It’s the one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your fundraising bottom line: repetition. Or, as Willis Turner in FundRaising Success magazine says, If It’s Worth Saying, It’s Worth Saying Again.
Repetition — mailing or emailing the same message again — works:
Despite what many people think, simple repetition is one of the most powerful tools in your creative arsenal. The savviest fundraisers use it all the time to ratchet up emotion — and results — from their donors.
I saw a study once of new direct-mail donors. On average, these donors had received the direct-mail acquisition piece six times before they responded to it.
Direct mail is a low-attention environment. Email is even lower. Most of our recipients do not read most of what we send them. But attention is sometimes cumulative. Recipients may progress from barely noticing what we send, through being slightly aware of it, on up to full attention. If you send something only once, the message can never move up that ladder.
Repetition also works within a message: Your call to action should be repeated five, ten, or more times. If you just ask once, you’ll hardly be heard.
Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.
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