If you're using both direct mail and email channels for solicitation, write the direct mail first. It's easier to cut content than add to it. So, you can start with a longer direct mail version and then edit down to a more concise version for your email. Maintaining the feeling of the story with half the words is tricky and takes some practice, but you'll refine your skills over time. Use an impactful subject line that attracts attention, but be careful of language that will land your email on someone spam filter. Also, use variable data in the subject line or the body content. People like to see their names and are more likely to read your message. And consider pull quotes, they can be very effective in email solicitations. Use them if it makes sense for your story. When you're crafting your subject lines, make them attention grabbers. The subject line should tie into your message and you want to pull out the mid of the message and use it here. This is your chance to get your donors to see your message and open it. If you don't grab them with the subject line, you'll end up in their trash folder. If you can, I would also use variable data in the subject line or in the body content. In general, people like to see their names and are more likely to read your message if it's included. I recall only one instance where this wasn't the case. We had split the audience for an email solicitation in half to test if personalizing was more effective for open rates. The audience for this test was older with the majority falling into the baby boomer and senior generations. The open rate from the personalized version was substantially less than the open rates for the generic subject line. We learned from this audience that personalizing didn't work, and we hypothesize they didn't trust the technology. It was the only time I've seen this, but it's a good example of testing and learning what your audience responds to. Another good tool for email solicitations is the pull quote. I found them to be effective in email solicitations and would use them if it makes sense for your story. Pull out a meaningful sentence from the message to drive home your story and make a case for support. They work like a PS because people will read them first, and sometimes, it's one of the only things they read. If it's actually a quote from someone, be sure to caption the quote. Email solicitations need to be mobile-friendly. According to Blackbaud's recent charitable giving report, how non-profit fundraising performed in 2015, nearly 14 percent of online donations were made on a mobile device. With the number of people viewing email from their phones growing every year, this isn't a surprise and it shows we need to make our email communications and our giving sites mobile-friendly to meet this demand. We need to make it easy for our donors to give, how they want to give. And again, like direct mail, you have to ask in an email solicitation. You can even use more urgent language and emphasize the need to act today, but ask and make it easy to give. Use tracking mechanisms and analytics on your links and give buttons so you can track who is opening your emails and what they are clicking on. If you have the technology, appeal code your links as well. Your give button should also link to where you want the donor to give. It's important that your donor doesn't have to work too hard to figure out where to go once they hit the give button. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. A give button links a donor to a landing page where they have to hit another give button. That takes them to a page where they have to choose between multiple options for giving. Once the choices made, they can make their gift. That's a lot of work with too much opportunity for the donor to leave the process. If you link directly to your giving site and preferably to the fund you want them to support, you can narrow the process down to just one or two clicks. We don't want to forget to use your email solicitations as an opportunity to engage donors on your social media sites. Include links to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, whatever social media outlets your organization is actively using. Donors are more likely to give to your organization if they also follow you on social media because of an increased sense of belonging in community, so don't miss an opportunity to get those social media sites out there to your audience. So here, you'll see an example of a coordinating direct mail and email solicitation that we did about a year ago at UC Davis. The direct mail version is longer and includes some additional graphics as well as a pledge card. The email is shorter and more concise with a very prominent give button. The organization's brand carries through on both pieces, and they work together to reinforce the message. Here is another example of a coordinating direct mail and email solicitation. The images differ but all of them reflect the same message, the content in the email is more concise than the direct mail piece, and again, the branding carries through on both pieces. Donors who receive both of these messages through a multi-channel approach will be reminded of the story, but not feel like they received the same piece twice. The letter may pique their interest and email reminds them they wanted to support or vice versa. So now, it's time to think about a solicitation calendar. Successful programs are built around consistency of both timing and messaging. Whether you send one, two, six, or 20 solicitations a year, you need a plan for when to send them and to whom. Find a balance between over solicitation and under solicitation and be consistent. This component becomes even more important with a complex organization. Plan ahead, ideally, a full year because a program built around one-off solicitations will flounder. If you're planning to send multiple direct mail solicitations during the year, I suggest at least 4-6 weeks between mailings to a