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| Path: Main Street : Resources & Library : Research Articles : Feature Article |
Its glory days may be long gone
but direct mail still best for prospectingBy Stephen Thomas
May 15, 1995; Canadian FundRaiserNo sense tiptoeing around. I might as well address the issue that's worrying everybody in direct mail these days --- prospecting.
The glorious eighties are long gone. Acquisition is tough. Not for everybody, mind you, but the general trend is bad. So bad that Canadian nonprofits are trying hard to find alternatives to the mail.
I don't think anyone has found the alternative yet. When some organization does, it'll have a competitive advantage --- for five minutes. Then we'll all be into it. Meanwhile, here's some of what's happening:
But, and it's a big but, nothing yet seems to yield a donor as productive as one acquired by direct mail. At Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, phone-acquired donors are only half as cost-effective as those acquired through mail. PBS stations have long known that mail-acquired donors are better than television-acquired.
- Telephone: There's the shotgun "phone the book" style pioneered by Canadian Liver and Rifle Council of Canadians to The Friends of Canadian Broadcasting approach favoured by John Goyeau and others.
- Television: We've had PSAs and the old-style one-off telethons for years, but more and more groups are testing paid-for commercials. Then there are the famous syndicated telethons of Worldvision. I gather World Wildlife is trying them now, too.
- Canvass: This was fundraising in the fifties. Many volunteer programs have died, but Heart and Stroke Ontario and Alberta Lung are just two examples of those that still thrive. And then there are the paid canvasses. Best example --- Greenpeace.
- Advertisements: Newspaper and magazine ads are the methods in Britain. Not so here where only Foster Parents Plan and Worldvision seem to make them work consistently.
So we soldier on with better creative, cheaper packages and better lists.
Stephen Thomas is president of Stephen Thomas Associates, a direct mail fundraising consultancy based in Toronto. He can be reached at (416) 690-8801; Fax (416) 690-7256.
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