This month, we bring you two Avalon client case studies, describing how we capitalized on our clients’ distinctive qualities to improve lackluster donor prospecting results.

 

The National Museum of the American Indian’s donor acquisition performance had suffered since the recession, and the two formerly strong co-control packages were starting to stumble.  Avalon was tasked with finding a new and creative way to attract donors in a more cost-effective manner.

This month’s case studies focus on ramping up a client’s appeals performance, and how Avalon helped another recruit more sustainers with less investment.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s appeals program was flat. Avalon dug into the core of their message, reviewed past appeals along with their performance results. Based on our analysis, Avalon recommended shifting from a single-issue approach to an institutional message that stressed the depth and breadth of the Task Force’s work. It was important for the Task Force to clearly distinguish itself from its competitors. To that end, Avalon created a new annual giving program called the Pride Fund.

This month, we bring you two more Avalon client case studies, describing year-end and eRenewal campaigns that were performing well – could we find room for improvement?

 

As with any nonprofit organization, the year-end appeal is typically the League of Women Voters’ strongest appeal. In the fall of 2011, on the cusp of the Presidential primaries, Avalon and the League sought to take advantage of the giving season and the League’s relevant issues in the news to maximize giving.

The League of Women Voters has a mature prospecting program. Like many well-established direct marketing programs, it was necessary to prepare for the future marketplace and go beyond traditional trades and exchanges. Avalon designed a modeling program to increase the League’s ROI, and give it a competitive edge in the mailbox by more tightly targeting our prospective donors.

We wanted to share with you a couple more case studies from Avalon’s MAXI Award submissions – the first is a direct mail donor acquisition test, and the second a multi-channel campaign.

 

While our primary objective was to acquire new and valuable donors for our client Farm Sanctuary, it was also important to know if an acquisition audience would be more responsive to tragic or cute animal images on the carrier. The control package focused heavily on the cruelty of the factory farming system and featured a bleak image of a downed pig on the carrier. Conversely, we had had much success with an email campaign featuring a cute animal.

Here are our Top Six Testing Tips:

To continue Avalon’s 10 essential elements of direct marketing testing:

To kick off our new Best Practices section of FYI, let’s run through Avalon’s 10 essential elements of direct marketing testing, and tips for setting up a good test:

Avalon has run a number of successful tests in our marketing efforts recently, so I’d like to share a few of our best results:

• In an acquisition program for an environmental advocacy client, we created a new control package by borrowing from a successful online appeal to update our existing control. We designed a new, visually compelling carrier and a new lead for the letter that referenced the envelope photo. We saw a 27% lift in response and a huge increase in net per thousand – a terrific reminder that a fresh, winning prospecting package may be hiding among your non-acquisition materials…

Test, test, test – and tested we have. Each of our clients has had some interesting results this summer that have strengthened their programs.  There is one, though, that really stands out for me.