October 8, 1998 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Some people say that men and women are from different planets when it comes to relationships. They’re also worlds apart when it comes to direct-mail solicitations from charities, a British group has learned.
Help the Aged, a London charity that provides medical and other services to poor elderly people, redesigned its appeals to take gender into account and dramatically expanded its ability to attract male donors.
With help from Target Direct, a direct-mail consulting firm in Cheltenham, England, the charity asked men and women to judge several appeals. In doing so, the group found that many men were turned off by emotional pleas, lengthy descriptions, and a lack of factual data. Women, on the other hand, appreciated more personal appeals and responded to longer, more detailed letters.
Based on those findings, Help the Aged came up with new “female” and “male” test appeals. The one for women featured a three-page letter from a nurse that described her experiences and emotions as she worked in the charity’s program to restore sight to people blinded by cataracts. A postcard-sized insert, a photograph of an elderly woman getting an eye exam, was enclosed. The appeal was similar in length and tone to the charity’s previous mailings.
The new “male” appeal for the same program was markedly different. Signed by a male executive, the letter was much shorter than the solicitation for women, just over a page long. Relevant facts, such as the cost of cataract surgery, were highlighted. And instead of a lone photograph, the appeal contained a one-page outline of pertinent information, such as the itemized costs involved in cataract operations.
The appeals were mailed to 20,000 men and 20,000 women who had never given to the charity before. Half of the men and half of the women got the solicitation designed for their own gender. The other half got the appeal created for the opposite sex.
The percentage of men who made a donation in response to the male version of the solicitation was 74.1 per cent higher than the percentage of men who responded to previous mailings from the charity.
The percentage of men who gave in response to the appeal designed for women was about the same as with the charity’s previous mailings. That was to be expected, officials said, since the female solicitation was so similar to the charity’s regular mailings.
The response among women, whether they received the male or female appeal, was also similar to that found in previous mailings. However, slightly fewer women made a gift in response to the male letter than they did when they got the charity’s previous appeals.
Now, Help the Aged is using the male approach in all of its efforts to recruit new donors — and in most mailings to current donors.
“We would like to have separate appeals for men and women, but since women respond pretty well to the male version, we’ve decided that it’s cheaper and easier to simply use the male appeal,” says Helen Wright, head of direct marketing at Help the Aged.
For more information, contact Ms. Wright at Help the Aged, St. James’s Walk, Clerk enwell Green, London EC1E 0BE; 011 44 171 250-4469; e-mail: hwright@helptheaged.org.uk.
