Direct Mail Piece Components

Are you familiar with the elements of a direct mail piece? Here is a list to help you out.

1. The outer envelope: This is a critical piece of the direct mail package. The way it looks will determine if your recipient will open your envelop or not. Remember you only have 8 seconds to engage your recipient. You can put a teaser at the front, an offer at the back, information, a private message. Make sure that what you put there counts!

2. The letter: Here is where you can convince people to give. This is where good storytelling is important. It does not matter if the letter is short or long, two or three pages, it does not matter. I've had letter written in four pages and it did not bore me a bit. You can put highlights, margin notes, underlines. There so many options but you need to use the tool which is appropriate.

3. The reply device: You need clealy tell people how to give. The reply device should spell out pertinent terms and condition and how it will benefit the non-profit. IT should show there where to send money. If you offer a premium, they need to know how and when they will get it. Make the reply device sound exclusive. You also have the option to put deadlines. Someone also send that we should design the reply device first before we write the letter so that it will be clear to us what the goal of the direct mail piece is.

I hope that this has been of help. God bless!

What does your newsletter look like? Part 2

Here are a few more insight on making newsletters:

1. Be creative in naming your newsletter. Something unique to your non-profit would surely boost appeal.

2. Use a generous amount of white space. For a definition on what a white space is, check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_space_(visual_arts)

3. Size your body text to something like a 10pt. Times New Roman that can be found in almost all computers. Also, use a serif font, e.a. Times New Roman, so that it will be easier to read. Let me remind you, my dear reader, that readability is of utmost importance in a newsletter.

4. If you caption your photos, make captions as if it is a story in itself. This one I learned from my mentor, Gordon Robertson.

5. Use subheads. There are readers that scan your page. Making subheads helps them understand your article.

6. Use multiple columns for your story. A lot of people use only one column for the whole story. Its very hard to read a story in just one column. The readers' eye will get lost going through a loooong, column. They'll just give up reading altogether.

7. Infographics helps. They are also nice eye candy. But use them sparingly.

See you tomorrow! I may have a part 3.

Capitalizing on Holidays

Its a day before the 4th of July weekend in the US. What is your non-profit doing about it? Oh, this is supposed to be Pinoy Fundraising. I apologize. Let me repeat. Its a few days before the Philippine-American Friendship Day (is it still being celebrated??). What is your non-profit doing about it?

Sad to say, maybe a lot of haven't even thought about it. Maybe it does not relate to your organization. But if you thought hard, would you have thought of something. Probably some lame, old excuse to do fundraising. But wait, isn't that what you are supposed to do?

Mother's and Father's Day went by. What did you about it? Did you thank, congratulate, call, write or even SMS the mothers and fathers in your database? (I don't have database, some of you groaned). Oh well...

Events are hyped in this highly commercial world we live in. The Pinoy Fundraiser can use these holidays to grab a share of the fundraising pie. You can write a direct mail package themed from whatever holiday is coming. You can organize special events revolving around a holiday. You give out freemiums (stickers, note cards, pens, etc.) based on a holiday. You can make a holiday a lot more special to people. What you do can make it meaningful to a lot of people.

Now that you read this, do you have something in mind of Christmas?

See you next time!

Imperfections

In a tech-savvy world, it seems that there is no place for errors in what you do. Not when you do direct mail fundraising!

My favorite techniques that I haven't personally done for my direct mail packages but I've seen un other people's work are the following:

1. Hand-written margin notes on the letter.

2. Red-colored underlines using markers

3. Scribbled arrows to point you to something

4. Hand-written PSs

5. "Copy only" stamped watermarked on the letter

6. Un-even text line heights reminiscent of typewriters

7. Intentional typo errors meant to catch the reader's attention

In a way, all of the above is trying to humanize the letter in a world of email, blogs, tweets and SMS. As I've mentioned in one of my first posts, letter writing is being pushed into obscurity. A lot of direct mail fundraisers are trying (in vain?) to maintain such air. Why do that some of you might say? We do that to personalize the letter. To not let the reader realize that this letter is printed via mail-merge or some other automated method.

See you next time!

Writing a Fundraising Letter

As I write this, I am in the finishing stage of writing a new fundraising letter for our humanitarian arm. As all writers experience, it is very hard to write a letter, let alone a two-pager.

Starting the letter is the first hurdle. When I write, I need to have all the information at hand. If I ever need additional information that can only be given to me by somebody else, I usually ask another person to get it for me. Sometimes I do it myself. One of the tenets of writing these things are that you have to have your facts accurate. One cannot assume anything.

That is why it usually takes me the better part of the whole day to finish the letter. I take a lot of breaks, not only to clear my mind, but because it helps. When I take a break, I usually take a walk, sometimes not even a few meters away from my workstation and then I have to hurry back because something came to my mind.

You need to seize these opportunities when it comes. If you let if get away, who knows, it may have been something that could have gotten your response up. Who knows, right?

Writing is also something of an art. It is also part science. Part psychology. You need to know your audience well. You need to have a balance tone when you write. You need to convey excitement, fear, sadness, hapiness and ultimately, joy.

You should also have a clear goal when writing. Is it to inform? To provide updates? To ask for money? You need to provide specific action points to the reader. You cannot allow your reader to feel that they were not able to do anything.

You can't make them feel useless or that you have done all the work and they should send money so you can be compensated. No! Whatever your project is, its a collaborative project. You need to make them feel involved. Make them feel that they made a contribution

God bless you and see you again tomorrow!

P.S. I just read that if ever you make typo errors, they sometimes increase response rates. Its not a guarantee but it shows that the letter was done by a person and not by a professional computer.

You Broke My Heart

Yes, I know! I was not able to post something yesterday. I have a good excuse. I had to bring my wife for an emergency check-up with her doctor, so I know you will forgive me.

