In fundraising pieces, that is. A unique and effective mailing program I created for a humane society, was much smaller than our previous mailings. Laid out flat, it looked like this:
The tri-fold piece folded down to just 6.5″ x 5.25″, and inside the mailing envelope was a BRE. The front of the piece featured a beautiful, healthy dog – Ringo – with an inset of how he looked when he arrived at the humane society. The back showed two Scottish Highland cows, Sadie and Evie, a mother and daughter, accepted into our wildlife sanctuary, Popcorn Park Refuge.
To the left was a coupon, whose reverse side offered donation options, plus basic information about the organization.
The text side was the actual appeal, as this was the organizations annual spring fundraising appeal.
Also included in the mailing was a bookmark featuring a shelter pup and cat on one side, and one of the sanctuary’s resident tigers on the reverse, 6″ x 2″.
With this mailing, I tried something new, and that was to send an envelope with no return address on the front and very subtly and small on the back flap, so the recipient would be encouraged to follow their curiosity and open the envelope. It was a risk, but as it went to our own donor list, it was a calculated risk. We also lost the opportunity of having the undeliverable pieces returned for address correction, but that was a small loss, as our bi-monthly magazine already took care of that. What we gained? A great savings in the cost of the components and postage, even factoring in the bookmark.
The result? The piece not only did well, but literally doubled the income from the previous year – earned $60,000 more than the year before. Was it the intrigue of a small, unmarked envelope? The inclusion of a bookmark? There’s no way of knowing for sure, but trying new ideas is worthwhile. In this case, it demonstrated that good things can come in small packages.
JEANNE BALSAM GRAPHICS 