Direct Mail Fundraising Tests: Follow these Eight Rules for Success

The best way to improve your direct mail fundraising program is through testing. Don’t follow fads, board whims, or a gut feeling that turns out to be indigestion.

Instead, test. And, to save money and time (and further indigestion), follow these eight rules.

Rule #1: Test things that are significant
Don’t test a blue signature versus a red signature. It’s too expensive of a test. Don’t test Times Roman versus Arial. Test things that are significant. In other words, test a six-page letter versus a two-page letter. Test a full-color package versus a black and white package. These would be significant tests.

Rule #2: Test things you can control
You can control your printing, you can control the length of the letter, you can control the photography, and so on. Don’t test things that you have no control over-for example, mailing during a recession. You could have no control over that in the future.

Rule #3: Make your test large enough to be significant
Mail at least 5,000 pieces to get 50 responses at a one percent response rate. Fifty responses is considered the minimum number you must generate to achieve a trustworthy test.

Rule #4: Test one thing at a time
If you mail a package and it does really, really well and you think, “Oh, we can improve this package,” don’t do a test where you mail a similar package but you change the headline and you change the teaser copy on the envelope and you change the reply device and you change the postscript, because if the second package outperforms the first package, you won’t know what was responsible for the improvement. Was it the teaser copy on the envelope? Was it the headline? Was it the reply device? Was it the postscript? You won’t know. Test one thing at a time to be sure.

Rule #5: Don’t let large gifts skew your results
When you examine your campaign results, you see gifts of $25, $35 and $45, which is typical. But then you see a gift of $15,000 in response to the same campaign. That number will skew your results if you let it. Your spreadsheet for this campaign may tell you that the average gift was $92, but that’s because of this unusually large gift. If you take this one gift of $15,000 out of your calculation, your average gift will likely be closer to $36.

So be careful about large gifts. Remove them when you’re doing calculations to measure what your net income will be. Expect your average gift and your cost to raise a dollar to be skewed by large gifts.

Rule #6: Test acquisition mailings for people, not profit
Concentrate on acquiring loyal donors in the greatest numbers at the lowest cost. Enough said.

Rule #7: If you are starting out in direct mail, aim to acquire as many donors as possible
If you’re just starting in direct mail and you’re obviously starting with donor acquisition, aim to acquire as many donors as possible, not to make as much money as possible. Success in the mail comes after the first gift.

Rule #8: Test every time you mail
If you’re mailing to a large number of people, always test something. Test two asks, test the ask string on your reply device, test the teaser copy, test the length of the letter, test the signatory, test something of significance every time you mail. You’ll learn a lot, and you’ll improve your packages and your approach over time.

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