Want to Save & Grow? Reduce Your Mailings!

Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 November 2009 07:56 Written by Kevin Friday, 1 May 2009 04:59

Dead contacts is dead money. All organisations today should be aggressively looking at their own mailing databases to cull out the deadbeat names and contacts that clearly are just draining resources and cash. Mail smarter, and grow your revenue streams by mailing less, but with more impact.

Small businesses, Non-profits and Charities are finding things especially hard at present. The obvious solution is to send out less mailers! This needn’t mean less income though. Get rid of old names, lapsed donors, or folks that they have determined shouldn’t be mailed to anymore. Where to start? Sometimes all it takes is a phone call to determine who’s important or interested, and just send to them.

Based on studies, approx 93% of your income is from around 40% of your client base. (see graph). You just need to make the time or set up a system to find out who they are. In fact by targeting and making the mailing more relevant, you’ll overachieve, easily making up the 7% shortfall. But how is this done?

Firstly, be more creative in your copy. For example—a low cost letter invitation was sent by an Aids organization to 500 of their lapsed donors that had not donated to the organization in over five years. The simple “invitation to contribute” letter, with a compelling photo of one of their clients, did the trick…it ended up with a whopping 8% conversion rate and a whopping increase in sorely needed donations.

What was so compelling to make these 40+ people respond with money? A nice little two-line sentence that read, “Won’t you help those less fortunate than you in these troubling times?” Simple and very effective, even the folks that had not responded for five years could not resist helping out!

Here they mailed less, but smarter, focusing on donors they already had in their database and provided a targeted, focused, and compelling message that shared the story that even in these disturbing times, there are still less fortunate folks out there that need your help.

Targeting is the forgotten secret to really high response rates. Look to send out different messages to different audience sectors. It’s just TOO hard to create one compelling copy that suits everybody.  Segment your database. It takes extra effort, but results are well worth it.  It’s all about creating relevancy in your communications. Making things more personal.

Good mailhouses have few problems dealing with multiple versions of letters and inserts going out to different people. The best ones [like Actionmail] even providing different, individually personalised images and photos in the message, not just a mail merge with text.

And use email more

Email communication is always less expensive than print and post. Care is needed when migrating from post to email in markets selling high value goods. i.e. you could be seen as ‘going cheap’ valuing their custom less. Remember that direct mail and email can complement each other, not directly compete, as too many believe. 

Certainly for charities and non-profits it makes perfect sense to start using email more, especially if you go with our professional online system that is graphical, automates signup, unsubscribes, and provides smart reporting, instantly telling you who opened and clicked through the articles (click on graph, right).

Many existing donors/supporters will  appreciate that you’re saving on print and post, knowing less of their precious donations is spent on costly marketing overheads and stamps. (However be careful not to over-use email to solicit donations, where it does not do well. Instead use it to keep people informed or educated).

Today graphical emails can be devised that look very professional, yet cost under 5c per recipient and you can write and send it our yourself online, anytime. Tie both direct mail and email campaigns in with an enhanced, weekly-updated website, with compelling heart-wrenching videos, and you’ll quickly gain a steady stream of new followers and donations. (Today there’s online credit card donation and subscription facilities that can be setup in minutes, with no setup fees).

But how to get those email addresses? Few people have a good email list, and unlike direct mail lists, you can’t easily go out and buy one. Those that are available are both expensive and of dubious quality. Cheap solution? Have all your direct mailings encourage people to subscribe to your e-newsletter online!

Now you have both their postal and email addresses and can chose the most appropriate delivery method for each promotion. Sometimes it will be print, other times email. Perhaps send a quarterly print mailers or brochures for bigger fundraising events and e-updates each month. Either way you’re saving money. And keep your website up to date too. If that’s difficult or too expensive, create a DIY website that doesn’t require lots of money, a graphic designer or IT geek. Try out www.blogger.com or www.typepad.com or www.wordpress.com

The goal here is to look at your database list—what sectors of your data population have you not touched in a while? Even with very little money to spread around for a test, now is the time to try something different. Now is the time to try something unique, something new to an old audience, or a new vertical market that is on your radar screen but not on the list of things to do. Now is the time to mail less, get more, and Mail Smarter.