Catch Them If You Can: The Effect of Reminder Direct Mailings on the Return Rate of First-Time Donors

ABSTRACT

Despite the relevance of interactive marketing strategies, most nonprofit organizations rely on a marketing mix with a focus on direct marketing. Previous research shows that, by optimizing the mailing frequency, organizations are able to distinguish their mailing from other mailings that donors receive. However, some organizations, such as blood services, struggle to convert the frequency recommendations into their marketing practice. As donation events occur irregularly and blood donors are only able to donate a certain number of times, mailing strategies have to result in blood donations. This study examines a strategy in which a reminder direct mailing follows the regular invitation a few days before a particular donation event. A field experiment was conducted with 396 donors; 203 received the double mailing. Surprisingly, the results from hierarchical binary logistic regressions do not reveal any differences between the experimental groups. A single direct mailing approach is recommended, leading to considerable cost savings.

KEYWORDS:

• Direct marketing
• field experiment
• frequency
• hierarchical binary logistic regression
• nonprofit management
• reminder direct mailing

Acknowledgments

The authors would acknowledge the support of the German Red Cross Blood Services North-East and its team, which provided the data of the study.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.