July and August is the time when most nonprofit organizations begin planning their year-end direct mail campaigns. Most organizations receive up to half their annual funds between October and December and their efforts are pushed right up until the very last minute of the year.
Nearly one-third of year-end donations occur in the month of December and 33% of them happen on the 31st alone. Even Goodwill says New Year’s Eve is their busiest day of the year. The nonprofits that develop a strategic campaign get the most year-end donations.
Direct mail is still the most popular medium for donation asks, which can be personalized to each recipient using variable data, and customized to past donation history.
Year-End Giving with IP Targeting
There’s a new marketing tool that nonprofits can use called IP Targeting that merges the effectiveness of direct mail with the multi-channel exposure of digital ads.
IP Targeting takes the physical addresses associated with your direct mail list, and through a special algorithm, determines the IP address of the recipient, thus allowing delivery of digital ads to the same household.
Donors not only receive a direct mail piece but will be followed up with digital ads featuring the same message, displayed on all devices connected to that IP address.
Now recipients get a consistent multi-channel reminder, and a digital pathway to complete the donation.
Case Study – Kansas City Hospice
Last year, NextPage did a year-end giving IP Targeting campaign for Kansas City Hospice and Palliative Care to help increase their year-end donations.
NextPage took a sample from their direct mail list and added an IP Targeting component to this target list. The rest of the list was used as a control group that received the direct mail piece only without digital ads.
The result was a 184% lift in conversions for the target group over the control group and a successful year-end donation rate. Read the full case study here.
For more information about IP Targeting, download our free eBook How to Use IP Targeting for Increased Direct Mail Engagement.