In a noisy world, marketing planned gifts using planned giving postcards is the best way for a charitable organization to be seen and heard.
Of all the methods to increase awareness of your mission, engage prospects, and attract donors, planned giving postcard marketing remains one of the best, hands down. And it beats the Mesozoic Era planned giving newsletters from the 1960s that are still in the marketplace today.
In a noisy world, planned giving postcards get your message heard. Postcards consistently outperform digital ads by wide margins. A postcard campaign is relatively inexpensive. And postcards really stand out — even among direct mail pieces, which already outperform digital marketing efforts. Plus, they can be used to direct visitors to your planned giving website and online will planner, thereby increasing your digital reach as well.
This guide to marketing your nonprofit with planned giving postcards will show you:
If you follow this guide, you’ll be prepared to launch a compelling direct-mail postcard marketing campaign that propels your nonprofit to the next level.
While you might have some great ideas about the design of your postcard, jot them down, then set your notes aside for later. The first priority is planning. Diving into the design at this stage is a recipe for disappointment, not success.
First things first: Determine the goals of your postcard marketing campaign, identify your target audience, create an “offer,” and decide what action the postcard recipients should take. Are you marketing a bequest program? Gift annuities? Make that decision early.
Here’s how to proceed:
Step 1 is setting your postcard marketing campaign goals. What, exactly, do you want your postcard to achieve?
This can be a general goal:
Or it can be a more specific goal:
You should also decide when you want to send your postcards. If your aim is to increase donations, perhaps you’ll time them to arrive before #GivingTuesday in November. If it’s a holiday-themed campaign, you’ll need to plan ahead so your postcards arrive at the proper time.
Now that you’ve established goals and timing for your postcard campaign, you’re prepared to make decisions that will help you achieve those goals.
The next step is to identify the target audience for your postcard marketing campaign. Keep in mind that your nonprofit has more than one audience: One might be composed of the people your mission serves; another made up of the supporters who make up your donor pool.
Identify exactly whom you’re attempting to reach. If your aim is to increase the number of bequests, you might create a carefully focused list composed of repeat donors who are perfect prospects for your planned giving program.
If it’s to generate new donations, you may create a broader list based on prospects who’ve expressed interest in your nonprofit’s mission — or you might use a list of high-net-worth individuals. And if your aim is to create awareness of your mission, you can use a U.S. Postal Service program called EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) to send postcards to every address in a defined geographic area (more on that at the end).
No matter what your campaign goal, a good mailing list is key. Depending on your nonprofit, a mailing list could include information such as:
The next step is to figure out how you’ll get those prospects to respond, and that means you need to put yourself in their shoes and answer a few questions. Remember, depending on what you’re marketing, you’ll likely have to separate those your mission serves from those who provide financial support for your mission.
Here are three questions you might ask if you’re creating a postcard marketing campaign aimed at driving donations to your planned giving program:
What problems do your donor prospects have?
How can they protect their heirs from excessive taxes?
How can they avoid capital gains tax on stocks?
What do they want?
How you can your prospects leave behind a lasting legacy?
How can they support the values in which they believe?
What is your unique selling proposition?
What makes your nonprofit stand out?
How is your nonprofit different from others with the same mission?
Next, determine what you can offer those donor prospects to motivate quick responses. You can often improve postcard response rates with a time-limited special offer: a matching donation or a gift, for example. A deadline can also influence a faster response. However, don’t forget: The beauty of a postcard is that your donor may stick it on the fridge and respond to it at a later, more convenient time.
If you have a LegacyPlanner™ make sure to direct your donors to it. It creates engagement in addition to legacy gifts.
Set your postcard budget during the planning phase, so that you’re not surprised later on. Some costs are static, while others depend on the number of postcards you’ll send.
Static costs include:
Dynamic costs include:
Finally, you need to decide what donors should do when they respond to your postcards. Options include:
No matter what action you want donors to take, you need to be ready for their response. If they’re visiting your website, you should have a landing page prepared. If they’re calling or visiting your brick-and-mortar location, staff and volunteers should be prepared to deal with the public.
