"Dale's" mail (pt 3): the reply form
Reply form. Coupon. Remittance form. It goes by a lot of different things depending on where you fundraise. But this is the piece that Dale sends back. Hopefully with a gift.
This is the third part of a series looking at 60 pieces of direct mail that your donor Dale, would have gotten since the year end and early into the new year. (Part 1 - about outer envelope’s is here. Part 2 - about the letter is here.)
Who is Dale? She’s your donor of course. And she gets a lot of mail. Between 30 - 40 appeals a week during the busiest times of the year.
And today we are going to look at and talk about the reply form.
As I mentioned previously most of the packs that Dale received only had a letter, a reply and BRE (Business Reply Envelope) enclosed. In some cases, the reply was separate or sometimes it was attached to the letter with a perforation.
36 (of the 60) packs only had these 3 pieces - a letter, a reply and a BRE.
36 (of the 60) packs had reply forms that were the small slip size of 8.5” x 3.5”.
9 (of the 60) packs had reply forms that were 8.5” x 5.5”.
1 (of the 60) packs had reply forms that were 8.5” x 7”.
7 (of the 60) packs had full size reply forms that were 8.5 x 11”.
1 (of the 60) packs had a reply form that was 8.5” x 14”.
3 (of the 60) packs had other off sizes.
As some of my colleagues will tell you, often in testing, we see a full size (8.5” x 11”) reply form beat every other size. Not always, but most of time.
3 (of the 60) packs had no coupon because, congratulations, Dale sent them back to you with a gift so I can’t confirm the size of them.
Of these:
48 (of the 60) reply forms had a single gift (cash gift) AND a monthly (or regular) ask as well.
Again, in testing, we have seen that asking for a single cash gift will do better than asking for a single gift AND a monthly gift. Yes, you might get some new monthly donors but you won’t know how many single gifts you didn’t get.
Before I move on to the next point, I do want to point out that the “Life Time Value” of a monthly donor is much higher than a “once a year” or single gift only donor, so it can be argued that even if you lose a few single gifts in this process, what you are left with is better. This is an important strategic conversation and I’m not advising against one or the other.
Increasingly, folks have been asking if using QR codes are a thing now.
1 (of the 60) reply forms had a QR code.
The upside is, your donor can quickly scan it and go online to give. That’s great. The downside is, unless you personalize every QR code (which the one I scanned didn’t), it will take your donor to a generic and probably downgraded giving page. If Dale usually gives you $100, sending her online to a page that asks for $20 is a problem.
The last big thing I looked at was how many decisions would Dale have to make in order to completely fill out the enclosed reply. Anyone who has a basic understanding of behavioral science and knows what analysis paralysis is a real thing - the less Dale needs to think about - the more likely she will respond in a positive manner. With that in mind, I counted them up on the reply forms.
The lowest was 9.
9 decision or boxes Dale had to consider to completely fill out the reply.
The highest was 41.
41 decisions to make to fill it out completely!
Most of the reply forms needed between 22 - 30 decisions made. Count yours and ask yourself if you REALLY need to ask that question or have that check box. Every extra one you add may be making the difference between getting that gift - or not.
So to wrap up this post, I want to share a few other observations and considerations as you (or your designer) put together your reply form.
The reply form is for Dale. The letter is yours. Do what you want on it. But the reply form has to be designed with her in mind. To that point, one reply form had two check box options that were typeset in 3 point type. I’m not kidding. Almost every adult over the age of 45 has some type of visual impairment. If you want to clean off your glasses before you read that again, go ahead. Using type that small is irresponsible and offensive. Worse, the two check boxes had to do with leaving a legacy gift and if the donor was ok with their name begin shared with other organizations.
I know that the small, 8.5 x 3.5” reply forms are the cheapest to make but the irony of being an organization that helps people with arthritis and giving your donor less than 1/4” to somehow write their information in is a bit much. One reply form had only 3/16” between each line for Dale to fill out. Honor the shaky handwriting!
Not a one! Not a one! Gave Dale an opportunity to tell you anything about her. They were all transactional in their nature. Direct response is a conversation with your donor. Dale wants to tell you things about her, her giving, her life. If you don’t let her do that - no wonder she has no real feelings about you and her connection to you.
If you want to nerd out more with me about reply forms, feel free to reach me anytime.
Next up… we will take a look at the extra pieces that some packs had in them, often referred to as “lift” notes, since that’s what they can often do, lift your response by including them.