It’s baaack! You thought direct mail was dead but it has returned. Actually, it’s single channel communication that’s dead. Here is more proof that multichannel is alive and well.
Donors Flip Channels
Dunham+Company has new data out in “A National Survey of the Impact of Offline Communication on Online Donations.” The study was part of a Campbell Rinker Donor Confidence Survey of 510 adults nationwide who had given at least $20 to charity in the prior year.
37% of respondents said that they respond using the charity’s website when they get a fundraising letter in the mail. 53% said they still respond to mail by using the mail. 6% said the reason they donated online was because of an email appeal vs. 14% because they received a letter.
Donors flip channels. This was true even before Al Gore invented the Internet. That’s because humans come pre-wired to be multichannel. The key for nonprofits is to focus on the experience a donor has when they switch channels. Is it easy? Is it consistent? Is it personal? Or is it fragmented and clumsy? Successful organizations make channel flipping effortless and effective.
Always Read the Fine Print
It should be noted that all respondents were contacted via the Internet. That means there’s a survey bias in the results. The same coverage bias happens in telephone surveys too. This isn’t a knock against the study, but it’s important to keep things in context. What people say and what people actually do are often different.
There is also some missing information in the report that would be helpful to know like how did these donors make their first gift, how long have they been donors, how many nonprofits do they donate to, does gift amount vary by channel, etc. These answers are more likely to be found in actual data than through a survey.
Direct Mail and Consumer Behavior
The powerful combination of direct mail and online is something the retail sector has embraced. According to Experian’s Direct Marketing Report 2010, direct mail advertising represents 52% of total mail volume in the United States. 74% of households either read or scan direct mail they receive. Today, 61% of catalog orders are placed online compared to 50% in 2006. Consumers that received a catalog spent 28% more on the retailer’s site than those that did not receive one. Catalog shoppers tend to be more qualified leads when they arrive at the Website (versus those who use search engines) and thus more likely to convert to buyers.
This can be traced to a number of factors. One of which is that there is a high degree of online advertising fatigue and direct mail can bypass the screen clutter. The research continues to show that direct mail + online works very well for re-engaging existing customers. Reactivation is the new acquisition and continuing to cultivate existing donors is still a very sound strategy.
It’s Generational (Not)
The donorCentrics Internet Giving Benchmarking Group recently reviewed 2009 giving data for 14 very large nonprofit organizations. The analysis found that 2% of donors under the age of 35 only gave offline. Compare that to 10% of those under 35 that only gave online and 6% of those donors that gave both online and offline in 2009.
The same analysis found that donors age 65 or older only give offline 53% of the time. But 18% of these donors only give online and 25% give both online and offline. This busts a whole in the myth that only younger donors give online. And continues to make the case for the importance of multichannel giving options as part of a successful fundraising strategy.
There has been a lot of talk and predictions about the differences between the generations. Clearly there are differences between Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Thumb. But I think it’s naive to think that generations are all one thing or don’t change certain behaviors. These things tend to get overstated for the purposes of making headlines. Donors of all ages continue to grow their use of online channels and there’s data to prove it.
By Steve MacLaughlin on Nov 10, 2010
Tagged: direct marketing donorCentrics Multichannel online giving