Is your Direct Mail Fundraising Campaign Calling for Backup?

Your donor opens your direct mail solicitation. She reads your appeal and maybe even reaches for her checkbook. Then the phone rings. Three weeks later, your carefully crafted message sits buried in a pile of bills and receipts. Has the moment been lost?

 

Single-channel marketing outreach has a critical weakness. Once your target’s attention is diverted, the likelihood of conversion drops significantly. The solution lies in coordination of multiple touches across channels, timed precisely to reinforce your message, but without the appearance of repetitiveness.

 

A well-timed omni-channel approach gives your supporters choice and convenience. Donors engage and respond in the channels where they live – wherever it feels natural. The result is higher response and greater conversion.

When Nothing Connects

Fundraising directors know that, in theory, print and digital channels are supposed to work together. Print talks to digital, digital reinforces print. Too often, execution tells a different story. The mail piece delivers on a Tuesday. Social media posts happen days later, if at all. Emails go out whenever the marketer has bandwidth.

Nothing connects.

Timing matters more than most organizations realize. Someone who sees your social media post two weeks before the arrival of your direct mail package will not connect the two messages. A retargeting ad that appears three weeks after mail delivery has arrived too late to recapture interest.

The window for multi-channel reinforcement is narrow – typically starting three days before and ending seven days after the delivery of your mail piece. Coordination within that window requires a precise knowledge of when mail will deliver, and then triggering digital touches based on the expected delivery date. Many nonprofits lack the data infrastructure and the technical systems to accomplish this level of synchronization.

Modern mail tracking technology pinpoints delivery to individual households – arming marketers with actual mail delivery dates, rather than delivery within a range of dates. Call tracking assigns unique numbers to each campaign. QR codes report which individuals clicked through. Personal URLs log webpage visits.

An integrated omni-channel approach that uses a powerful platform like Mail Ampli-fi™ will deliver valuable information to the marketer about the audience’s communication preferences, and it results in higher conversions. Each touch in the campaign journey is visible and measurable.

Connecting with your Audience Where they Scroll

The early years of omni-channel marketing required print marketing professionals and digital marketing professionals to collaborate on design and timing to convert their target consumers using multiple touches. Depending on the platform and marketing resources available, omni-channel marketing efforts could be complex, imprecise, and vulnerable to errors.

Today, powerful tools are available that both automate coordination across channels and make the timing of touches more precise. For instance, USPS Informed Delivery®, SocialMatch and Mail Tracking, employed as part of the Mail Ampli-fi™ solution, can work together to boost and enhance your message. SocialMatch identifies mailing addresses corresponding to active Facebook and Instagram accounts, enabling automatic ad delivery to recipients at precise intervals surrounding mail arrival, and reinforcing your message in the moments when prospects are most receptive.

USPS Informed Delivery® adds yet another layer by allowing you to insert full-color, clickable ads into the daily mail preview notifications received by over 50 million American households. Prospects see your appeal digitally before it even arrives physically, priming them for the message that will soon appear in their mailbox.

Re-Hooking the Fish that Got Away

Consumers who take the step of visiting your website after receipt of a direct mail piece should be viewed as high-value targets. Their website visit demonstrates both curiosity and openness to your cause and your message. Perhaps your target is interrupted during their website visit. Maybe they navigate away to do a little research elsewhere before making a decision on a gift. For whatever reason, your high-value target leaves your website without donating, and now it’s your job to bring them back.

Digital retargeting using display ad networks provides an opportunity to recapture warm prospects. Display ads appear during your target’s visits to their favorite websites, serving to reinforce your message and remind the target to complete their gift.

Boosting Direct Mail Campaigns with Mail Ampli-fi

The fragmented character of traditional omni-channel campaigns creates coordination burdens that can kill sophisticated campaigns before they launch. Integration demands technical expertise. Synchronization requires project management chops. Data synthesis needs analytical muscle. Small to mid-sized nonprofits often don't have all the needed resources. Large organizations can build the infrastructure, but may find the overhead unjustifiable.

MCT offers Mail Ampli-fi™ to solve the coordination nightmare. Submit your list and creative. Your MCT team manages the timing, tracks your campaign’s performance, and can even generate live leads. You focus on the message, not on the machinery.

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Ready to Elevate your Next Campaign?

Leverage MCT’s omni-channel direct mail amplification tool, Mail Ampli-fi™, to boost response rates up to 46%. Boost your ROI without straining your resources. Learn more.

Transform your next direct mail campaign from conventional to extraordinary. Reach out to MCT today.

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