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.
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.