They try to raise the price of postage faster than you can lick a stamp.  And that whole “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” thing might soon be valid only 5 days a week and not 6.  So really, it should come as no surprise when a few local branches start closing.  Make that thousands of local branches, according to an interview with the USPS’ Dean Granholm, vice president for delivery and post office operations.  A quick search shows that this has been going on for a while now, with new lists published from time to time.

While no one of these things will destroy the direct mail business, taken together they could lengthen deliverability times and even cause major disturbances locally.  We’ve already seen several issues with some of our clients and are reinventing some of the systems we use to plan and track campaigns.  We even touched upon these postal problems in our 11 Tips for 2011.

If you suspect you’re having problems (with the deliverability of your mail — we can’t fix everything) let’s track it.  We’re looking for volunteers to give us seed and first gift dates and other data that could help.  If you’re interested in participating, let your AE know!  Our shoot us an email at partnership@carlbloom.com and we’ll get you started.

UPDATE: JUST REMEMBERED: In one of the earlier posts I link to above, I noted that the USPS actually has over 36,000 retail outlets, compared to the ubiquitous McDonalds and Starbucks which have less than a half and a third of that, respectively.  Also that FedEx has about 1,600 locations; UPS has 1,300.

Share/Bookmark

Our good friend Jack Callahan sent us this email from his local hardware store.  Notice anything odd?  That’s right, there’s no “Click here” to take action.  Or any attempt by Rocky to get Jack to go to his website (the Weather.com link is there as a courtesy).  Nope, he expects the now-snowbound to get up out of their computer chairs, get in their cars and drive down to his store to respond.  Seems logical for a retail outlet, right?  It’s also logical for a non-profit.  Or really any marketer. (Read on …)

Share/Bookmark

Here’s to a great fundraising year in 2011. To help you increase your fundraising revenue, CBA is pleased to present 12 productive tips for 2011:

1. Start a renewal series or evaluate the one you have. Do you invite your donors to become members? If so, do you send those members annual renewal notices? You may want to consider sending a series of four or even more renewal notices for repeat gifts. Chances are you can raise significantly more revenue with a renewal series, and can boost revenue by improving your existing renewal efforts.

There are many ways of approaching this. Are you sending enough efforts in your series? Do the outer envelopes work as hard as they should? Does the gift array encourage the donor to think about upgrading? Are you coordinating and combining media such as email, direct mail and telemarketing to maximize response?

When reviewing your renewal series, always remember to test. You can test an entirely new series, individual efforts, timing, incentives and copy and design. CBA has had outstanding results improving retention from smart renewal tests.

2. Consider leveraging the change in tax law. The recently passed Reid-McConnell Tax Relief law reinstates the so-called “IRA charitable rollover” which first took effect in 2006 but expired at the end of 2009. Simply put, this allows retirement-age donors to make tax-free transfers from their IRAs to public charities. (Normally, they would get taxed on the disbursement prior to the contribution.)

Reid-McConnell reinstates the IRA rollover through the end of 2011 and makes it retroactive to the beginning of 2010. In fact, it permits any IRA distributions made to public charities by January 31, 2011 to be treated as if they were made by December 31, 2010.

You might consider an email campaign to apprise your donors of this special giving opportunity. Calling your major donors also makes sense.

A special thanks to Robert Tigner at ADRFCO for bringing this to our attention. They have put together a short summary of the workings of the charitable rollover and the section of the law setting out the January “bonus”. (Read on …)

Share/Bookmark