How The Dragonfly Agency used JICMAIL to improve donor recruitment with Direct Mail

The Challenge

To be able to continue to fulfil their purpose, charities must continue to grow their donor database. One charity working with The Dragonfly Agency needed to develop a strategy that would deliver more donors and raise much needed funds. A key issue was that their database had a mix of ages and demographics with no clear-cut target audience for new donor recruitment. This made it difficult to define personas and an ideal prospect profile requiring a fresh approach to identifying new prospects.

This charity also used digital as their default communication channel and they had a preconception that mail was an expensive method of recruiting new supporters. Dragonfly recognised the need to address this bias and adopt a more omnichannel approach as they set out to help the charity client achieve their acquisition goals.

The Approach

Dragonfly drew upon their experience and expertise in charity recruitment and marketing communications, supported by the relevant JICMAIL data, to craft their recommendations. JICMAIL was used at multiple points in their planning cycle:
1) Dragonfly used JICMAIL data to uncover the hidden target audiences that would be receptive to charity direct mail. JICMAIL showed potential target audiences for these mailings including:

• 45-54 year olds - This cohort shows an average frequency or number of interactions of 5.2 times for typical charity DM but receive less mail than average making them a potentially receptive audience
• Male audience - Male audiences also receive less ‘request for donation’ mail but show a high interaction level of 5.19 times per item, again making them a high potential new donor audience
• ‘Domestic Success’ Mosaic category - This Mosaic type has an interaction of 6.35 showing a high level of interaction while again receiving less mail than average.

2) The JICMAIL data set was also used to show how for these audiences, the tangible nature of mail had a role to play in providing cut-through. For example, 81% of people who received a request for donation, opened the pack and 16% of people who opened the ‘request for donation’ mail pack made a donation.

3) JICMAIL also provided essential new schedule delivery metrics for the client. By using the JICMAIL campaign calculator, Dragonfly demonstrated how the reach and frequency delivered from small scale test volumes delivered significant campaign impressions for new audiences. The Domestic Success MOSAIC group data set shows a 1.06 reach and 5.68 frequency figure, and when combined, this means a mailing of 4,500 items provides 26,181 opportunities for the proposition to be seen, whilst reinforcing the brand and highlighting the call to action – in this case, a request for a donation.

4) The agency took these insights into developing testing recommendations which looked to integrate mail into a multi-channel mix. The test campaign was planned across distinct phases with the use of mail designed to be integrated with not just comms, but with all other marketing efforts. Initially, the charity purchased cold data for the identified new prospects and sent these recipients a donation request carefully designed to appeal to that audience. They then reconnected with the same audience 3 months later by sending a follow up mail pack, after carrying out some local events and face-to-face marketing. After the second mail campaign, an email was then sent which replicated the donation request.

The Outcome

The test was continuously monitored for performance against the pre-set campaign KPIs. The details remain confidential, but the test was a great success exceeding both client and agency expectations. For example, the initial response to the cold mailing was in itself, encouraging at c1%, but what was most significant was the effect of the second mailing in warming up the prospects, and supported by email, providing the final trigger to respond.

This omni-channel approach helped convert more prospects and achieved a higher average donation amount, beating the test KPI’s by 28%. The client was delighted by the outcomes and Dragonfly were also pleased to see how their use of JICMAIL insight helped the client re-appraise the outcomes they could achieve by including the mail channel into their digitally driven solutions.

For Dragonfly, they have been enthusiastic adopters of JICMAIL across their clients, confident that JICMAIL provides essential and objective channel data that supports their expertise and value they bring to clients.

“We have been huge advocates of JICMAIL for some time. Having the resources to substantiate the logic is a game changer for our industry. It’s superb when we can share this insight with our clients to improve their communication strategy, which in turn means they raise more essential funds. We apply JICMAIL metrics and insight in to all our client’s
campaigns.”
Isla Munro, Managing Director, The Dragonfly Agency