That means ensuring everyone is at least familiar with your fundraising and planned giving programs, and knows how to help a potential donor or whom to contact if someone wants to make a gift. You might additionally create fliers, signs and posters that tie into your postcard marketing campaign, adding yet another touch point to convert prospects into donors.
Finally, make sure the entire experience is cohesive, so you don’t lose prospects who respond!
Your postcard copy — the wording on your postcard — must deliver a compelling, yet short, message to motivate recipients to take action. Here’s how to write punchy postcard copy that generates responses.
The most effective copy is the copy that gets your concept across quickly and succinctly. That means keeping things simple. As Mark Twain famously advised, “Don’t use a $5 word when a .50 cent word will do.” This is especially important when it comes to a postcard, which has limited space.
In fundraising, and especially in planned giving, there is a tendency to over-write. It stems from a misguided desire to appear more sophisticated in the hopes of appealing to high-wealth individuals. The truth, however, is that the principles of good marketing are universal, whether you’re appealing to a billionaire, blue-collar worker or a Harvard Grad.
Donors do not want to hear the minutiae of how a gift plan works. They will not be moved by industry jargon like CRUTS and CRATS, or buzzwords like “move the needle.” Don’t overwhelm them with details.
Instead, succinctly tell your prospects how a donation will improve their lives while also improving the lives of others or advancing your mission. Highlight your unique selling point — the thing that sets your nonprofit apart from other nonprofits with the same mission. In short, keep the message simple and give the prospect a reason to want to give. Everything else will fall into place.
Your headline is the most important part of your postcard text: It must command attention, create desire, and inspire recipients to read the rest of the postcard. Some postcards even convey special offers and sum up the entire message in a single line. In general, a marketing headline should:
You can see how each of these headlines works to generate interest in your message. The first one offers a donation match – and suggests a deadline to instill a sense of urgency. The next two identify pain points and offer a solution. The fourth uses facts and emotion to make the reader think and encourage action. The fifth offers a benefit to the donor.
Think about the target audience for your postcard. How do they connect with or support your mission? What do they want? Is there something they fear? What problems do they have? And what are they likely to respond to? How can you sweeten the deal to encourage donations or increase response? Use the answers to create your own winning postcard headline.
Your headline draws prospects into the rest of your postcard copy. Now it’s time to hook those prospects and turn them into donors. To achieve that outcome, you need to do something that many nonprofits struggle with: listing the benefits a donor gets from making a gift.
That may seem counterintuitive. After all, don’t your donors want to help your mission? Of course they do. But no matter how selfless a person is, it’s still human nature to ask, “what’s in it for me?” before making a commitment. Therefore, you need to appeal to both a donor’s altruistic nature and to their instinct to look out for No. 1. It’s part of a much larger, donor-centric fundraising strategy.
In sales, there’s an old saying: “Sell the sizzle, not the steak!” It’s a concept that means focus on the benefits to the customer, not on the features of the product.
For instance, what sounds more enticing?
In the nonprofit world, the “steak,” or features, refers to the details of the gift plan, or the details of what the gift itself will be used for. The “sizzle,” or benefits, refers to the perks the donor receives by making the gift. These can be the tax advantages, annuity payments, the ability to leave a legacy, or even just the feeling of doing the right thing.
Again, what sounds more enticing?
You have your recipients’ attention, and you’ve created desire; now, you need to make your pitch. Deliver a special offer that motivates them to take immediate action. As we said earlier, your offer might be a matching gift program; a giveaway; a limited-time fundraiser for a special project; or the ability to secure their legacy by making a significant gift to your mission.
In most cases, you’ll want to add a deadline to take advantage of your offer. Doing so will encourage more and faster responses, and help to reduce the number of people who put your postcard aside and forget about it until later. (However, this is also part of the beauty of a postcard — even if it doesn’t work immediately, it can serve as a reminder to take action down the road!)
