Creating a Personalized Appeal
By Jenn Monroe, Marketing Communications Coordinator

It's not your imagination; the amount of mail stuffed into your mailbox is growing. According to the Graphics Arts Marketing Service (GAMIS), $36 billion will be spent on direct mail efforts this year, a number that is slated to increase 5.6% every year until 2007.

In short, this means the number of people trying to get your attention--and the attention of your donors and prospects--is on the increase. With your holiday appeal mailing around the corner, you may be worried about your message getting lost in the fray. But using a well-planned, targeted approach to your efforts will get you noticed, and increase your response rate.  

In the same GAMIS study noted above, researchers discovered a growing interest in two areas: improved targeting through database management and the use of variable content to craft more personalized and customized appeals. These areas are important because if you can demonstrate you know more about someone than their mailing address, you are on your way to building a relationship. People want to feel connected and valued, and you can meet both of these needs by creating dynamic appeals using the information in your database.

Few people will take the time to open mail addressed to "current resident" and fewer still will read it. While you most likely are already personalizing your mailings (using each individual's name and address) you also should consider customizing, versioning, or tailoring your message.

Customized appeals are written specifically for a particular target group or a certain occasion; for example, everyone who gave to your organization at a certain level in the past year. In a similar way, you can use different versions of your message for different regions. You may want to reference the change in seasons differently for donors in Colorado and Florida. Tailored appeals are the most focused because they are unique to every donor or prospect--showing you know more than their name and local weather.

Here's an example of the targeted appeal approach in action. To increase contributions to its annual fund, one nonprofit combined customization and versioning. One letter was targeted to people who had made a purchase from the organization's online store. After thanking the recipient for their purchase, the letter asked if the individual would consider furthering his or her support with a gift to the annual fund. A second letter was directed to the organization's volunteers, thanking them for their X number of hours and, again, asking them to support the annual fund. Major donors received a third version of the letter, and a fourth version was sent to donors who attended special regional events. In this way, the organization was able to reach out to every person in each of these targeted groups on an individual level.      

Does this high attention to detail work? Based on research conducted by The Digital Printing Council, using database information in creating tailored direct mail pieces can increase response rates by more than 500% over a basic, non-personalized piece.

While there is little argument that a target appeal is more effective, doing it efficiently can be a challenge. How specifically you can target is largely dependant upon how much detailed donor and prospect information you can mine from your database. One word of caution--even though you may have hundreds of defined fields to choose from, the data must flow seamlessly into your document. Never sacrifice the readability of your message in an effort to show a more personal connection with your donors.   

You can find out more about the GAMIS study The Future of Direct Mail by visiting its website, www.gamis.org.