Testing: hardly a new topic for this blog.
Last week at Congress I attended a session about copywriting for DM. A discussion began about 2nd gift strategies, and one of the delegates remarked they waited around six months to ask a new donor for a second gift.
I commented that we'd found through testing with clients 3-6 weeks was the best time to ask for a 2nd gift (always going for a monthly gift first), statistically.
Ooh's and ahhh's echoed the room as if I had committed a senseless crime. "Surely not". "That doesn't make sense". "I don't believe that".
And herein lies the beauty of direct response fundraising. Intuition aside.
Test your own 'gut feeling' by letting the data and subsequent evidence help you make informed decisions. It's your duty as a direct response fundraiser.
Jonathon
4 comments:
I agree, our second gift conversion went through the roof over the past two years as we stepped up our Direct Mail campaign - these aren't follow-ups exactly, but the letters do identify their previous and recent gift, thanks them, and asks for another.
Excellent, thanks for the feedback. And of course, the point is - testing the optimum time to make this happen.
Cheers
Jonathon
Jono...great minds think alike.
Yep saw your post Jen, nice work. :)
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