253. Direct Mail Isn't Dead Yet... Here's the New Playbook - Mike Duerksen
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Overview
Meet Mike. 🚨He's brought the truth - direct mail is not dead! We're talking through some super progressive strategies to breathe new life into your direct mail campaigns, tie them to your digital engagement strategy and explore how all of it will tee up your monthly and legacy donors too. We're reimagining direct mail with innovation and equity - tune in🎧
💡Learn:
3️⃣ things happening right now in direct mail
Building: Direct Mail Strategy
Activating: Direct Mail Implementation
Case study examples of orgs who are slaying the direct mail game
Today’s Guest
Mike Duerksen, Founder + CEO, BuildGood and Host, BuildGood Podcast
“Give them something tangible, draw them in closer, and treat them like they’re an important part of the team. They deserve all the information and frame it in a fundraising offer so that they can say yes, this is something I can do.”
Episode Transcript
Download Full Episode Transcript Here
Episode highlights
Mike’s story and journey to where he is today (3:30)
The opportunity today with direct mail and direct marketing (6:00)
Integrating direct mail into your development ecosystem (11:00)
Thinking innovatively about how to leverage direct mail (14:00)
Practical steps + what you can implement today (26:00)
Case study of someone who has implemented this (30:00)
A powerful moment of philanthropy in Mike’s life (39:00)
Mike’s One Good Thing: It's better to be consistent, than to have persistence. (41:00)
powerful quotes
“Now you get roughly average, like really broadly speaking, 35 to 40 emails for every one piece of direct mail you get.” -Mike
“It is part of a strategy, it is not a strategy, direct mail is a tool that will serve your strategy, and I want to be super clear about this upfront is that we don't believe in direct mail or in any channel, we're super channel agnostic.” -Mike
“Most people do not give to charity. So if they've made a gift to you, they're already usually generous people. So you start there, these are not people who you want to squeeze a gift out of, or these are not people who you want to maximize how much they can give to you. These are people who want to lead toward greater generosity.” -Mike
“I want to challenge you to get rid of the annual fund appeal. And I want you to think about better offer for your donors.” -Mike
“If you want to think about innovation in direct mail, think about things that are happening in your nonprofit right now. Think about how you can package that up for somebody and invite them into the mission.” -Mike
“Anything that can bring the work closer to the donors in a real tangible and physical way, you are creating an experience that when somebody is sitting down with this piece at the coffee table, you want them to have an emotional response. And you want to steward that time well because the first gift they gave you was a monetary gift.” -Mike
“The second gift they're going to give you is the gift of their time, and the gift of their attention. You have a duty of care to steward that time well.” -Mike
“You better put care and thought and love into this piece and not just write a generic letter asking them to somehow partner with you in a generic way because it's the right thing to do.” -Mike
“Give them something tangible, draw them in closer, treat them like they're an important part of the team. They deserve all the information and frame it in a fundraising offer that they can say yes, this is something I can do.” -Mike
“How would you treat a family member if you're asking for money?” -Mike
“I make the argument that building a strong individual giving program, even though we know it leads to mid-level and major giving later it's a total pipeline for legacy giving. It's a pipeline for monthly giving, even though we know that even if that wasn't the case, I still make the case that it's important for us to build a broad base of individual donors because it's his Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion issue.” -Mike
“Why would we have this KPI of saying our average gift needs to be $500?” -Mike
“If we're not building community, then what are we doing?” -Mike
“I mean, I feel like you're talking about everybody, the majority of people out there, who in the world, people who are listening now, we are the $50 donor, we are the $25 donor, we want our pet charities, to see us and to give us that lifelong stewardship.” -Mike
“If you can't bring donors that close to the to the program, there's other ways you can still have donors involved.” -Mike
“It's better to be consistent than to have persistence.” -Mike
”So write yourself down three things you want to get done that day in order of priority. And if you just get number one done, it's been a good day.” -Mike
connect with mike
LinkedIn / Website / The Build Good Fundraising Podcast / Twitter
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Episode Sponsored by
Studio Selfie
Julie Confer, Becky Endicott, Jonathan McCoy & Mike Duerksen.
