Five Tests You Should Be Running in Your Direct Mail Program

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone’s told me that “XX is definitely what works best in direct mail.” It happens all the time—and often I hear conflicting opinions on what it is that definitely works.

Yes, there are absolutely time-tested principles for good direct mail. But as direct mail fundraisers, we must be cautious about defaulting to those principles without solid data to back them up. Because what works well for one organization might not be the best way to do direct mail for another.

The same holds true for your organization’s tried-and-true standards. In a metric-driven space like direct response, it’s easy to default to the same tactics month after month. You’ve found something that brings in a solid return . . . why mess with what works? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but eventually there will come a time when “what works” doesn’t work so well anymore.

That’s why it’s essential to never stop testing in your direct response program. This is how you’ll find out what works for your organization at this moment (and what doesn’t), allowing you to tweak your methods to improve your response rate, average gift, and ROI.

If you’re looking for inspiration on where to begin, here are five tests you can incorporate into your program:

1. Stories: Maybe you’ve identified which core programs or fundraising offers have been successful in the mail. You can take that a step further and start testing stories within that offer. If it’s education for a K-12 school, you could test male or female students, younger or older, athletes or band members. After repeated testing, you might find that the best fundraising offer is a 4^th-grade female math whiz.
2. Carrier Envelope Design: The first thing that your readers see is the carrier envelope, so the appearance of that envelope is your one and only chance to get them to read what’s inside. Given the power of that first glance, it’s worth testing what it takes to get your envelope noticed . . . and opened. Consider testing things like envelope size, including photos (or not), design format, or teaser copy and location.
3. Letter Length: Have you consistently been writing six-page letters? Try a shorter one! It’s a great exercise in finding what’s absolutely essential to your case for support. If you’re great at keeping things short and sweet, run a longer version along with your otherwise brief missives. Use that space to really dive into the problem your organization is addressing—what’s the story behind it? What might happen if the project doesn’t get funded?
4. Letter Signers: While you’re mixing up those letters, try testing who signs the letter! The vast majority of nonprofits send fundraising letters from the CEO or Chief Advancement Officer, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You might find a lot more fundraising bang for buck with a letter coming from someone who’s in the trenches. Maybe that’s a nurse at your clinic, the manager of your food bank, a longstanding teacher at your school. Their personal perspective can have a powerful impact if done right.
5. Inserts: The magic behind direct mail can often be distilled to something in your package catching the reader’s eye. That might be your beautifully redesigned envelope, or a photo of the subject of your appeal. Think outside the box on what else you could add to the mail package that might catch the reader’s eye and entice them to pull out their checkbook. Is it a notecard for donors to fill out and send back to be given to the people you serve?

As you start to explore testing, there are a few critical back-end concepts you want to keep in mind.

First, in order to be a true test, it has to be random. Make sure that you (or your printer) are randomly assigning half your file to one of the two versions.

Second, tracking is essential. A test is no good if you can't assess how it performed. Consider using unique appeal codes, landing pages, and other methods to make sure that you know which mailed version to attribute each gift to.

Finally, keep in mind the statistical significance of your test. If you have tens of thousands of donors, congratulations! Your test will likely produce valid results with just one mailing. Organizations with a smaller donor file may need to run tests multiple times to validate the results. I recommend using Mal Warwick’s calculator to determine how credible your outcome is.

In summation: it’s tempting to keep using the methods you’ve always used. Maintaining the status quo is easier and testing can seem daunting. But putting in the extra work to test your direct mail methods and adjust them accordingly pays off in more donors, larger gifts, and greater ROI. Start running any (or all!) of these five tests to begin assessing how you can improve your direct mail program overall.   

---