multichannel

Ask strings (a.k.a. why you have $18 donations)

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There is no platonic ideal for an ask string.  It varies organization to organization, piece to piece.  Testing is really is the only way to determine what asks work best for your organization.

Nor is it a place where asks translate well by medium.  Generally speaking, an average online gift can be 2-3 times higher than an average mail gift (why, you ask, would you then bother with mail?  Because retention rates on online giving are much, much lower than mail or telemarketing).

There are two types of ask strings – one fixed, when you don’t know who is going to give what, and one variable, when you have a history with a donor.

Tests that work for both

  • Generally, you want at least three options.  Probably no more than seven.  In there is a lot of room for testing.
  • You will more often see ask strings ascend, but testing descending can frequently add value.  Sometimes having them somewhat out of order works best – I’ve seen controls that ask for $15, $10, $25, or $50.
  • No dollar sign. There is some psychological evidence that seeing signs of money actually make people thriftier (hence why they are omitted on pricey restaurant menus). Try without
  • What do you call your other category? Some say an indicator like “Your most generous gift:” or “Your best gift:” strikes a better chord than “Other:” (How could it not?)
  • Circle the goal. Often, you will circle an amount that isn’t your highest, but isn’t the lowest, with a note along the lines of “Your $X gift today would really help those incontinent badgers you love so much!”  The idea is to try to upgrade the donor or get a higher gift amount in acquisition.  Social proof – adding a line like “most people in [your city] give this amount – can also help.  This helps a donor classify your organization and avoids awkwardness like the question of how much you should tip your Uber driver.  (Seriously, how much should you tip your Uber driver?  Please leave comments in the notes, as it’s one thing I can’t effectively test.)

Fixed ask string tests

  • Mission tie-ins and odd amounts. Why ask for $15 when $17 is what you really need to help buy art supplies for an inner city youth?  This compelling why also creates a strong tie between the letter and the response device.
  • Social/cultural tie-ins. If you are focusing on a particular audience or demographic, some numbers have important tie-ins.  Some Jewish people believe in giving in multiples of $18 (Chai in Hebrew means living; the letters of chai add up to 18, so “giving chai” is considered to be especially fortunate).  In Chinese, eight is especially lucky and 88 more so, as the number eight is pronounced similarly to prosper or wealth.  Eight is used like nine is in the US in prices (e.g., $1.88 versus $1.99 – they really just both mean $2).  Conversely, four is unlucky in both Chinese and Japanese, because it is homophonous to the word for death in both languages.
  • Where to start? A good rule of thumb is to start your ask string around where your current gifts are, but you may find that you test up from there.  Another tip is to look at the list you are renting – if you are getting donors $20+, you wouldn’t want to start your ask string any lower than $20.  If it’s $5+, you may (or may not) go that low.
  • Do you have to use these? If you can make your acquisition purchases in segments (e.g., give me all of your $10+ donors and all of your $50+ donors), you have dual benefits – you can use the $50+ donors as multis and you can start one ask string at $10 and the other at $50.

Variable ask strings

  • Highest previous contribution (HPC) v. the previous contribution. Let’s say you gave $50 to a nonprofit, then $25.  Should they next ask you for $50, $75, or $100?  Or $25, $37, and $50?
  • Multiplier: HPC, 1.5 HPC, and 2 HPC is probably most common, but I’ve seen HPC, 2 HPC, 4 HPC, and 8 HPC be effective (on a matching gift campaign in particular, where the idea of doubling is already planted)
  • To round or not to round? If someone make an odd gift of $27, should you next ask them for $27, $40.50, and $54?  Generally not; cents don’t make sense.  $27, $41, $54?  $30, $45, $60?  Rounding out ask strings can help you get out of weird numbers that consistent upgrading can create (e.g., if you donate $30, then upgrade by 50% each time, that’s $45, $67.50, $101.25, then $151.875.  And if you haven’t got a ha’penny, then God bless you).  On the other hand, if someone is giving $18 or $88 for a reason, it also rounds that out.

As with many things, testing this online is far easier and cheaper.  But testing online is a different blog post for a different time.

Has anyone else found success with an innovative ask string?  Please post in the comments or email me at nick@directtodonor.com.

Ask strings (a.k.a. why you have $18 donations)

Your first acquisition mailings

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The first thing to know is that mail programs will generally lose money initially. Even if you have great donors and good packages at first, the cost of growing the program will likely outstrip the benefits of running it at first, especially because there are significant fixed costs in the mailing space (e.g., it costs just as much to copywrite a letter than does to 100 people as it does one that goes to 100,000).

Acquisition is where you can get into serious money. Acquisition is designed to lose money for all but the most (absurdly) conservative organization. It’s an investment in bringing new people into the organization and getting them to support you financially. Yet, it’s necessary to start to build your file and lower your marginal costs.

One way to do acquisition on the cheap is with warm and conversion leads. Warm leads are people who have engaged with your organization non-financially (e.g., remember those folks we got to download our white paper last week and give us their contact info?); conversion leads are people who have donated, but not through the mail (e.g., online donors, walkers, gala attendees, etc.). These are inexpensive ways to get new donors, as you don’t have to pay list rental fees.

