Spice Market (Mısır Çarşısı) Istanbul by flickr user exfordy

Not literally, obviously... unless you are using some sort of spice as a premium.  In that case, yes, literally spice up your mail!

But, what I’d like to talk about are various techniques you can use to make each mail package you send to your donors a little bit different so that they are getting new and fresh packages from you.  And hopefully this will mean that they get excited each time they hear from you, and hopefully respond often!

The most obvious ways to make each package different are to have different outer envelope, letter, and reply designs, premium package incentives (labels, cards, note pads...) and different stories.  If you’re doing this and it’s working, then great!

However, I’d like to dig a little bit deeper than those common ‘ingredients’.   Here are a few suggestions, or we can call them ‘spices’ to add to your DM spice rack, that might help to differentiate your appeals from your other appeals, and perhaps more importantly - from your competitor’s appeals. 

How about including an Engagement Piece in an upcoming appeal?  An engagement piece is a part of the package that is typically asked to be sent back in with the reply form and gift.  Engagement pieces can range from sticker reply forms to petitions to decorative ornaments to cards for people that your cause helps.  When using engagement pieces, be sure to include reference to the piece in the letter, but don’t make it central to the letter as you don’t want the piece to take away from the need for a gift.  These work best and should really only be used when they help promote the need and/or suit the topic of the appeal.

An Insert is also a great way to spice up a package and in many cases has shown to lift response rates! Inserts are most effective with good photographs, and relative and interesting information.  They tend to be rather expensive and will drive up your CPP, so be sure to plan to use inserts cost effectively.  And please don’t just use one to use one, make it relative and useful to the donor!

And two inexpensive ways to spice up your appeals are to use various Postage techniques (think live stamps, indicia, metered postage...), as well as ramp up your Yes Lines on your replies with variable copy (oh the joys of lasering!), and or designated-funds talk (if you can).  I’d also suggest you take time to create the Yes Line.  Be sure that it accurately reflects the appeal letter, and ideally each appeal letter is different from the one before it, so each Yes Line should be different.  These are less expensive options, and can be easily tested, and used in various ways to connect with various segments of your donors! 

I’d like to finish by saying that in an ideal world you would want to test these ideas as needed, and you would absolutely need to ensure that these ideas work for your cause .  Most importantly, they must be relative to what you do and to what your donors are interested in.

There are plenty of other techniques available to spice up appeal packages.  Those that I’ve mentioned are a few I like to work with, but there are many more.  Do you have any to share?!  Please do.  That’s what the comment section below is for. ☺