The Animal Rescue League of Iowa (ARLIA) is Iowa’s largest nonprofit animal shelter, caring for thousands of pets each year. ARLIA serves people and pets from across the state of Iowa through its programs, which include pet adoption, humane education, pet behavior training, spay/neuter, animal cruelty and much more.
RKD’s multichannel approach resulted in:
89%
increase in active donors
38%
jump in direct mail revenue
93%
growth in multichannel revenue
89%
increase in active donors
38%
jump in direct mail revenue
93%
growth in multichannel revenue
The Challenge
Finding the ingredients
ARLIA came to RKD Group in need of a turnaround – and fast. Their donation revenue was sagging, and they were losing donors. After analyzing their data, we saw that the main cause was due to a massive drop in the number of new donors acquired via direct mail (-65%) across the last five years. ARLIA knew they needed more donors to sustain their organization’s growth.
The Solution
Our recipe for success
We saw the need for a heavy investment in direct mail acquisition, along with optimizations across the board. In the program’s first year, we doubled the number of acquisition mailings in October, November and December. We also saw an opportunity for an investment in digital marketing with a digital program complementing ARLIA’s direct mail efforts. Through this multichannel strategy, we were able to establish a strong branding presence across all channels.
Breakthrough
A delicious treat
It took time to reverse the sharp decline for ARLIA, but the effort was worth it. After three years, the results were impressive. The number of active donors rose 89%, and the number of new donors went up 93%. By jumping on the opportunity to add a digital program, we were able to increase multichannel revenue 93%.
