Mailing tips

In the never-ending quest to improve response rates and donation income from appeal mailings, Luke Pearsall offers up some tips from hard-won experience.

The Outer Envelope – Plain Can Be Best
Hardly a week goes by when a client doesn’t ask me “what works best for the outer envelope when conducting an appeal or acquisition mailing?” There are so many different types, colours, styles and shapes that it can be quite confusing.

Ask yourself this question though. If you receive a letter in a white, standard-sized window-faced envelope with your name and address showing through, and all that is printed on the front of the envelope is a return address and a postage paid symbol, would you open it? Chances are you will because you think it’s a bill or something important.
 
You have just won the first battle of engaging your prospect by getting them to open the envelope. Many charities have found that plain can be best, and some have even tested whether to include their own logo on the envelope – some get a better response rate when they leave it off.  

To Barcode or not to Barcode? That is the Question!
Barcodes, which are used by mailing houses to match up personalized pieces to go into an envelope, are another hot topic.  

As the barcode usually appears as a little strip on the left hand side of the letter, some fundraisers think this ‘de-personalises’ the letter in the eyes of the recipient. However, most people don’t even notice the barcode, or if they do, they don’t think twice about what it’s used for.  

The advantage of barcoding is that three or four personalized pieces can be combined into a mail pack, often resulting in a good lift in response rates. Examples include using personalized labels and coupons which can be matched with a letter.  

An alternative to barcoding is manual hand matching. This is laborious, time consuming, expensive, and prone to human error. As a rough guide, hand matching a personalized letter, coupon and sticker set would cost well into the hundreds of dollars per 1000 units, as opposed to using the barcode technology where you would look at a standard cost of about $65 per 1000 units.  

The Major Donor Difference
Major donors are your high-value supporters and should be treated as such! If you can segment them out for a mailing and tailor a specific letter to them then do it.  

The use of variable fields within the letter-text can help greatly. For example you might be able to recognize a person’s specific support to a previous appeal. You can also insert higher ask amounts into the letter to raise the sights of your donors.  

Another tactic is to use a different envelope from your standard mailing. Use a C5 or C4 non-window faced envelope and inkjet the address using a font that looks like it’s been hand-written. Hand apply an actual postage stamp to increase the personalized ‘look’.  

This can all be done by a mailing house and because major donors are usually in the tens or hundreds, not thousands, the cost is minimal, especially when compared to the return. One client tested the above envelope tactic and received a 30% increase in funds from that group.  

A couple of other ideas that I have seen that can lift response rates and donations are the use of post-it notes and photos. Get your CEO to hand write a brief message and his signature on post-it notes which can be stuck to the first page of the letter. The message can be very simple such as “urgent attention to letter” or something similar. This just draws the reader’s attention to the letter and makes them feel like they are receiving special attention.    

Including actual photographs in the mail pack which illustrate your great work in the community or your beneficiaries is another extra little way to motivate donors and can prove financially rewarding.    

It all comes back to how far you want to push the envelope (pardon the mail house pun). You need to look for that edge that will really make your donors want to give more, and the best way is to go as far down the personalized track as you can budget for.   

Luke Pearsall is the senior account manager at iGroup Australia and is a 10-year mail house veteran.