Which brings me to my topic for today--what to do when you break your promise to your supporter. The promise I am referring to is one that you make when you ask for funding from your partners. For example, you have a direct mail piece and you promised a premium. Your supplier made a product whose quality is suspect. Would you give them something of inferior quality because you want to be able to meet your promise? Or would you rather wait for the better quality product and apologize?

The question above is very delicate and it is nightmarish. But the example above happens in real life. If you are a small non-profit and you work alone, you'll be having a tough time. This even happens to the well organized. You are not alone. So, what does one have to do?

Well, the best thing to do is apologize, simple right? And you need to do it early. If possible, before your promised date of delivery. Write them or call them and tell them (honestly, okay?) that an unfortunate incident happened that will not allow you to make it on time. Your partners will appreciate it.

But then there are times when you are in a complicated mess that it is so hard to find way how to apologize. Please bear in mind that people understand that we all make mistakes. Some non-profits take making a mistake to the extreme that it seems like you will go to hell the instant you make a mistake. Let's be honest here, have you ever found a non-profit that does not make mistakes?

In the organization I work for, we made a lot of mistakes. Our partners are still with us! Yes, there may be a few who may have been upset, but donors help you because they believe in your cause.

So, when you make a promise make sure that you make all the necessary steps to deliver as promised. When you hit a snag, don't wait until its today to apologize. Tell them earlier.

God bless you!

P.S. Tomorow I will be blogging from Siquijor, an island in the Visayas area of the Philippines.

Did you say thank you?

One of the cardinal rules in donor development is that you have to send a thank you letter to your donor within 72 hours of receiving the gift (that's money in development speak).

Or does it take you 72 days to even think of sending it? With today's pace of technology, one has a huge variety of ways to say thank you. I read once that it is better to send a badly written thank you letter than to not send one at all. Is it true in your organization? I don't know about here in the Philippines, but it is a sad reality in the United States. Let us not be like them.

Here in the Philippines, our donors are more forgiving. A lot of people give to our non-profits because they know that what we do can change the world, albeit, a few people at a time. But that does not mean that we can take it for granted to thank them. They need to know that their hard-earned money was put into good use. They want to know that you received their gift and was not lost through pilferage or in transit.

Assuming that you are a small non-profit, here is what I suggest you can do once you receive a gift:

1. SMS them that their gift arrived. Call them if their gift is over 1,000 pesos.

2. Get the receipt processed ASAP!

3. Print the thank you letter. If your handwriting if is great, then handwrite those gifts over 5,000 pesos.

4. Now, post them. That means mail them at your local post office. Use a live stamp for gifts over 5,000 pesos.

5. After five days, call them and ask if they have already received your letter and receipt.

If you do this, i guarantee that you will have many happy donations to come.

God bless and I look forward to your visit tomorrow!

P.S. BTW, make sure their names are correct on the envelope!

Personal Letters are Sorely Missed

In the apartment compound where I live (in Marikina, Philippines), we have this common mailbox. I open this mailbox as often as I can. Can you guess what I see? I think you know the answer, credit card bills, utility bills, demand letter from creditors, and more bills.

There is probably like 12 doors in our compound and we all use this one mailbox. And since I do the direct mail fundraising program at CBN Asia, I seed my name on our mailing list so I will know how long it takes for the letter to arrive on our mailbox. BTW, posts from Makati City to Marikina City usually takes between, get ready for this, two days to five days!

Our ministry's letter is the only letter that does not look like a statement of account in our mailbox. It is so sad. People just aren't writing letters anymore. People are not rushing to their mailbox eagerly awaiting correspondence from their loved ones, because they know that all that they will see is the reminder that their budget will soon disappear. Which put Philippine non-profit organizations, in my personal opinion, in a very advantageous position.

Who do we ask support from? And who acts on your call for help? Probably people in their 30's or 40's who grew up receiving love letters (written on Sanrio stationery with strawberry scent) and correspondence from relatives in the provinces or abroad. Yes, email is a lot more convenient and faster, but a large portion of our population do not have easy access to computers and the internet. Yes, you can put up blogs, but you will not easily know if they are coming and seeing your campaign. Whereas your mail, if creatively done, will pique the interest of your reader and would eventually open it up. They may not open immediately but they can put it (aside from the trash can) in a table or cabinet tops to be opened later. Your email? Its gonna buried in the tons of spam that inundates your email software's inbox in a few short hours.

And their is one advantage of snail mail that email cannot compete with, the interaction and tactile feeling of paper. With paper you feel something, you smell something, there is a sort of mystery behind it. Email? You may have people passing up on your message they are so tired at looking at a computer screen inside their cubicle.

Did I make my point? On Monday, I'll make a case for, you guessed it, email fundraising.

God bless!

Welcome to Pinoy Fundraising

Thank you for visiting! The idea for this blog is to provide my perspective on fundraising in the Philippines gathered from my over 14 years of fundraising for non-profit organizations.

Much of my knowledge in fundraising, specifically direct mail fundraising, I owe to Gordon Robertson, who is now the Chief Executive Officer of the Christian Broadcasting Network. CBN is the producer of the long-running Christian program, The 700 Club. For five years, Gordon directed the development efforts of CBN Asia, Inc., the Philippine office of CBN, as an expat.

I consider Gordon as my mentor not only because he introduced me to the world of fundraising, but also because, he did not witheld information from me. He provided me resources such as books, magazines and most specially his personal experience.

Gordon is a big believer in direct mail fundraising and I believe that it works in the Philippines. Direct mail helped a lot in sustaining the early years of CBN Asia. Filipinos are givers and they give through direct mail. I'll tell you some my insights in my upcoming posts.

God bless!