For a limited time, you can double your impact! Big Bank Inc. will match, dollar for dollar, every gift made to Save the Seals until Aug. 15. Plus, every gift over $2,000 ensures the donor’s legacy will be cast in stone — literally! Bricks engraved with donors’ names will be used to build our Donor Wall of Fame.
How important is your offer? Your campaign practically depends on it. In fundraising, we go by the 50-40-10 Rule: 50% of a mailing’s results come from the quality of the mailing list; 40% is based on what you say and how you say it; and 10% from the look and feel (graphic design).
If your offer isn’t compelling, your postcard marketing campaign will yield less-than-ideal results. However, if your offer is compelling and aligns with your audience, your postcards will be primed for success!
Last but not least, your postcard copy should feature a powerful and compelling call to action. Your call to action should give prospects very clear directions on what to do next:
Finally, consider how your postcard copy will read on both the front and the back of your postcard. The back of your postcard can be prime real estate, especially since mail is typically delivered address-up. Don’t miss this opportunity to draw people into your message!
Though you’ll create your postcard design after your draft your postcard copy, your design is the first thing prospects will see and notice. For that reason, your design must stand out from the rest of the mail in the mailbox. A good postcard design accomplishes three things:
If your postcard doesn’t stand out, nothing else you do will get noticed. Postcard design ideas include:
When it comes to direct-mail postcard printing, large postcard sizes stand out from other mailers, so they’re practically guaranteed to be noticed. There’s nothing wrong with 4-inch by 6-inch postcard printing or 5-inch by 7-inch postcard printing, but a 6-inch by 11-inch postcard will undoubtedly earn the attention of your audience.
In fact, the most popular size when mailing “flat” 2-sided cards is 11”x6.” They’re nice and large to catch people’s attention and not slip through the cracks, but not too large to prevent them from mailing at the standard mailing rate.
Your choice of postcard paper stock works with your design to set the tone of your message. Glossy postcard printing is great to convey excitement, for example, while matte postcard printing is more often associated with elegance. Want to project an eco-friendly image? Opt for 100 percent recycled matte paper stock.
Paper weight is important, too. In fact, studies have shown that heavier paper stocks can lend a sense of trust that influences purchasing decisions. So, it makes sense to print postcards on thick, heavy paper stocks.
All this said, however, remember that the most important thing on your postcard still remains the quality of your mailing list, along with what you say and how you say it (the message).
Other Postcard Marketing Considerations
A/B testing is the process of comparing two versions of a marketing product, then measuring the difference in performance to see which version does better.
For your postcard marketing campaign, an A/B Testing campaign might look like this:
If you’re A/B testing different versions of your postcard, you may want to segment your list first. For example, create two small lists, then send Version A to one list, and Version B to the other list. When you’ve discovered which performs best, send that version to the larger remaining list. Pressed for time? Just split your mailing list in half, and send Version A to one half, and Version B to the other. Collect the data, then use it for your next postcard campaign.
If your first postcard knocks it out of the park, make it your control; then, A/B test other variations to try to beat it with your next campaign.
You should also consider launching cohesive campaigns that feature the same offer in other marketing channels. For example, you might schedule your postcards to be sent at the same time you deploy an email or social media marketing campaign.
Although it’s fairly easy for a business to predict and calculate postcard marketing ROI, it’s a slightly different story for a nonprofit. While you can certainly measure how much you spent on the campaign compared to the dollar amount raised, it won’t reveal the whole story. This is especially true for a planned giving postcard campaign. Why?
Because some of your prospects are going to tack that postcard up on the fridge or file it with “things to look at later.” And in a month, or six months, or maybe even a year, they’re going to look at it again and be inspired to donate. Some may file the information away until they make or update their estate plan. Still others might remember your nonprofit with a bequest, but the nonprofit won’t find out about it until years later, when that donor passes on.
In the for-profit world, marketers often add a tracking mechanism, such as a coupon, code, or reply method to their postcards. This can help them to measure response. In the nonprofit world, you can do the same thing — but honestly, you don’t need to go to all that trouble.
