How a Data-Driven Pivot Delivered Significant Improvements for a Human Services Nonprofit’s Direct Mail Acquisition

Challenge

A human services nonprofit faced declining direct mail acquisition response rates and struggled to acquire new direct mail donors.

Solution

TrueSense Marketing recommended shifting from a broad, nationwide “quantity” approach to a focused “quality” approach. The strategy began by isolating the direct mail acquisition footprint to only Southern California, where the organization is located, to improve the value of new donors.

After initial success, this focused model was flexibly expanded using a “heat map” approach to add other high-potential markets such as Phoenix and Sacramento. The strategy also involved testing lower-cost formats and refreshed messaging to improve budget efficiency without compromising results.

Results

This refined, data-driven strategy proved highly successful in improving the long-term value of new donors. The FY24 direct mail acquisition class delivered the highest projected five-year long-term value (LTV) in the past five years, which was a 30% improvement over the second-highest year. This success continued into FY25 with an additional 41% year-over-year increase in LTV. Furthermore, by testing new packages, the campaign reduced production costs by up to 20% while maintaining performance comparable to the control group.