Last month, CBA issued a report on public broadcasters’ results from our co-op campaigns in August and November 2008 to see how stations were weathering the economic storm.  While November’s results were encouraging in that they showed a recovery from a soft August, the jury was still out for a sustained recovery.

The verdict is now in and the results from March 2009 seem to confirm a very positive trend.  Significant improvement was seen in response rate and ROI across all major areas of fundraising: New donor acquisition, Lapsed member reinstatement and Additional Gift campaigns.  Average Gift was for the most part unchanged.

Here is a summary of those results.

Response Rate

Aggregate response rate for acquisition, lapsed and additional gift appeals improved in March 2009 by 25% when compared to November ’08.

The area showing the strongest growth in response was in additional giving (a 28% increase).  Add gift response rates were as high as 10.87%!  Acquisition had a 4% increase and lapsed response rate improved by 15%.

Average Gift

Average gift was the only area that didn’t show major growth when compared to November ’08.  But it’s not showing great decline either.  After the rebound in the fall, average amounts contributed by donors have remained almost unchanged.

Return on Investment

The increase in response rates in March were mostly responsible for an increase of overall ROI of nearly 38%. The biggest increase took place in active donor segment (55%), followed by that of lapsed mailings (31% increase).  Just as with the response rate acquisition mailings grew at the slowest pace (9% increase in ROI).

Some Other Interesting Facts

• One major difference in comparing these two campaigns was that in March 2009 mail volume was off from its November 2008 predecessor by roughly 35%.  The main area that was cut back was in lapsed campaigns with over 50% decline when compared to November volumes.
• One of our major market stations actually surpassed its projected net revenue by $75K in March ’09!
• Untagged lapsed members for one mid-sized station produced a stunning 2.51% response rate.  It might be worth re-testing a small portion of this segment.
• Q tag members responded at 1.05% response rate when included in the lapsed mailing for one station.  We’ve seen good results for this group at other stations too.  A number of stations are testing these.  If you haven’t taken advantage of this new intel, do consider it.
• CBA now has a full list history for all our public broadcasting clients dating back to 1999. If you would like to review your own list performance, please let your Account Executive know.

In fact, for a more detailed accounting of any of these numbers and an analysis of how your station stacks up, contact your AE or me at 914-468-8942.

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