How Nonprofit Campaigns Can Thrive with Direct Mail Fundraising

Social media and email marketing are popular for nonprofit campaigns, but direct mail fundraising remains one of the most effective ways to reach potential and repeat donors.

Direct mail offers a unique opportunity to connect with your target audience—adults with discretionary income who are accustomed to receiving physical mail.  

Surprisingly, even the generations used to digital marketing (Millennials and Gen Z) enjoy direct mail fundraising campaigns – mainly because they appreciate the personal touch that physical mail provides. Unlike an email that can be deleted without a second thought, direct mail pieces engage recipients more deeply.

Nonprofit organizations can maximize their return on investment (ROI) by reducing production and postage costs through automated mail solutions like Postalytics. With these tools, you can save more while expanding your donor base using targeted mailing lists, customized direct mail fundraising letters or postcards, and real-time analytics—all in one easy-to-use platform.

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Before we dive into the many ways Postalytics can help your nonprofit campaigns, let’s look at why automated direct mail and nonprofit marketing are such a good fit.

What we’ll Cover:

• Why do nonprofit marketers use direct mail automation?
• Nurture relationships with your donors through marketing automation
• Does direct mail work for nonprofits and fundraising campaigns?
• What are the costs associated with nonprofit direct mail marketing?
• What is the ROI of nonprofit direct mail?
• Examples of nonprofit direct mail
• Direct mail fundraising statistics 2024
• Nonprofit direct mail best practices
• Revolutionize your campaigns with Postalytics

Why do nonprofit marketers use direct mail automation?

Automation is a game-changer for direct mail fundraising efforts. But what does that mean? Automation is the software that takes over tasks that humans need to do – like sending direct mail – efficiently.  It streamlines the process, saves time, and increases productivity, allowing nonprofits to allocate more budget toward reaching their fundraising goals. 

One of Postalytics’ top priorities is to help nonprofits run the best marketing campaigns possible. Let’s look at three ways Postalytics can help nonprofits streamline their marketing process with direct mail fundraising.

1. Save time and speed up workflow

Creating a great direct mail fundraising campaign can be very time-consuming.

Traditional direct mail involves working with designers, agencies, and printers—a process that can take weeks. Postalytics has cut these time-consuming tasks required for direct mail fundraising down to minutes, thanks to our automated design solutions. 

You can use our pre-built letter template to create and design a nonprofit campaign. Customize it, then generate a PDF for your team’s approval. And then finally, hit send. You can do all this from your computer, wherever you are.

Postalytics also prints your materials with our network of commercial printers and ships them to your list within days.

2. Deep integration with your tech stack

Postalytics has created integrations with popular marketing and CRM platforms. This makes it easy to use them for your direct mail fundraising.

You can also connect your Postalytics account to more than 3,000 applications by using Zapier.

What are some of the benefits of the integration? You can send non-responders automated letters with more detailed information about your fundraising campaign. You can automatically trigger a thank-you letter for every donation and segment your mailing lists with just a few clicks.

3. Real-time analytics

If you want to know what’s happening with your nonprofit direct mail, Postalytics is the perfect tool for you. 

We offer the most comprehensive and easy-to-use analytics of any tool available. You can closely track the delivery and response status of every postcard or letter you send in your direct mail fundraising campaign. Postalytics shows you what happens to your mail in real-time after sending it, with all analytics displayed on your dashboard.

Nurture relationships with your donors through marketing automation

It’s easy to assume that people are always willing to donate. In reality, you need to convince them that you are an organization they should support and that your nonprofit should always be top of mind. 

That’s why donor cultivation is so important. When implemented correctly, nurturing campaigns strengthens relationships with your donors and creates ongoing support that keeps organizations like yours going.

Automated direct mail marketing is a tool that nonprofit marketers can use in various ways to accomplish this and enhance their direct mail fundraising efforts. 

When someone donates for the first time, visits a specific page on your website, or interacts with your organization, you can send messages triggered by automated marketing software to deliver a message tailored to those actions. Once you have sent a potential new donor an introduction or personalized welcome letter, there are ways to engage them further.

Triggered campaigns keep the conversation going

With Postalytics’ automated tools, you can easily set up and track a triggered drip campaign as part of a multi-channel donor acquisition campaign. Depending on your strategy, direct mail can be an appropriate first point of contact and a call to action to complete the donation.

It works for our customers – 72% of Postalytics customers saw higher response rates when they added automated direct mail to email campaigns. Our system helps nonprofits send highly personalized direct mail campaigns to their donor lists. It tracks engagement and shares data with other platforms via our 20+ integrations.

Does direct mail work for nonprofits and fundraising campaigns?

Direct mail fundraising campaigns are one of the best ways for nonprofits to communicate with their supporters. Direct mail appeals are a critical component of fundraising campaigns, emphasizing storytelling and personal connections. 

The best nonprofits have a robust direct mail program to drive their fundraising efforts. That’s because it’s effective, and donors enjoy receiving it.

One of the most significant advantages of direct mail fundraising is its much higher response rate than other channels. Despite all the hype around social media and email, for-profit and nonprofit organizations often get the best results with direct mail. Only 0.1% of emails are opened, while paid search has an average open rate of 0.6%.

Online display marketing is even lower at 0.2%. On the other hand, direct mail does not fare badly: a 5.3% response rate is significantly higher than these other channels. Higher response rates mean more donations, and more donations mean more money for your nonprofit.

A direct mail fundraising campaign works better than email

As a nonprofit, you probably can’t meet with every donor who gives to your organization. Many organizations use direct mail for personal communication that makes donors feel special. With so much email and digital communication, it’s hard to make donors feel human. Direct mail fundraising, when done right, offers a personal touch and feel.

