A Thorough, Complete Argument for Why You Should Include a Reply Card

A nonprofit recently asked me if they should include a physical reply card with their mailers.  They asked, “Wouldn’t it be cheaper if we just had everyone go online to give their gifts?”

I’m going to give you a short answer, and then a long, annoyingly detailed answer.

The Short Answer

The nonprofit is correct that it would be cheaper, but there’s a hidden consequence: they would get fewer gifts overall and would end up raising less money.

Because of this, at Better Fundraising we recommend always including a reply card and a reply envelope in your direct mail packages.  Yes, it’s a tiny bit more expensive to do so, but it’s proven to result in more net revenue for your mission.

Here’s why this happens: in today’s world, statistically speaking, most recipients of a direct mail package want to use the mail to send their gift back to you.  (This seems like a good place to remind ourselves that the average age of a donor in North America is at least 20 years older than the average age of a Fundraiser in North America.)

This means, if you don’t include a reply card and a reply envelope, you are asking a majority of the people who want to give you a gift to do it in a way they don’t prefer.  Not all of them will do it your way, and you’ll lose some gifts.

The Long Answer

Say you send out a great piece of direct mail and, after scanning and reading your letter, there are 100 people who would like to give you a gift.

In other words, you have 100 people holding your letter in their hands with intent to give.

Based on the donor behavior that Better Fundraising sees across several nonprofit sectors, we estimate that of those 100 people, approximately 75 of them would prefer to give their gift to you through the mail, and 25 would prefer to give you a gift online. 

Using this donor behavior as a baseline, let’s think through what will happen.

First, let’s assume that of the 25 folks who prefer to give online, all 25 of them scan your QR code, arrive at your landing page, and 20 of them give you a gift.  That’s an exceedingly generous assumption, because I’ve never seen a giving page or mobile form with has an 80% conversion rate, but let’s go with it for argument’s sake.  (And if you don’t know the conversion rates of your giving/donate page, that’s something to add to your list to measure and manage.)

Now, the other 75 people holding your letter will all go looking for the reply card, and will experience a moment of friction when they can’t find one.  They can’t give their gift to your nonprofit in the way they would like to.

Let’s say 5 of them put your letter in the recycling at that moment.  I’m thinking about my mom here.  She’s a fantastic donor to several organizations.  But there’s no way in the world she’s ever going to give a gift online that involves her typing in a url or scanning a QR code. 

So now you have 70 people left who have an intent to give, but must “switch media channels” (from direct mail to online) in order to give you a gift.  More friction.

Of those 70, maybe 35 will find their phone, open up the camera app, scan the QR code, and go to your giving page.  Great.  Let’s assume your giving page is great and your conversion rate is 50% for visitors arriving with intent to give, so of those 35 donors, 18 will give you a gift.

For the other 35 donors who don’t use QR codes, they will pull out their phone or laptop, hopefully not get distracted by text messages or email or their home page, and enter your website address by hand.  The standard rule of thumb is that for every click that users must make to reach a destination on the web, half of the audience is lost.  So our 35 visitors who arrive at your site, 18 make it to your giving page.  And we know that the giving page’s conversion rate is 50%, so from those 18 visitors we will get 9 gifts.

Whew.  Let’s look at the totals…

The Results

We had 100 people with intent to give after reading your letter.

In the scenario where there was no reply device, you received 47 total gifts:

• 20 from the people who prefer to give online
• 18 from the people who use QR codes
• 9 from the people who had to enter your website manually

Now let’s quickly look at what would have happened if the 100 people with intent to give had a reply card and reply envelope in their hands along with your letter.

I predict that you’d receive about 90 gifts:

• 20 from the people who went online of their own volition, and
• 70 from people sending back the reply card with a check or credit card number.  (I’m accounting for some “loss” due to people being unable to find their checkbook, some wouldn’t have stamps, some would forget to mail the letter, etc.) 

That’s 90 gifts versus 47 gifts. 

Now, your numbers might be a little different.  Your assumptions might be a little different.  Your giving page conversion rates might be a little different.  But I think you’ll see that, if you’re counting your pennies and trying to get the most bang for your buck, you’ll include a reply card and a reply envelope.