Reviewing renewals in recent months, I see a lot of persistence in the mail. But I’ve yet I haven’t seen much persistence applied in email fundraising … little for renewals and nothing for pre- and post-mail appeals.
People for the American Way and NARAL are nicely persistent in email renewal, as they are great in other respects. But many groups I’ve donated to online over the last year have gone silent with email renewal.
But persistence is just as effective in email, clearly consistent with what we do in the mail, so why am I not receiving email renewal programs (instead of events).
The other missing element is the urgency that can surround a deadline.
Sending email campaigns around a target date works. I use it in commercial and B2B lead gen. Deadlines work. Nonprofits send many paper renewal notices … 4, 5, 7? Most of us know to think not of “a mailing” but instead of “this year’s renewal campaigns.” Yet I have yet to see a campaign of emails around a topic or, best if all: a date.
There are good reasons not to use deadlines in renewals, since delivery dates are unreliable and you don’t want to have something arrive after a deadline.
Yet simulated deadlines can work just as well as real date deadlines.
Years ago I worked in mail-marketing for insurance products. Product regulation made real deadlines impossible. (They had to keep offering an insurance program for a long time to gain enough subscribers. And if they said they were cutting off enrollment, they had to actually stop accepting new sign-ups.)
So they tested. They created a product that would actually have a real deadline. And they tested marketing that against an otherwise identical product that had no deadline.
For the no-deadline offer, they consistently used “simulated deadlines” … not “you MUST enroll by this date” but instead “PLEASE be sure to enroll by this date” with no threat of consequences if that date was missed.
Simulated deadlines consistently performed as well as real deadlines.
So simulated deadlines kicked in, some with dates, often “vaguely specific” — “be sure to reply by midnight next Wednesday” — and many mixed with story-telling: “We’re meeting at Monday noon to finalize the Group. Please be sure you mail your enrollment in time to have it in that review.”
I’ve subsequently tested simulated deadlines in a wide variety of programs and they pretty much always increase response.
Many marketers get best results by blending deadlines and persistence.
Send an early notice with a simulated deadline, introducing the idea, the need, etc … then another email three days before the deadline, heightening urgency … then yet another email on the day of the deadline. Then perhaps something that keeps the program open a bit longer for members.
Nothing we do is an event. It’s all about relationships over time. Let’s make our communications reflect both urgency AND continuity.