The other way to get names is, not surprisingly, to pay list rental fees. Try to find organizations like yours to test their lists – often people who support an environmental/cultural/health/etc. charity support many of them. It’s much easier to convince someone to support something very like what they already support.

It also behooves you to put your list up for rental/exchange as well. This will lower your list costs because you will be trading lists with some nonprofits instead of renting theirs.

Charity Navigator will ding you for having a privacy policy that allows this, even if you allow people to opt out of list rental/exchange at any time. Like so many things in the nonprofit world, Charity Navigator is wrong about this. They would recommend, in fact, that you not mail your donors because of the cost involved and because they don’t believe that part of the mailing is a program expense designed to educate your supporters about your issue and promote awareness. That said, if you took the same mail piece and gave it out at a walk instead of putting a stamp on it, it could be considered almost entirely a program expense.

If this doesn’t seem burdened by an overabundance of logic, you would be correct. Generally, you would do well to take a George Costanza approach to Charity Navigator and simply “do the opposite” of their guidance.

In addition to rental and exchange markets, you can also work with cooperatives to get additional names. These coops include Abacus, Dataline, Datalogix, DonorBase, I-Behavior, Target Analytics and Wiland. I think I’ve tried almost all of these at some time or another. These coops share names among them and will build a model of response to get the best possible donor lists for your organization. Think of it as not renting from 10 different lists, but rather getting the best from 20 different lists. Some work better for some organizations than others and it may take a few to get it right.

The downside here is that your best names will start to get mail from a lot of different organizations. On the flipside, you have access to the best quality names from other organizations. Be sure to hold out part of your file to determine the impact of this mailing structure on your file.

After you look at your first bill for an acquisition and regain consciousness, you will rediscover the value of warm leads. Just because you started a paid mail program doesn’t mean that the free tips discussed earlier, especially about working to turn your Web site into a constituent generator, don’t still apply. On the contrary, free is often the best possible price. Adding to the original thoughts, now that you’ve run a program, look at lapsed donors as another source of (re)acquisition. Generally speaking, lapsed donors once renewed will be more loyal to your organization than an outside acquired name and they generally acquire more inexpensively.

So far, I’ve been talking about mailings – online and off – as one size fits all. In reality, if time and money were no objects, each communication you would send out would be handcrafted and uniquely personalized and there would be bespoke artisanal direct mail pieces coming out of Brooklyn and Portland in lavender scented envelopes.

In truth, you aim for something in the middle using customization. That will be the topic for the rest of the week.

Your first acquisition mailings

Next steps in direct marketing

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Hopefully by now you’ve tried out some free ways to stay in touch with your supporter base and attract new supporters and you are ready to test out spending some money on direct marketing.  I’ll start with your existing donors.

Acknowledgement

thank youOften, thank yous are an afterthought or a legal requirement.  In reality, they are a great way to deepen a relationship with a donor.  Every donor should get at least one thank you, generally in a similar format to how they gave the gift.  That is, if they mailed you a gift, mail them back a thank you note; if they gave a gift online, make sure they get an email receipt.

Please note I say “at least one thank you.”  Gratitude is something to be practiced throughout donor communications largely for its own sake, being the right thing to do and all, but it can also be profitable.  A way to dip your toe into the mail water is to start sending thank you letters to online donors of a certain amount or more.

What is that amount?  Whatever you are comfortable with to start.  You can dial back if the mailings get too onerous (a nice problem to have) or expand the program once started.

This mailing does a couple of things.  It conditions the donor to expect things from you in the mail and that those will be good things.  Also, just as it is better to be a bit overdressed instead of a bit underdressed in everywhere except the tech sector, it is better to be just a little bit more appreciative of a gift than your competitors other worthy causes.

Donor mailings

To keep your early losses to a minimum, start your mailings with a few tried-and-true pieces.  Some that generally work well are:

  • Membership pieces. Even if you are not a membership organization, creating a supporter club or whatever name you feel comfortable with gives your donors a sense of belonging to something greater than themselves alone, which is great, because they are.  Also, you then have a reason to ask for renewals each year.
  • Holiday giving, especially end of year. Online end of year will be its own topic at some point (incidentally, I count nine topics I’ve promised to talk about after only six posts; I may be creating a monster), but during the holidays works well for mail as well, where a holiday spirit generally increases response rates.  It’s also a good time to thank your donors and wish them well in the New Year and with whatever holiday(s) they choose to observe.
  • A newsletter. While traditionally a cultivation device, you can write ones that will more than pay for themselves. We’ll talk more about that in another post (ten!), but if you are champing at the bit, I strongly recommend Making Money with Donor Newsletters by Tom Ahern. You get what’s on the tin.

So that’s what to do with current donors.  How do you talk to potential donors without breaking the bank?  We’ll (try to) cover that Tuesday.

Next steps in direct marketing