If it’s a specific, postcard-only campaign, you’ll know how effective it was by the number of responses. If the campaign was part of a larger marketing effort, fundraisers can simply ask new donors, “How’d you hear about us?” To get even more accurate data, a unique landing page can be set up for your postcard marketing campaign. Each visitor to the page can be counted as a success.
What does all this mean for you? That you should focus on additional opportunities to reach your prospects, not on the effectiveness of a single campaign. In fundraising, especially in planned giving, the idea is to spread awareness of your mission and keep your name in front of prospective donors.
And Marketing 101 says the more touches the better. So nix the expensive response mechanism and complicated ROI formulas. Use the savings — in time and money — to mail your postcards more often instead.
After one or two postcards, you’ll have piqued some of your prospects’ interest. Card #3 might go on the fridge as a reminder to discuss it with the family. After card 4 or 5, maybe some of them will even call. Or you’ll call them to say, “thank you” for a past annual gift, and they’ll remember those postcards and say, “What is this about some gift that pays me retirement income for life … ?” Plan to send anywhere from three to seven (or more postcards), and your response rate will increase with repetition.
Marketing is a long-term game that requires frequency and repetition. You may not get the gift today, or tomorrow, or even next month. But somewhere down the road, your prospect is going to look at a postcard and finally take action.
Postcard marketing is one of the most cost-effective direct mail options in your toolbox. In general, the more you print, the less it costs per card. There are two options: Digital printing, and offset printing. If you’re starting out small, with low quantities (it depends on the printer, but in general, 200 or less) go with digital printing for the best price. That’s because digital printing has no setup costs.
If you have a large campaign, offset printing will be the cheaper option. The setup fees are greater — special plates have to be made and positioned — but the cost-per-piece goes down as the quantities go up. At a certain point, the cost to produce plates is absorbed by the lower price-per-piece. In general, offset printing produces a superior product, but technology is improving all the time, and most people won’t notice a difference.
EDDM vs. Mailing Lists
There are two different ways to mail your postcards: to a mailing list, or through the Postal Service’s Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) program.
Mailing lists are best when you are targeting a specific audience for your campaign, or your audience is spread out geographically.
EDDM postcards are best when you’re sending postcards for a general awareness campaign, or are targeting a specific neighborhood demographic, because you can target every person in a neighborhood or ZIP code. EDDM postage is cheaper, but your options for reaching a specific audience are limited.
Bulk rates and mailing houses
If you’re sending 200 or more postcards, the U.S. Postal Service will give you a bulk rate. You’ll need to purchase an Indicia, which prints postage information in the upper right corner of the postcard. However, a real stamp tends to have better results, because it’s more personalized. You can even create a volunteer event to have the cards hand-addressed and stamped.
You may also want to consider hiring a mailing house to make the process easier. It can address the postcards based on your mailing list; send the postcards with their own Indicia, and generally get better USPS rates.
Follow Up
Your postcard marketing campaign doesn’t end when the cards are mailed. The next step is to plan your postcard follow-up, because repetition sells. You’ll want to send it to the same people who receive your first postcard to increase the amount of exposure you have with your target audience.
You should also consider launching cohesive campaigns that feature the same offer in other marketing channels. For example, you might schedule your postcards to be sent at the same time you deploy an email or social media marketing campaign.
Plan to send anywhere from three to seven (or more postcards), and your response rate will increase with repetition.
Postcards outperform digital ads, have a great return on investment, and are one of the most effective marketing methods available for nonprofits. Get started on your postcard marketing campaign today, and watch the annual, major and planned gifts start to add up.
Join the top 1% today. We see things through a different lens — and soon, you will, too.
Frequent Questions
Studies — and our own experience — show that direct mail works, and works well. Postcards improve your response rate because they’re a “quick hit”: short, direct, easy to read, and high-impact. They get your message heard in a noisy world by utilizing an ideal blend of visuals and content. And even when prospects don’t respond immediately, we’ve often found they hold on to that postcard and get back to it (and you) later. Why? Because it’s easier to pin a postcard to the ‘fridge than it is a two-page appeal letter!
