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If you're asking yourself whether or not direct mail is dead, then you're asking the wrong question
There’s too much talk about whether or not direct mail is dead.
Of course it is NOT dead! I get direct mail delivered to me every day.
The question should, instead, be: Why is BAD direct mail still alive?
BAD direct mail should be killed, dead.
Good direct mail should be kept alive.
More questions: So what about your direct mail efforts? Are they good or bad?
Are they cost effective and efficient?
Are they targeting the right people at the right time?
Or, are they splattering a lot of “suspects”?
Are they environmentally friendly?
Are they highly personalized and relevant?
Are they timely?
Are they donor-centric?
Emotional?
Have they been tested and optimized?
Have you compared the results of your direct mail efforts with the results attained from other channels?
What do your donors think of them?
Have you sought their permission to send them direct mail?
Do they merely tolerate them?
Do you have any idea how many people got pissed off because of them (swearing they’d never give you a single penny ever again)?
Are you on your organization’s list? You should be! Then you’ll see what it feels like to get your direct mail.
These are the questions you should be asking. Not whether direct mail is dead or not.
Recommendations
>> NonProfit PRO: 12 Ideas to Raise Response to Your Nonprofit Direct Mail
>> The Fundraising Authority: What Every Non-Profit Ought to Know about Direct Mail Fundraising
>> Pamela Grow: What’s in my Mailbox
>> 3 ways to use direct mail effectively in the age of social media
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Feeling like your job is getting harder because donor expectations have changed and competition for the charitable dollar is growing?
Finding that the old orthodoxies and conventions espoused by so-called experts in online echo-chambers and at conferences don’t work anymore?
Want to help more people make impact by facilitating their acts of philanthropy but feel like too many obstacles keep getting in your way?
Then this book is for you.
Engagement Fundraising was developed from the perspective of a donor who discovered firsthand that the impersonal, spray-and-pray approaches of his beloved charity were not only offensive but also wasteful and ineffective. So he took action. And now, you can too.
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Spot on! What donors reject are the useless, poorly written and constructed appeals with no prior attention to their needs, concerns and issues. If our organizations communicate in such a self-centered, careless fashion, how can we expect our donors to respond at all?