Research shows that direct mail fundraising is better than email and other digital channels at building brand loyalty. A U.S. Postal Service study found that direct mail boosts customer loyalty 70% more than digital channels. That’s likely because people spend more time interacting with direct mail than digital. You’re not just clicking on a link. You have to open it, flip through the pages, fill out a survey, and (hopefully) make a donation.

While it’s essential to attract new donors, it’s just as important to keep the ones you already have. ANA reports that 70% of customers renewed their relationship with an organization due to direct mail. So, it’s an effective retention strategy for nonprofits.

What are the costs associated with nonprofit direct mail marketing?

Overhead costs for direct mail fundraising can be high when using traditional direct mail. Staff is needed to maintain high-quality donor lists and manage the design, printing, and mailing of fundraising letters and postcards.

Postalytics has developed an automated direct mail solution that handles all of the tasks needed for prospecting mail for one affordable bundled fee. This allows your staff to focus on other important tasks and save money on your fundraising strategies. Here’s how:

• Nonprofits can use pre-designed templates to create and design fundraising letters, brochures, or postcards. This eliminates the need to hire outside designers and marketers.
• Variable printing solutions will auto-populate and personalize envelopes and mailings for direct mail fundraising.
• Easy-to-use editing tools let you add QR codes so millennials using mobile devices can donate in a snap when they receive your direct mail campaign.
• We take care of postage and shipping so nonprofits can access discounted bulk mail rates from the USPS without registering as a nonprofit.
• We can reduce the number of undeliverable mailings used in your house mail strategy by keeping mailing lists clean with automatic address validation.
• Response rates are tracked and analyzed so your nonprofit organization can optimize your fundraising campaigns without needing additional resources.

What is the ROI of nonprofit direct mail?

Return on investment is an important metric that nonprofits should use to make informed decisions. It is a measure of direct mail success, but it also provides insight into how their strategies resonate with target audiences.

If you discard direct mail because social media fundraising is trending, it will diminish the potential of your marketing strategy and reduce your ROI. 

The return on $1 spent for social media fundraising campaigns is $1.23, compared to $1.35 when using direct mail. Using Postalytics for your nonprofit direct mail will lower costs. It will do so by saving time and money, as mentioned above.

What is a good response rate for direct mail fundraising?

Acquisition mail response rates range from 0.5% to 2.5%. If your acquisition costs are low or your average donation is high, a response rate as low as 0.5% may be acceptable.

The higher your response rate to your direct mail appeal, the more donors you acquire. And the more donors you acquire, the more opportunities you have to target them in the months ahead for a donation.

This will lead to more donor revenue over time.

Examples of nonprofit direct mail

COVID-19 made it difficult for our client Homestart to connect with their major donors in person to raise money. So they used Postalytics’ fundraising software solution to send direct mail pieces to reach their donors in a new way. Postalytics enabled Homestart to execute powerful direct mail campaigns quickly. Homestart used the trusted channel in a new way. It conducted high-impact marketing without the costs of traditional direct mail.

Direct mail fundraising statistics 2024

The USPS says the average American household gets 92 nonprofit direct mail pieces each year.

The Direct Mail Global Market Report 2024 reports that the direct mail market will grow by 1.5% thanks to direct mail’s high ROI and engagement. Nonprofits should look to this in their marketing plans for 2024 and beyond to generate donations and save time and money.

Nonprofit direct mail best practices

There are several best practices to follow to maximize the effectiveness of your fundraising direct mail. 

1. Get personal 

Your direct mail campaign is a conversation between you and the donor. Your direct mail appeal should tell stories that create an emotional connection. The prospective donors may never meet the letter’s sender, but they will feel like they understand the challenges they face and care.

Take advantage of the physical nature of direct mailings and show old and new donors that you’re working hard to do your best to support those in need through your nonprofit.

2. Design matters

Use high-quality design, personalized messages, and powerful stories. They should express your passion and gratitude. Invite them to trust your work and establish your credibility. With our high-quality mailer templates, editing tools, and personalization tools, this is all easy and quick to do.

3. Follow up

You may have gained a new donor’s trust by asking them to donate, but make sure you follow up afterward to keep the relationship alive. With Postalytics’ automated mailing solutions, you can easily set up a trigger campaign, including email and direct mail fundraising materials and multiple channels to keep the connection going.

4. Use segmentation

The last tip about best practices for direct mail for nonprofits is mailing list segmentation – a feature offered as part of your Postalytics account. The time for mass marketing is over. Don’t try to target all donors with the same promotional message. One of the core pieces of any fundraising campaign is personalization.

Personalization lets you treat each donor as an individual. It is based on what you know about them: their demographics, giving history, and more. With Postalytics’ Variable Data Printing (VDP) tool, nonprofits can use this personal data to personalize their direct mail letters for their direct mail fundraising audience of donors – inspiring donors to send their dollars your way.

Revolutionize your campaigns with Postalytics

Effective direct mail leads to many engagements, donations, and a high ROI for nonprofits. Digital fundraising is also an important part of the equation, but should your marketing use only direct mail? Organizations should use digital mail and mailing services together. An integrated strategy is better than relying on just one.

Too often, nonprofits neglect to integrate their marketing touchpoints in their direct mail fundraising strategy, which results in donors not engaging. When you disregard using direct mail to share your unique story in your fundraising strategy for donors, your organization misses donation opportunities.

Postalytics enables nonprofit professionals to create and manage direct mail fundraising appeals with marketing automation tools through our unique direct mail fundraising services. Using marketing automation for your fundraising strategies can transform your marketing and fundraising efforts, achieve a high ROI, and raise more donations to your cause.

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