donor. This gives them time to react to your ask. Most people don't receive a direct mail and mail you a check the next day. The pledge card gets put into a bill pile, and checks get written when the bills get paid or when the donor has some time. Consistency and timing is also important. We train our donors to give on our schedules. The two highest giving months in the year are December and June. December because of the tax incentives, and June because non-profits working on a fiscal year make a big push for donors to end the fiscal year. We've made June an urgent time to give, so now it is. So, if you always send a renewal in October and most of your donors give in November and December, it's a good idea to keep sending that renewal in October. If you miss it and send it in February instead, you'll lose some donors that year. So, here are some things to consider when planning your calendar. What months count for your fundraising year? The reason June is the second largest giving month is because June is the end of the fiscal year for many of us. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, we push end-of-fiscal-year giving with big email and direct mail campaigns to acquire or renew as many donors as possible before the books close on the year. When you build your calendar, take this into consideration, what other factors come into play? For K through 12 and higher ed, the start of the school year is a good time to solicit. Maybe you have a big event that is a driver of support and engagement. Look at your organization and plan your calendar in coordination with existing opportunities or activities that give you a little extra momentum. A good example is Berkley's Big Give. Their day of giving coordinates with a long standing Big Game tradition in the fall, and they can build off of that momentum to help further the success of their effort. When planning your calendar, you don't want to over solicit, but you don't want to under solicit either. If you don't ask, your donors will not give. So, I ask. If you're a small shop with limited staff, maybe one direct mail a year is all you can manage, time it correctly, be consistent with that timing, and make your message a good one. If you're a large organization with a complex segmentation plan, you have to be strategic with both timing, message, and audience. As an example, at UC Davis, we send for college and unit specific solicitations per fiscal year plus several pieces that are specific to an audience like recent graduates, or a general message from the Chancellor. We send emails with varying messages approximately 12 times a year as well that coordinate with the direct mail messages as part of our multi channel approach. So here, you'll see a sample of a basic solicitation calendar. It shows the month, the message being sent, the drop date, and the audience. You can put your schedule into a calendar program, a project management system, Excel, Word, it doesn't matter how you present the information, only that you map out your plan and you clearly document what you plan to do. We've talked a lot about direct mail and email, but I'd also like to address some online giving trends to give you an idea of how giving is changing in our society. The statistics here derive from the Blackbaud 2015 Charitable Giving Report. It includes overall giving data from over 5,000 non-profit organizations representing 18.2 billion in total fundraising from 2015. It also includes online giving data from almost 4,000 nonprofits representing 2.2 billion in online fundraising from 2015. As you can see, overall giving was up 1.6 percent in 2015. Large organizations grew by 1.4 percent, medium organizations declined by 0.7 percent, and small organizations grew by 5.5 percent. By contrast, online giving was up 9.2 percent in 2015 compared to 2014. Larger organizations grew by 9.6 percent, medium organizations grew by 9.1 percent, and small organizations grew by 8.3 percent. The lesson to be learned here is online giving is growing. As people become more comfortable with buying and giving online, this trend will continue. So, be sure to use it to your advantage. Don't forget to use give buttons and links to make it easy for donors to give. And in your direct mail solicitations, include a URL in your letter for people to give online instead of mailing you a check. Blackbaud's report also shows us that online donations were 7.1 percent of all fundraising in 2015, and nearly 14 percent of online donations were made from mobile devices. As I mentioned earlier, the report also indicates December and June continued to be the biggest months for giving, and Giving Tuesday, online donations were up 52 percent in 2015 over 2014. The report illustrates that donor behavior is mirroring consumer behavior. Total retail sales from e-commerce was up 7.4 percent in 2015, and fundraising from online giving was up 7.1 percent in the same year. So, pay attention to the marketplace for valuable clues and ideas for fundraising. Direct mail and email work hand in hand in your multi-channel solicitation strategy. The competition to be seen and heard among a sea of communications is fierce, so you must have a defined story and a strong case for support. Learn what motivates your donors and tell those stories. Remember to always ask for a gift in your direct mail and email, and make it easy for your donors to give. Plan your solicitation calendar well ahead of time and be consistent with your timing and your message. With online giving on a continuous rise, don't miss out. Direct donors do give online from both your email and your direct mail solicitations. I'll close by saying, direct mail and email, for me, is by far the most fun of all the components of annual giving. I love it. I love the challenge of writing impactful stories and designing pieces that will compel donors to give. It takes time and practice to hone your skills in this area, but it's great fun and quite rewarding when you see the results of your work.
