.
5. Piggyback. For print jobs that might be cost prohibitive to smaller organization, piggyback with another of your production vendor’s clients print run and share the savings. Because of our large annual print volumes at AH&A we can offer savings to all of our clients.
6. Commingle. Maximize your postage discounts! One of the best ways to reduce you postage costs is through commingling. If you are not currently commingling your mail, it is simply the process of combining several mail streams from multiple mailers into one mailstream, which can result in big postage savings. If you’re not sure about your savings potential, a postage cost savings comparison can be provided by your mailshop.
7. UAAC or PCOA. Don’t waste money on undeliverable mail. NCOA (National Change of Address) is based on information submitted to the Post Office. But did you know that up to 40% of moves are not reported? The address you may have on file that has been processed through NCOA, may be valid, but the addressee my not reside at that location due to death, divorce, etc. Running your file against UAA (undeliverable-as-addressed) national databases such as UAAC or PCOA, you can suppress those UAA mailing records saving printing, mailing and postage for undeliverable mail! Charges apply only to matches found, and the savings far outweighs the cost per suppression.
As great as these suggestions are, there are still even more ways to save money on production costs! What are YOUR favorite cost cutting tips?
Posted on Tue, Jun 08, 2010
By Pete Carter, Senior Vice President
Regardless of the success of your direct marketing program, it is very important to occasionally take a step back and re-evaluate what you are doing. With these 10 questions, you’ll know where to start and once you answer them, you’ll be amazed by what you’ve learned!
1. To whom am I mailing? I start with this question because it’s probably the most important. Even the most creative, compelling message won’t work if the audience isn’t the right one. And just because electronic contacts are low-cost doesn’t mean that audience selection isn’t just as important when sending emails.
2. Is my data clean? To obtain postage discounts, the Post Office requires periodic file cleansing using standard NCOA processing. But you can do more – from “max” or “preferred” change of address processing offered by various vendors to simply staying on top of donor comment mail, and emails. Like the NCOA for postal addresses you should also have a twice yearly ECOA run on your email file to ensure you have the most current emails for your file. People change/drop email addresses FAR more often than they change their address or even their phone numbers. Clean data leads to higher net productivity.
3. Am I over-designing? Direct marketing isn’t the place to get too adventurous with complicated designs. (For more on nonprofit fundraising design, check out A Look At Style by Chris Quillian) The #1 goal is readability, on the computer screen and on the printed page. So leave out the reverse type, for example, and be careful to avoid clutter
4. Will my donors/members care about this message? So often, organizations get caught up in anniversaries, milestones and other celebrations that have great significance internally, but don’t really mean a great deal to those on the outside. Consider carefully - will they really care? Check out last month’s Dear Jim for more tips on using anniversaries well.
5. Am I spending too much, or too little, on postage? Postage savings can be maximized by co-mingling. Conversely, high dollar donors deserve first-class treatment (and that applies to more than just postage!). A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work when it comes to determining postage rates.
6. Am I suffering from multiple-personality disorder? If your online and offline messages aren’t integrated, the answer is probably “YES.” Your message should be consistent across all channels.
7. Am I being polite? Saying thank-you promptly isn’t just good manners – it’s good marketing. Your acknowledgement program – online and offline – should be sincere, relevant and personal. Leave the donor/member with a good feeling, and they’ll be predisposed to give when asked again.
8. Am I prepared for an emergency? How will you communicate with your donors/members in an urgent situation? Are systems in place that allow for rapid turn for electronic, telephone and direct mail communication in an emergency? AH&A’s urgentgram format is an excellent solution for getting in the mail as quickly as 2-3 days after a crisis.
9. Am I getting the best possible cost for my marketing materials? A seasoned production shop like the one at AH&A will be able to competitively bid each campaign to multiple vendors. And our significant annual mail allows us to negotiate excellent costs for our clients.
10. Is my list generating all the income it can? List rental (with permission!), affinity credit cards, and product merchandising are all ways to increase income from your list – but as always, proceed with caution on this front.
As important as these questions are, there are still more ways to improve your marketing strategy. What would you suggest?
