October 8, 1998 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Keeping the costs of direct-mail appeals as low as possible is a constant struggle for most charities. The pressure will grow even more intense starting next year, when postage rates rise and many charities will face double-digit percentage increases in their postal bills.
To make direct-mail fund raising more efficient, charities continually experiment to see what works best. Groups that have been most successful in raising money through direct mail typically test at least one new approach in every mailing they do.
In most cases, the test involves small tweaks that are barely noticeable to most recipients — such as getting rid of a sticker on a reply card — to see whether it makes a difference in the number of people who give money.
In other cases, testing takes a more radical, and potentially risky, turn. Non-profit groups try entirely new approaches and see if they succeed or fail.
Experienced direct-mail experts admit that even their strongest hunches about what will work often evaporate under the rigors of testing. “Many times people go on previous experience, but things that seem obvious frequently are not,” says Ron Sears, director of direct mail for the National Osteoporosis Foundation, in Washington.
Mr. Sears recalls one instance in which he was convinced that adding a premium — address labels bearing the recipient’s name and address — would improve returns to a longstanding appeal that his organization was using to recruit new donors. “We tested what we were absolutely sure would be a wonderful modification,” he says. “It was one of the most unsuccessful tests we ever did. We took a good package and made it into a failure.”
On the following pages are examples of how charities made changes that led to significantly improved fund-raising results. In some cases, even the tiniest tinkerings made a difference. Gay Men’s Health Crisis, in New York, for example, got more gifts simply by changing a letter’s typeface (shown at right).
Another charity, Help the Aged, in London, benefited by testing something more substantial: differences in the way that men and women respond to direct mail. Understanding the gender gap is helping the charity close in on new contributions (see facing page).
