Neuroscience Reveals Why Direct Mail Raises More Money Than Digital
Our clients find that direct mail fundraising outperforms digital fundraising by two to five times or more.
Why is that? Don’t donors know it’s easier and less expensive to send an email than a letter?
Guess what: consumers are no different.
This summary by the BirdsEye post provides these reported response rates for all industry sectors:
Direct mail 4.9-9%;
Email marketing 1%;
What’s behind this? Neuroscience gives us some explanations.
An in-depth study by Canada Post looked at the neurology behind the response-driving power of direct mail. Utilizing electroencephalography (a neurological test that records electrical activity in the brain), eye-tracking, and tests of recall, interest, and preference, the study’s findings were telling:
Direct mail required 21% less cognitive effort to process than digital
Direct mail had 75% brand recall versus 44% for digital
Direct mail motivation response was 20% higher than digital
Results were consistent across all age groups
A study for the USPS by The Fox Center for Neural Decision Making at Temple University showed that:
Readers spend more time with print than digital
The emotional reaction is higher to print than digital
Memory recall is faster with print than with digital
Print produces a higher subconscious desire for the product or service than digital
Print yields a higher subconscious value for the product or service than digital
And, a Royal Mail Market Reach study, The Private Life of Mail, using steady state topography to study brain response, found that compared to email, mail had:
32% greater engagement
22% greater emotional intensity
32% greater long-term memory encoding
What to do? The good news is that email and direct mail work better when they work together. A study by Target Analytics found that while donors acquired online have a higher average first gift, online donors who subsequently move to direct mail giving demonstrate higher retention rates and greater long-term value.
Combine your direct mail and email solicitations, allowing both channels to serve and reinforce the other. I recommend sending two email follow-ups for each direct mail appeal. I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Both your email and direct results should improve!
We've got your back!
Five Maples helps fundraisers save time, raise more money and enjoy doing it!
Contact us today at garyh@fivemaples.com for a free consultation.
