So you want to send direct mail. Sounds easy enough, right? Scrounge up some addresses, stuff some envelopes, lick some stamps—repeat. For some nonprofits, the process could be as simple as an employee or two sitting in a room with a mountain of labels.
But for nonprofits working with a direct-mail company, the process is considerably more complicated.
The Avalon Consulting Group, a fundraising company that serves nonprofits and political campaigns, specializes in direct marketing and uses a checklist when planning a direct-mail campaign. From start to finish, it takes almost four months.
The information below is an abridged and lightly edited version. It should orient you to the intricacies and relative timing of a professionally done mailing process.
Day 1: Get creative summary to client
Most direct-mail campaigns contain two kinds of content: control packages (tried and true materials the nonprofit has used before) and test packages (experimental material).
The creative summary is a “recommendation for what that creative test should be,” says Alison Porter, Avalon’s president. For roughly the next two months, the client and agency work out the details in the creative summary before finalizing art and copy.
Begin by determining what that test content should look like: Maybe you change the art, tweak the copy, or create something entirely different.
Ms. Porter suggests nonprofits balance creative impulses with good business sense. Flashy images and witty taglines may look tempting, but it’s important to focus on performance.
“Just because something is beautiful or super creative doesn’t mean it’s going to work,” she says. “You have to have this healthy marriage between the creative and the analytics.”
Day 17: List plan due from broker
The list plan, sometimes also called the “mail plan,” details who will receive this mailing, what portion will be new names, what portion will be lapsed donors, what percentage of the list will receive the test content, and what percentage will receive the control.
“It depends on the client and their risk tolerance, but usually we’re shooting for about 10 percent [test content],” says Ms. Porter.
A list broker, who could be an employee of the nonprofit or from an outside agency, will draw up this plan and submit it to the direct-mail firm.
Day 27: List plan to nonprofit
After going back and forth with the broker about the list plan, the direct-mail firm sends a draft to the nonprofit client.
It’s important for nonprofits to ask their consultants about why the list breaks down the way it does in terms of risk tolerance. Is there something about this campaign pushing you to take more risks? Given your financial situation, would it be better to play things safe?
The difference between 10 percent test content and 15 percent could be thousands of dollars. So ask questions.
The client reviews the list plan, and the direct-mail firm, the broker, and the nonprofit make final edits.
Day 41: Lists ordered
Ordering a mail list is the first big commitment, locking the nonprofit into using the mail list on an exact date. When you order a list you’re saying: This is when we’re going to send our appeal.
Why the specificity?
A list usually contains names provided by other organizations. Those groups often give those names contingent on a certain time window so competitors aren’t sending their donors mail at the same time they are.
If an organization realizes it won’t be able to send its mail on the confirmed date, the renting organization will have to go through the expensive process of approving every name again.
“You really need to be confident you’re going to hit your mark,” says Ms. Porter. “Otherwise you’re just wasting a lot of time and money.”
Day 49: In-house data request to nonprofit
In addition to outside names, a typical mailing will also go to people already in the organization’s donor database. These may be lapsed donors or donors who have already given a small amount and the charity hopes they will give more.
Another reason the direct-mail company asks for the clients’ donor data: to make sure it knows which names to eliminate from the broader mailing list. You don’t, for example, want to solicit someone who has explicitly asked to be removed from your list.
Remember, some of the names your organization receives from outside vendors may overlap with names on your do-not-mail list, so it’s vital to keep those lists updated. Good bookkeeping matters.
Day 56: Outside lists, in-house lists, and list of people who have asked not to receive mail are due to the merge company
The firm cross-references the in-house lists with the purchased lists to create a final mailing list. This includes eliminating names that are not supposed to get mail.
Day 66: Final art approved by client
Day 70: Proofread art and copy
Proofreading feels perfunctory, but it isn’t. Ms. Porter says typos can often derail a mail campaign at the last minute. Put the same energy into proofreading that you put into the creative process.
Day 73: Instructions, mail plan, and art delivered to production firm
You’re finally in the home stretch.
“Everything should be final,” says Ms. Porter. “The data should be ready to go. The art should be ready to go, and you’re handing it off to the production part of the process.”
Some large nonprofits have their own production arms, but most farm this part out to another firm. These are the folks who will turn your ideas and data into addressed mail.
Day 76: Data released to production company
The production firm gets all the name data. At this point it’s been merged, purged, and coded so that it exists as one big mailing file.
Day 105: Mail date
Congratulations! The envelopes have been stuffed. Your precious cargo is finally about to go public.
“Hitting your deadlines is the unsexy part, and it’s really the most critical,” Ms. Porter says. “If you don’t get the mailing out the door, everything else is irrelevant.”
An eleventh-hour error, however, that can derail an entire campaign—things like a typo or a data flaw that assigns everyone the wrong salutation.
Ideally, at this point, you’ve caught and corrected all those things.
Day 115: What to do with names that show up more than once
The process isn’t quite over.
Since your final mailing list comes from different sources, it’s almost certain you’ll have a group of names that show up more than once. These people—known as multis—are more likely to become donors, and many campaigns will mail these folks a second time after the first mailer has gone out.
“Your multis can be your strongest performers,” says Ms. Porter.
Naturally, you want to put some breathing room between the first and second mail dates to avoid irking your prospects.