CONSERVATIVE FUNDRAISERS ARE IN STORMS
Continued #5…
This is the last, promised, installment of the “storms” series, in which I will finish giving you the checklist my company uses for its 20+ clients.
- Acquiring new donors. Here's an idea to grow your donor file with mostly donors not on dozens of other conservative organizations’ mailing lists, which means if they become a donor to your organization, they’re not daily getting 6-10 conservative fundraising appeals. Develop projects for specific groups, such as veterans, seniors, small business owners, Evangelicals, Catholics, parents, grandparents, 2nd Amendment supporters, etc. Identify a problem caused by Democrats and propose a conservative solution to the problem. Then seek out specific lists for each group and mail letters with an appeal to each group’s interests.
- Development department. If you don’t have a fully functioning development department, build one quickly. Those conservative nonprofits that do not have a fully functioning development department will have the most difficult time navigating the storms.
- Suppression file. Review the names you are omitting/suppressing from your mail program—both housefile and acquisition. I know of several conservative organizations that omit hundreds of thousands of names. It’s hard to have a successful acquisition program if you’re omitting 500,000-1,000,000+ conservative names. Re-examine the number of names you’re omitting. You may well be losing hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some cases tens of millions because of your omits to your mailing list.
- BRAND. A strong BRAND is always an important part of successful marketing. Conservative organizations without a strong BRAND will suffer greatly in these storms. Review and adopt all four parts of Viguerie’s Four Horsemen of Marketing®, including having a strong Tagline. Sprinkle your Tagline throughout the mailing.
- Tele-townhalls. Only a few conservative organizations use tele-townhalls to communicate with/keep in touch with their donors. Those that do experience increased income from many more donors.
- Thank yous. Don’t forget to say thank you and say it often. Thank them for the project they donated to. When possible, avoid generic thank yous and stress your BRAND.
- Work with your letter shop to comingle your mail and you will reduce your postage costs by 2-3¢ for each letter.
- Informed delivery – The Postal Service is offering discounts for new services (for example, there is a 4% discount on postage for using informed delivery between August and November) or including meeting certain criteria in your printed materials (including texture in your carrier envelope) or creative offering (including a QR code going to a landing page is an example.)
- Test BRE vs. Unstamped RAE for low dollar donors.
- Digital Printing offers a great way to highly personalize packages and test copy. With recent major price increases for printing, this makes digital printing more price competitive than it was even a year or two ago.
My checklist is not difficult or complicated. A direct mail professional can easily implement it—it just takes additional time.
However, the additional time can be the difference between a 3-year near death experience or growing your organization and contributing to winning the Spiritual Civil War we’re fighting.
Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.
Before Rush Limbaugh, there was Richard Viguerie. Many conservatives listened to, learned from, and heeded the advice articulated by the late radio talk show legend. But before Rush, conservatives looked to Richard Viguerie, the funding father of the conservative movement, for the “right word” on policy and politics. Before Mr. Limbaugh, it was Mr. Viguerie whose mail was delivered over hill and dale, through rain, sleet, and snow, to conservative donors and activists, prodding them to take action.