Postcards are an affordable way to keep your nonprofit (and your planned giving message) top of mind. A postcard is eye-catching, quick and easy to read, and much more likely to reach your audience than an email or a digital ad. Why? Because it cuts through the clutter and stands out in a noisy world.
Postcards also work to direct readers back to your planned giving website for more information. Once on your site, visitors are enticed to read donor stories, learn about your Legacy Society, and discover ways-of-giving that will boost your endowment while building their legacy.
You have two choices if you hire us to produce your postcards:
We recommend at least four times a year. The more “touches” the better. Postcards do this economically. Marketing 101: the more you mail, conversions become disproportionately higher.
Planning on just sending out one postcard? Chances are your response rate will be extremely low.
Mail to your loyal donors — those who have been consistent in giving. There are acres of diamonds in your database, and we can help you find them.
As a general rule, begin with those who have given at least 7 times over the past 10 years. The more you tighten the numbers (10 out of the last 15, etc.) the more of a loyal group you will be pulling from your database. This is a science and an art — you will need to achieve the perfect balance.
Bequests make up 92.5% of all planned gifts. You can use postcards to remind your donors that “they can make a gift that does not affect cashflow during their lifetime,” and gently noting that 68% of Americans do not have a will in place. You can also use postcards to promote your LegacyPlanner™ to draft a free will, or use the LegacyOrganizer™ to prepare an outline and work with their attorney.
Yes, and in fact, we advise nonprofits to take a multi-pronged approach to marketing. And campaigns are often more successful when they employ multiple touches across marketing mediums. This is especially true today as the world gets noisier. (We call it marketing noise.)
Yes. This is a highly specialized service and our team will explain it when we set up your campaign.
Some of our best ideas come from clients. Contact us here and we’ll discuss it with you.
Absolutely. Get in touch with our team here.
Yes. We have postcards for all the major holidays, plus a lot of the lesser-known ones, and even some “just because” topics, too. They’re the perfect way to let donors and prospects know you’re grateful for them any time of the year.
It is against the law to make a profit on U.S. Postage. If we are providing mailing services for you, we ask for the postage in advance and hold it in escrow. Any postage in excess is refunded.
If postage is paid by credit card, we will invoice you for the credit card fees.
Microsoft Excel.
Important: Make sure all of the columns in the file are exactly the way you wish them to appear. That is, do not provide extra columns, and this even includes “record number” unless you wish that particular data to print on your mailer. For example, if you have a salutation column to be used (Mr. and Mrs. Jane Donor), make sure you do not have a “First Name” and/or “Last Name” column as well. This may sound complicated, but it’s not and we’ll guide you through it.
After a brief meeting, we’ll recommend topics. If you have any in mind, let’s discuss it.
We suggest staying away from esoteric topics such as annuity trusts, lead trusts, the generation skipping tax, etc. Donors who plan on such gifts are well-versed or already working with advisors. Mass marketing such gift plans leaves the impression that planned gifts are only for the wealthy. When in fact, they are for the average American.
In general, beneficiary designations are the gifts to focus on.
That’s our job. We know marketing, we know design, we know planned giving, and we know your prospects. We do it all: planning, content development, design, production – we’ll even drop the cards in the mail.
No need for endless meetings to develop your postcard. We have it down to a science.
If you have a large budget (and a team to back you up) to send out multiple yearly newsletters by following industry standards, by all means, continue with newsletters. If you only plan to send out one to two newsletters per year, you need to consider a new product with a higher ROI, Newslets, in addition to planned giving postcards.
Yes. Complete details are covered on this page.
Our “insider secrets” are here on this page (Nonprofit’s Guide to Planned Giving Marketing with Postcards).
2103 Bayshore Boulevard
Unit 1501
Tampa, FL 33606
Products & Services
Subscriptions
Special Links
Copyright 2024 © PlannedGiving.Com
