Stampworthy Envelopes (Taylor's Version)

I know many readers out there are from small nonprofits--orgs that don't have marketing departments.  In fact, you are the marketing department!  But don't worry...shake it off! Oftentimes the reason you chose this profession is because you are passionate about the mission--that's great because you can't teach someone to have passion about something. But, you can teach them some basic marketing methods and moxie. That's why I started blogging weekly at www.dawnbrown.com.

The good news is that you don't have to have a marketing degree to be an effective fundraiser. It's a skill and you can learn how to do it. Heck, I still try to learn something new every day! What you may not realize is that the passion you have for your mission combined with some fundamental marketing skills is a pretty powerful combo! 

So today, I'm writing about envelopes. Yep, that's it--envelopes! They are the carrier of your vital message. They are the attractive outside that gets the meaningful inside the attention it deserves. They're the eye candy that entices people rip and read the story that you need to tell, the message that they need to hear.

When I was at the Nonprofit Storyteller's Conference earlier this month, I learned some important and surprising left brain marketing methods about envelopes. The fact is--envelopes rule. I'm not kidding. Since direct mail is still the #1 way to communicate with donors, this fact is pretty important. Speaker Jeff Brooks said that every fundraiser much address these three things in our marketing communications with donors: Attention, Attraction, Action.

1. Attention: The envelope.
2. Attraction: The letter inside the envelope.
3. Action: The reply device / internal donation envelope.

Brooks stated that donors engage is that exact order --> If the envelope gets their Attention, then they'll read the letter that Attracts them to your mission, which will in turn call them to Action by making a donation.  Essentially, if your envelope isn't even stampworthy enough to encourage the donor to rip it open, then it doesn't really matter how engaging your letter is, it'll be recycled before Taylor Swift breaks up with her next boyfriend.

Therefore, the order of importance when crafting your donor communications should follow suit: 1. Attention, 2. Attraction, and 3. Action. That's right, the attention-grabbing envelope is the most important! After all, you're competing against everything else in your donor's mailbox and your donor's attention. Make sure it's stampworthy by spending some creative energy on this. After all, stamps are expensive, my friend! Don't throw money out the window by neglecting envelopes.


With the above order of importance in mind, Brooks also noted that the order of creation by you is a bit different.  He suggests the following: 1. Action, 2. Attraction, and 3. Attention. My experience tells me he's right on target. We always craft our Attention-grabbing Envelope last. It's like the bow on the present--once we know what's inside, we can properly dress up the outside to match.

So, how do you execute this left brain strategy effectively.  Well, here are a few envelope ideas filled with right brain marketing moxie that will entice your donors to open, read, and act on the stampworthy mail you're sending:

1. Mystery: Everyone loves a bit of mystery, so give them some! This could be done by adorning the outside with a picture, a phrase, or even a hashtag.  The solution to the mystery is held within and that's what gets letters opened and read.  When we used the picture of the adorable triplets that said, 'Copy, Paste, Paste', we wanted them to wonder what are earth we were talking about.  Now, they just had to open our mail to find out!
2. Teasers: While similar to mystery, teasers are more playful. Put something weird or playful on the outside. We all like to be entertained. What might make a donor take a second look or even react with an emotional response?  A quirky 'To the Ah-Mazing' directly above their name is simple text, but it's different and that stands out.
3. Size Matters: We all know what bills and birthday cards look like; they're easy to spot in the mailbox. Play around with different sizes to see what works best based on your response rate. We like to fold our 8 1/2 X 11 paper in half and enclose it in a card-sized envelope--they don't cost any more to mail.
4. Color Stands Out: Bills are always sent with black text. Take this opportunity to separate your look and feel from everyone else.  You could always stick with your own logo colors, but holiday colors are effective as well.  And it doesn't all have to be in living color, sometimes just a splash of color in the right places will do the trick.
5. Fonts are Free: It doesn't cost a thing to change the font on a donor envelope.  Here you can be as creative as you'd like and even download something special, free, from DaFont. Or you could simply use something besides Times New Roman--and please no Comic Sans...you are not a comic strip illustrator. As you'll see from the pic I've included with this blog, oftentimes I'll select a special font for our donor's name and reserve a more tame font for the address itself.
6. Stock and I don't mean Stock Photography: Paper comes in all different weights. Your letterhead is likely lightweight and probably doesn't do well if you have text on the front and the back. You could be missing out on some stampworthy opportunities if you can't take advantage of that prime paper real estate. For example, on the back of many of our mailings we'll place our 'bequest language' so they'll always have it if they need it. We wouldn't be able to do that if we didn't use a cardstock paper. Besides, cardstock feels a lot more like a birthday card and we like that.
7. Return to Sender: You know the return address is always a direct mail staple, but it doesn't have to be the white noise of the envelope. We like to include our logo and of course our address, but we might switch it up with 'The Team at the Generosity Laboratory' or 'From a Grateful Team'. It's just a small way we get our donors to pay attention to what we mail--they never know what we'll be doing next.  But, they do know that it won't be the same thing we've always done--we're better than that...and so are they. Generosity is really fun!

The bottom line is that envelopes are the Attention component of all direct mail. You're working too hard on the Attraction-seeking letters and the Action-oriented donation envelopes to lose your donor's attention and end up in the recycle bin, or worse, the trash can.

Luckily, by paying attention to some left brain methods and right brain moxie, you can do better than you did the last time--and hopefully see some fundraising ROl. All-in-all, like Oprah, this is what I know for sure: 

Stampworthy envelope ideas like this are proven to work and easy to implement; otherwise you and your donors may never ever get back together--ok, you know I had to do it.

All My Best,

dawn