Leveraging Direct Mail and Digital Marketing Together for "Surround Sound" in Fundraising and Marketing
	Posted by at Sep 19, 2013 07:00 AM CDT

At our disposal are a multitude of vehicles in which to deliver our marketing and fundraising messages. The combined power of mail and digital marketing to formulate a holistic “surround sound” can deliver formidable marketing messaging and create synergy between all available and appropriate channels.

Here are six tips for creating your own fundraising and marketing surround sound:

1. Understand the “end goal” you are looking to accomplish and the metrics for measuring success, so that the optimal communication plan can be devised across the mail and digital assets you have.
• Are we looking to raise money?
• Are we looking for new supporters?
• Are we looking to facilitate an action?
• Are we looking to raise awareness around an issue or an event?
• Do we want to build social buzz and stimulate Influencers?
2. Engage all key stakeholders -- the offline team and digital teams -- in regular status meetings to ensure there are no missed opportunities to create cohesive and personalized messaging platforms, leverage learnings and testing concepts in both arenas. Not everything that works in one channel will work in another -- but if you have testing wins in one, it makes sense to try testing it in the other.
3. Identify the key constituent audiences relevant to a successful outcome and the channels they are most active in. This will help tailor the best contact cadence to deliver results offline, online and through telemarketing. Your segmentation strategies and tactical execution of the segmentation blueprint will allow you to drive your constituents toward the outcome you are striving for and help determine how your messaging arc will evolve with the best ROI across all channels.
4. Pillar direct mail appeals are the best starting place for integration efforts in the mail and on the digital front. Using elements from the direct mail piece to reinforce the creative treatment and messaging online will help underscore the primary and key points you are working to communicate so that your online constituents will be receptive to the companion mail piece when it is received. On the flip side -- using the mail piece to drive donors to the website or campaign donation page can also generate increased participation and results. You can utilize incentives to encourage this -- for example, a direct mail piece can say that if you make a gift to the 2-to-1 Match Campaign online, your gift will be matched 3-to-1, going further and having a greater impact.
5. There are a number of products and suppliers that can help facilitate a digital ad campaign to support an offline appeal -- creating multiple impressions in advance of a mail piece, thereby improving offline results by encouraging stronger long term value of those donors who are exposed to the ad and building a stronger connection to your organization. This can help acquisition, reinstatement and renewal efforts. 
6. If you conduct surveys offline and/or online -- use the tallied responses to report back to your constituents on the results and to tailor future messaging, creating dialog and engagement.  Capturing key data will also allow you to better understand a constituent’s area(s) of interest to improve your communications.