guest post // Direct Mail vs. Email Marketing: Finding the Right Balance
By Gabrielle Perham, Deep Sync
How nonprofits stay in touch with donors has evolved over the past several years. When it comes to direct mail and email marketing, many nonprofits know they should revamp their strategies but aren’t sure of the best way to do so.
Both communication channels have pros—which organizations can accentuate with enriched data, automation tools, and donor-driven strategies—and cons—which inaccurate data, rising costs, and misaligned strategies may exacerbateexasperate.
To help your nonprofit balance its direct mail and email marketing strategies, this guide will look at the benefits and drawbacks of both channels and how nonprofits can use them together.
Benefits of Direct Mail
While direct mail may seem “old school” compared to email, it still has a few advantages over digital communication, including:
Personal feel. Taking the time to write, print, and mail a letter shows extra care that’s difficult to recreate through email. As such, donors who receive direct mail often feel more valued and appreciated, making them more likely to form an emotional connection to your nonprofit.
Memorable. Direct mail gives your supporters tangible documents they can hold onto. Whether you send small gifts through the mail or stick to letters and cards, supporters are more likely to keep your nonprofit front of mind when they physically see and touch your communications.
Lower competition. Many of your supporters get dozens—if not hundreds—of emails daily. While junk mail can still flood physical mailboxes, for the most part, your supporters will likely have far fewer competing mailings to sort through when they receive your direct mail. This lack of competition increases the chances supporters will open, read, and respond to your nonprofit’s direct mail. In fact, recent reports have found that increases in postal rates have caused a decline in total mail being sent, making the marketing materials that do arrive stand out. Additionally, while these rising costs may make nonprofits worry, studies also show that direct mail had the highest return on investment (161%) for any individual outreach channel.
These benefits make direct mail a prime channel for major communications, such as donation solicitations. However, consider the potential drawbacks of direct mail marketing before defaulting to this channel for other types of messages.
Direct Mail Drawbacks
One of direct mail’s major benefits—its physicality—also results in one of its major drawbacks—its cost. Printing and delivering letters to all supporters can be expensive.
Additionally, your mailing efforts won’t reach supporters if your organization lacks correct addresses. Many nonprofits rectify this potential drawback by appending data and asking supporters to update their personal information. However, your organization will still need to manage and house this data.
Lastly, direct mail is often called “snail mail.” When comparing its speed to email, it’s not hard to see why. If you need to communicate with your supporters quickly—such as thanking them for a donation within 48 hours of receiving their gift—direct mail might not be the best choice.
Benefits of Email
Email is the go-to method of communication for many nonprofits due to its numerous advantages, which include:
Fast delivery. Email allows for near-instant communication, making it the perfect platform for sending quick reminders, updates, and calls to action. For example, during GivingTuesday, a nonprofit might send one mailing that arrives in time but can be sure that multiple emails hit supporters' inboxes at exactly the right times to push them toward donating.
Direct tracking. Email platforms provide monitoring and analytics capabilities, allowing you to understand how supporters interact with your emails. Compared to direct mail, nonprofits can collect much more granular information, such as which emails people opened and which links people clicked.
Flexible format. Direct mail and email both lend themselves to short and long-form content, but email also allows for videos, interactive content, and images in a way direct mail can’t. This functionality lets you send engaging content to supporters, helping build stronger relationships and increase open and response rates.
While people often report email marketing as having low open and response rates, Getting Attention’s reports on the average nonprofit email open rate found that emails from nonprofits perform significantly better than those from other industries.
For instance, mailing platform Mailchimp reported an open rate of 40.04% for nonprofits and 35.63% for all industries, GetResponse reported 54.54% for nonprofits and 39.64% for all industries, and Brevo reported a startling jump of 46.49% for nonprofits compared to 21.89% for all industries.
Email Drawbacks
Email is popular among nonprofits; but with its widespread use, many fundraising professionals have encountered a few common downsides.
While we’ve already discussed how nonprofit email open rates are higher than those of other industries, email has a comparatively low average response rate compared to direct mail. One study found that the average response rate for direct mail across industries was 4.4%, while email clocked in at just 0.12%.
Additionally, email marketing efforts can suffer from changes in technology. While large nonprofits likely use their constituent relationship management platforms (CRMs) and communication tools to manage both email and direct mail, it’s still possible to go low-tech with your direct mail strategy and handwrite communications if your technology is ever indisposed.
How to Integrate Direct Mail and Email Marketing
Ultimately, both direct mail and email are essential to most nonprofits’ marketing strategies. Create a balanced, unified approach to these channels by:
Setting goals
As with any marketing strategy, you should have specific direct mail and email marketing objectives. Ensure these goals are measurable to strike the correct balance between direct mail and email.
For example, you might aim to increase donations by shifting the majority of fundraising appeals to a direct mail format for six months. At the end of this time period, you could determine if this change was successful or if you need to finetune your marketing strategy further.
Taking an omnichannel approach
Multi-channel marketing involves sharing the same messages across multiple platforms to increase your reach and brand awareness. However, nonprofits can go a step further with an omnichannel approach.
Omnichannel marketing involves using data to reach the same supporters across multiple channels and provide a cohesive, personalized experience. For example, you might send an email promoting an upcoming event. Then, when a supporter signs up, you may mail them a letter and a small gift thanking them for registering.
This strategy requires understanding where each supporter is in their donor journey, which platforms they use, and how to send them personalized messages. While this approach is the ultimate way to build donor relationships, it also requires the right software to provide robust marketing support for email, direct mail, and any other marketing channels you intend to leverage.
Organizing and monitoring your data
Any integrated marketing strategy relies on careful data management, which includes both ensuring your campaigns operate on accurate data and recording campaign results.
For instance, Deep Sync’s guide to identity resolution emphasizes the importance of gathering disparate data points to create cohesive supporter profiles. This process allows nonprofits to:
Identify and target specific audiences.
Craft personalized messages.
Conduct cohesive cross-channel marketing campaigns, such as an integrated email and direct mail strategy.
Additionally, proper data analysis allows nonprofits to understand the messages their supporters respond to best. Conduct A/B testing to determine how specific elements of your communications impact supporters’ response rates, such as if the same fundraising appeal performs better in an email or direct mail format.
Direct mail and email are both worthwhile communication channels, and nonprofits that use these platforms together can connect with supporters on multiple levels. Ensure your nonprofit has the tools and data management strategies to create a cohesive, interconnected approach where your efforts on one platform enhance those on the other.
This guest post was written by Gabrielle Perham.
Gabrielle Perham, MBA, is the Director of Marketing for Deep Sync. She joined the organization in 2017 and brings more than 20 years of experience in strategic marketing, branding, communications, and sales enablement.
With a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-it-done attitude and a big-picture mindset, Gaby loves solving marketing and business challenges. She leads the brand strategy for Deep Sync, which has included consolidating four longstanding brands under the Deep Sync banner. She nearly single-handedly implemented HubSpot company-wide and holds four HubSpot Academy Certifications. Additionally, she works cross-functionally with operations and product teams and is passionate about operational excellence and efficiency.