Located in Phoenix, Arizona, HALO Animal Rescue is a safety net for thousands of homeless dogs and cats each year. HALO is a no-kill facility, which means they never euthanize an animal because they are out of room, but it also means they are limited in the animals they can take in at any given time.
RKD’s pre-churn strategy led to year-over-year results:
2.2%
increase in response rate
35.57%
increase in average gift
8.7%
increase in net revenue
2.2%
increase in response rate
35.57%
increase in average gift
8.7%
increase in net revenue
The Challenge
Retention: Second Gift
Beginning in 2016, RKD and HALO began adding an anniversary lift note into the direct mail appeal packages for those donors who have not made a second gift in nine months. This segment was touching loyal donors as well as new donors who had not yet made a second gift in a year. By wishing the donors a happy anniversary, the lift note lightly touched on the donor making another gift.
The Solution
Cutting back on mail volume
To adjust how many touches this group of donors received and to make sure the lift note did not distract from the package, beginning in 2019 we reduced the number of lift notes and only used the strategy in packages that did not have another loose insert. For some donors in the segment, their last gift might have been 10 to 11 months.
Breakthrough
Year-over-year results
With the reduction in volume, we were able to reduce costs for the organization. However, just because we were mailing less didn’t mean they weren’t seeing results! The response rate for this segment of donors increased by 2.2% over the previous year, and the average gift was raised by 35.57%. The cost savings of fewer mailings also resulted in an 8.7% increase in net revenue.
