Direct marketing to your supporters

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When direct marketing fundraising is good, a relationship builds between the supporter and the charity that will give enormous pleasure to the supporter and a good income for the charity.  There might be 100,000 supporters who each give £200 in the time they support the charity – that’s £20m! Reduce that down to a much smaller number for a local charity and it still makes sense! And £200 is a low Lifetime Value for a supporter.

If the relationship is REALLY good then, in time, the supporter will be happy to leave a gift in their will when they die - the average legacy gift nowadays is around £18,000.  So there’s a huge benefit in getting direct marketing right.

So, what is direct marketing and how do you get it right?

A definition of direct marketing

Direct marketing is talking to supporters so they end up responding with a donation. The response may not be immediate but it has to happen for it to be direct marketing.

There’s lots of ways of talking to supporters, the main four are these:

• mail (often called direct mail)
• telephone
• email
• SMS text.

The older the supporter, the more they enjoy direct mail.  Younger people respond to SMS, communications through Facebook and so on, but these media are very much more challenging when trying to raise money. 

And remember, older people (over 50 or so) have a GREAT DEAL more money to give than young people, plus those over 65 have a giving ethic built in from birth.  So, profitable direct marketing fundraising starts with older people and direct mail.

Finding new supporters

‘Cold recruitment’ is when a charity is looking for a new person to give their first gift. Direct mail is a great way of doing cold recruitment.

A charity might buy a list of people and send them a mailshot about its important work. The lists might be mail-order product buyers, people who have shareholdings, people subscribing to a magazine or just lists compiled from members of the public who are happy to give their address details and interests.

New supporters will also come from:

• TV and radio
• inserts in magazines
• door drops (a letter with no address)
• banner ads and widgets on the web
• newspaper advertising
• face-to-face on the street or door-to-door.
• in fact, anywhere a potential supporter is so moved by the needs of the charity’s client group, that they give a donation.

So, how do you ‘move’ people?

Most people are innately caring and ENJOY the feeling that, by making a donation, they have done some good.  They won’t express it that way but that’s what they will FEEL and it is a very deep-seated and dearly held feeling. The direct marketing fundraisers job is to make their supporters FEEL good about their support.  That way, the supporter will give again when asked.

Making people FEEL good when they give

Start by answering the question ‘Why should I give your charity £100?’  If, in your answer, you simply list the things the charity does (however wonderful they may be), then you will NEVER get that £100.

Nobody is interested in what your charity does (except you!), they are only interested in what it ACHIEVES when it does it.  Therefore you need to tell me what your charity will achieve with my £100.

And when you’ve got my £100 and you’ve thanked me (you must always thank me, whatever sum I have sent) you take the opportunity to confirm the difference that MY money has achieved.

So I feel good when I send my money off to your charity and I feel better when I am thanked and told about the impact my gift has had.

Building the relationship with your supporters

Here are some tips:

• Supporters indicate their areas of interest by what they do or don’t respond to.  Take note and mail them with appeals that interest them.
• Give regular feedback on the impact that supporters’ money is having – send newsletters, emails, casual updates etc.  But don’t send boring monthly emails that you might find easy to produce
• Keep in touch as often as they indicate (more response from them, more ‘keeping in touch’ from you) but don’t always ask for money.
• Always be courteous and sensitive….but of course you also need to raise donations so you have to ask for money quite often
• You are dealing with people who care about your work so much that they make donations, and they might leave you a legacy.

How do you actually DO direct marketing?

Direct marketing is an advertising skill that is difficult and has to be learned.  Two parts to it – writing good copy and all the mechanical stuff of printing mailshots, getting them in the post, sending out emails, organising SMS or face-to-face campaigns, etc.

Good copy starts with great stories.  Stories of NEED for which the charity is providing the perfect SOLUTION.  Don’t show abject, desperate need.  Hint at it, indeed make it clear, but focus on the faces that are smiling as a result of the SOLUTION provided by the charity.  The proposition for the appeal is then simple – ‘your donation can help more people like (name of smiling person)’.

Client-facing staff in charities don’t like providing stories (case studies).  Make them - their salaries are paid by the sums you raise!  But it’s best if you explain WHY you need great stories and get their support.

But writing emotional copy (and fundraising is all about EMOTION) is difficult.  Get training, employ a freelance writer or a direct marketing agency.  DON’T think you can do it yourself without one of those three.  Most people who try, fail.

The mechanical stuff of direct marketing – some tips

• In a mailshot, the ONLY purpose of a message or picture on an envelope is to get the envelope opened.
• Enclosures in envelopes always boost response – pens (flat ones in the UK), address labels, window stickers and best of all, something relevant to the story.
• Be smart: for instance, don’t write copy from a child that no child would ever write or pretend a mailing is coming from India when its clearly not.
• Always provide a Freepost return envelope.
• Don’t do ‘clever stuff’, it never works.
• Always get three quotes on any print or production process.
• If you are telephoning or working face-to-face, work to a script that is sensitive to the supporter’s wishes
• Don’t use Flash on emails (unless you know the supporter’s computer can cope).

Final tips to make you a great direct marketing fundraiser

• Talk to your supporters - invite them to meetings to learn about your charity’s work, do research into their motives for supporting you, answer all their letters, treat them as if they were close friends.
• Talk to your charity’s ‘clients’ - the children you help, the old people, the animals.  Talk to colleagues who work with them.  If you are moved by the stories you hear….then your supporters will be moved as well.
• Invite your best supporters to have a closer relationship with your charity, invite them into a (probably virtual!) inner circle of ‘close friends’.  Supporters enjoy ‘intimacy’.

Good luck with your direct marketing!

Stephen Pidgeon
 Ideas Engineer at Tangible, a Cheltenham-based agency specialising in direct marketing fundraising.

Useful links

• Direct marketing code of practice (Institute of Fundraising)

• Sofii is a comprehensive site full of interesting stuff, including examples of some of the best materials ever produced
• fundraising.co.uk is always full of relevant comment on the sector
• You’re mad if you don’t sign up to Andrew Papworth’s razor-sharp view of charity marketing.  Email him on ap@markquest.freeserve.co.uk
• fecundfundraising is an intelligent fundraising blog
• blog.basini.com and parkeslife.blogspot.com are interesting commercial marketing blogs
• Definitely keep in touch with theidm.com/blog/subjects/direct/

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