Posted on Thu, May 06, 2010
The Abigail Van Buren of fundraising gives it away for free.
By Jim Hussey
I’ve decided to offer my advice to all of you out there with questions about your fundraising troubles - a sort of “Dear Abby” column for the fundraising forlorn. I'm even willing to dole out this advice free of charge. Those with questions need not fear a monthly retainer bill or any other type of charge. Just please don’t tell any of my clients I'm giving it away for nothing! :-D
Since this is a new idea, I have no letters to answer — yet (though I expect my inbox to swell soon!) — so to start the ball rolling, I’ve simply forged some on my own, based on questions I frequently hear. I'm hoping it’ll inspire you to comment with your own queries.
Dear Jim,
I come to you with an urgent problem. My boss has told me that I need to conduct “regression analysis” concerning previous fundraising campaigns for my organization. I hate to admit it, but I don’t even know what regression analysis is. I don’t want to appear stupid to my boss … can you please help me by explaining this term?
Sincerely, Unanalyzed
Dear Unanalyzed,
This term is a catch-all phrase for any type of analysis that utilizes previously gathered information. For example, if you want to figure out if men or women are more likely to respond to one of your fundraising solicitations, you can take the response data of previous campaigns and compare these results to the initial audience. Let’s say the results show that 50 percent of the original audience was male, yet 75 percent of your respondents are female … then you've figured out that women are your best prospects. Regression analysis also can be used to determine a multitude of other factors, such as seasonality, and retention and attrition rates.
Dear Jim,
My nonprofit organization is about to celebrate an important anniversary, and my boss wants me to develop a fundraising campaign around this date. Is this a smart thing to do?
Sincerely, Perplexed
Dear Perplexed,
Anniversaries can serve as an indicator to potential donors that your organization has stamina and isn't a fly-by-night operation. However, it’s always critical to remember that donors never provide you with a reward for past service. Donors always contribute toward a current or pending situation. A sense of urgency almost always is a requirement to any successful fundraising campaign. So proceed with your anniversary campaign … but put most of your focus on the present and future.
Comment with your Dear Jim questions and I'll answer a few each month!
Posted on Tue, Apr 20, 2010
By Shannon Murphy, Vice President of Production
It’s the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day! As you know, more and more of today’s mail is our beloved “Dear Friend” letters, so it’s vital that we do the most we can to follow the old adage of the three R’s: reduce, reuse, and … of course … recycle to make direct mail as eco-friendly as possible.
Even kids know the importance of recycling. My 6-year-old often comes to me and asks if she can recycle the newspaper or a magazine. Then she walks with great pride to the recycle bin because she knows that this paper will now get a second life and be used for something new, maybe even one of Mom's direct mail pieces.
Do you ever wonder how in the world they take the paper from my magazine or newspaper and use it again? Well, here's how they do it:
Step 1 You first place your newspapers, magazines and other papers to the curb for the recycling truck to pick up.
Step 2 Paper from your house and other homes is combined and sold to a paper dealer.
Step 3 Once at the paper mill it goes through a chemical process called de-inking, in which ink and sticky materials are removed from the paper and the fibers of the paper are separated and turned into pulp.
Step 4 The pulp is bleached and wood chips are added to give strength to the paper.
Step 5 The pulp is poured onto a belt which drains the moisture. By the time the pulp reaches the end of the belt, it's strong enough to go through the steam-heated rollers to create a flat sheet of paper.
Recycled paper is used more and more in today's direct mail industry. Organizations want their donors or clients to know that they are environmentally friendly. There are different percentages of post-consumer waste in paper. The most available stocks are composed of 10% and 30% recycled materials. The higher the percentage you want to use, the more costly the paper will be. While we want to show the people receiving our mail that we do our part saving the environment, we simply can’t break the bank in the process.
So what type is right for you? Before making any decisions on what paper to use, make sure you ask your production team to research the different options for you.
And it’s not just the paper for your letters! It’s the carriers, address labels, and even your membership cards. Just think of all the paper products that go out to your supporters and members and ask your self could we be greener?
Happy Earth Day! I wish you many years of green trees, warm sun and blue skies.