How to Drive More Nonprofit Direct Mail Response

What if you can take the power of a personal testimonial from just written words to an actual video in your direct mail. Your donors would be able to see and hear personally from someone they have helped who can ask them to give more to help others. This gives you the personal targeting of direct mail and the power of video in one mailing. Television and social media cannot target your donors specifically, but direct mail can. You can use the video as your lift note. Nothing grabs attention more than a true story of hardship that was helped by your organization.

So how can you transform your direct mail to include a video? Obviously, you need to generate as many donations as possible with the least amount of money spent, so let’s look at the options and costs. 

1. QR Codes

They don’t have to be boring black dots; you can embed an image as well as use colors. All smartphone cameras can now automatically read QR codes so there is no need for donors to download an app. You will need to tell your donor to scan the barcode with their mobile device’s camera. Then the QR code will take that donor to your video. This is the least expensive option.

2. Sound Chips

You can add sound to your mail pieces. Record any message you want, then when your donor opens it, the sound will play. Most people have seen this mechanism in a birthday card. This is not a video, but will still allow donors to hear direct testimonials.

3. Augmented Reality

There are plenty of AR platforms that are easy to use for beginners and organizations with small marketing budgets. Layar, UnifiedAR, Blippar, Overly and many others allow users to easily create a campaign in minutes. All it takes is uploading artwork and corresponding video for your campaign to be ready to launch. It really is quite simple and yet very powerful. However, this will require your donors to download an app for it to work.

4. Video Mailers

These mailers have an HD screen and sound embedded within them. The video content is played after opening the mailer or pushing a button. No need to rely on people scanning QR codes, using NFC or downloading augmented reality apps when you have a built-in video screen to provide an immediately measurable experience. This is, by far, the most expensive option.

Though there is another option. You can create the video, place it on your website and provide the web address for donors to type into a browser. Make sure to give them a reason to go to the link and keep the link short if you expect people to type it. The best option is to provide more than one way for people to access the video, so add the web link as well as any of the four options.

With attention spans at an all-time low, adding a video can help drive donations. It can also be shared with others to increase your message exposure. Create an experience that your donors will enjoy, share and remember. Video gives your message the ability to be seen and heard, which makes a powerful impact on donors. Through tone inflection and body language of the speaker, you are better able to convey the right message in the right way to the right people on your direct mail list. Let the power of video and the power of direct mail come together to create a new and wonderful campaign. Are you ready to get started?