Donor Acquisition Strategy

Mailing less may get you more

Problem/Opportunity:
Before joining Masterworks, one of our clients had worked with two other agencies and had not gotten the results they wanted — especially in donor acquisition. The organization was mailing 5 million pieces to nearly every household in their region and had gotten a dismal response rate, low average gift and unacceptable ROI. The cost of acquiring a donor had skyrocket. Because the previous agency received a commission on printing, they had no incentive to mail fewer pieces.

Successful Strategy:
They hired Masterworks to take over their donor acquisition program. We immediately went to work analyzing the mailing strategy and results from their prospecting effort. Through careful list selection, we recommended that the number of pieces be cut by more than half to 2.3 million.

Results:
We cut hundreds of thousands of dollars in mailing expenses but acquired more new donors than they had the previous year. Our results were: a 1.15% response rate, $24.43 average gift and .96 ROI.

Masterworks has a full-service relationship with this client that extends 12 years now. During that time, we’ve been ablve to conduct extensive testing in acquiition and cultivation that has resulted in many breakthroughs. What’s more, we’ve averaged a double-digit increase in revenue each year.