Boost Donor Campaign Awareness with Interactive Direct Mail

  • by Michael Wolaver, Founder/Captain of Magellan Promotions

All collegiate fundraising campaigns start with a goal. It could be to raise a certain amount of money, or to increase the number of donors. Whatever the goal is, there needs to be a marketing strategy.

One of the most important components of the marketing strategy is to create awareness and excitement about the campaign. If the donors are not engaged, hitting the campaign goals will be difficult.

Multi-channel engagement strategies often lead to higher success rates because they reach the potential audiences in different ways. It may take several communications for the campaign message to be seen and remembered. Thus taking a multi-pronged approach when communicating the message pays off, figuratively and literally!

An important component to multi-channel marketing is including a physical touchpoint with the audience. With these types of campaigns, this often means a direct mail piece. Direct mail as an awareness tool is powerful because it:

  • Provides a tangible element to the campaign
  • Allows for creative ways to share messaging
  • Guarantees your audience will see it 
  • Stands alone with less competition for attention 
  • Builds a better connection with high-value donors 

 

However, traditional direct mail often lacks an interactive or surprising element that takes it to the next level. And to make mailings interactive, you don’t have to break the bank. 

For example, one of our most popular direct mail pieces are the sticker postcards. These are popular because they allow for plenty of room to share messaging while providing coveted stickers. Stickers are still one of our most popular products as people love to show off their affiliations. You can provide the opportunity to do so very inexpensively (the standard 4” x 6” option can run under $0.50 each). Fundraisers can level up these stickers by using artwork that’s specific to the campaign or that features unique attributes of campus.

The University of Hartford used sticker postcards to create awareness for their giving campaign and had record success. To learn more, read their project story. 

Targeted Mailing

When a campaign focuses on a targeted audience, interactive direct mail pieces can play a role in providing a physical touch point. For example, capital campaigns should include an element that targets a smaller group of high potential donors. With campaigns such as these, the goal is to influence behavior through inspiration and storytelling which can be achieved by providing a first class donor experience.

One option we love for these purposes are pop up cards.These are perfect because of their surprise element. When they are opened, a fully custom feature “pops” up on the card. The feature could be a new building that is being fundraised for. The cards are full color and have a nice, rich hand to them. With their quality and uniqueness, donors are likely to feel excited about the opportunity and showcase it in their homes. Since all are created from scratch and come in different sizes, there are many ways to create an impactful and long lasting moment.  

 

Interactive direct mail helps raise awareness

 

There are numerous ways to make your direct mail interactive. It starts with deciding who the audience is, what impact you want to make, and then choosing the item that will inspire your donor the most!  

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Variable Data Best Practices

  • At the quoting stage of your project, please let us know how many fields of variable data your piece will have as this can affect pricing.
  • Data should be provided to us as an Excel spreadsheet with only the applicable data included.
  • Verbiage for variable data fields on artwork file should match up exactly with data fields on spreadsheet.
  • Spacing on artwork must allow for longest data entries. We recommend that your designer tests this in advance to confirm that the fields in the design can fit your longest pieces of data.

Postage Permits

We are happy to mail using a client’s USPS non-profit number. Here are a few best practices for this to go smoothly. Let our team know up front on the project so we can make sure to get the information we need right away. 

While our mail house does prefer to use their permit number for the mailing, we can use the client’s permit, If using their permit number, ensure there is enough postage to cover the mailing.

The information we need to in order to use a client’s nonprofit number includes the following:

  • CRID (customer registration ID)
  • Non-Profit Authorization Number (with USPS, not their nonprofit number for the university)
  • Non-profit indicia
  • Return address that is on file with USPS for the non-profit authorization number
  • Permit number

Formatting the Mailing List

Our account team will advise on specific requirements for your project’s mailing list.  We generally recommend these best practices to format the mailing list:
  • Send your data in a spreadsheet, saving it in the comma-separated values (CSV) format
  • International addresses must be separated from domestic addresses
  • Domestic addresses should at least contain data fields for “first name”, “last name”, “address 1”, “address 2”, “city”, “state” and “ZIP code”