How much time does a cold direct mail campaign take and why?

Cold mail is historically seen as a lengthy process, and it very often is. A great creative campaign can take several months from first concept to landing on a recipient’s doormat. And then you’ve still got to wait for the responses to come in.

So why does it take so long? And are there ways of reducing this? 

Doing your due diligence

There’s necessary due diligence for starters. Cold mail data operates under the basis of legitimate interests, so first off you need to assess the legitimacy of your organisation’s interests and carry out a robust balancing test to check you can even run a campaign on these grounds. What’s more, this is a step you absolutely must tackle at the outset, otherwise how can you say you’ve undertaken the balancing test without any bias to the outcome?

Then there are all the other compliance issues to sort out, like data privacy statements, and the required due diligence of any external suppliers you use. Think ahead and get these processes under way as soon as possible, don’t wait until the last minute.

The industry has worked hard to standardise how we request and provide compliance information. This makes the task easier, plus if you know you have a campaign coming up, there is no need to wait until you are ready to order the data. Make your requests when you’re asking for counts and then the suppliers can produce the necessary documentation in good time.

Data recommendations and ordering

Allow anything up to two weeks for data owners to come back with the volumes available for your campaign. Often the bulk of them respond within a matter of days, but it’s always useful to allow more time in case counts need to be re-run. Or, as may happen, the volumes available are insufficient to meet the volume you are looking to mail and you need to get more ideas on how to meet your target.

Once you’ve received the ‘data proposal’ of lists, selections, volumes and costs for the campaign, most likely you’ll need to get internal approval. Most commonly it’s from colleagues in the fundraising or procurement teams, but occasionally it has to go to the finance department for approval, or even the CEO or Trustees if this is a new channel for the organisation.

Often one of the biggest challenges for first-time users of cold mail is that you find yourself putting together your creative and copy at the same time as you’re planning and ordering your data. But list owners will be protective of their data and they will usually want to see at least rough campaign materials upfront so they can decide if they’re happy for you to send your campaign to their list. You will need something to show them – copy is essential, even if you’re still negotiating where to put a comma or a full stop with your CEO, and also some indication of type of images you will be using.  Therefore, kick off the creative design process as early as you can so this doesn’t hold things up.

Once you’ve ordered the data, you’re then looking at around one week for the data to be supplied, but always allow a little extra time, in case the list owner encounters technical issues as they are ready to output your data.

Allowing time for processing, printing & fulfilment

Once the data comes in, you then need to allow for the processing – the dedupe, merge, purge, and cleaning takes time and can often throw up questions. It can be done as quickly as one or two days – or sometimes it can take weeks if it’s a complicated brief that throws up lots of questions.

The next step is going to the printer, which could mean multiple elements, personalisation, perforations, etc, and then to fulfilment to bring all the pieces together into envelopes to be sent out. In some instances this is undertaken by the same organisation, in which case this can move swiftly within a week. However, if you’re using a number of different suppliers this can take a couple of weeks or more.

How long for a response?

Then it’s a waiting game. Responses of course don’t just come in in a quick and orderly fashion.

A significant number of people still send their donations in via cheque, as opposed to donating online. During the first lockdown, response was quick with targets being reached within 4-5 weeks. However, as the pandemic has continued responses have been slowing down significantly and currently we’re seeing campaigns completing 4-6 weeks later than usual.

It’s down to you to decide when a campaign is completed, and when to start looking at the results. Normally, around 80% of results are in within week 7-8, but in the current market we’d say it’s more likely to be weeks 9-11.

All in all, realistically you’re looking at around a four-month lead-time, which might sound a long time, but this is four months to a response/donation, rather than pure engagement with your organisation.   

The key then is robust planning up front with an awareness of every element you will need and when, including the mailing pack itself, the data and the required due diligence and documentation you must to get in place. Much of this can run simultaneously and save you valuable time in bringing in much needed new support and donations.

For more help on this and other aspects of direct mail covered in this blog, contact Arc Data.  

Training Course: Adding Direct Mail to the Fundraising Mix, 19th January 2021

Arc’s founding director Suzanne Lewis is running a course in partnership with UK Fundraising, in which she will explain and dispel the common misconceptions associated with using direct mail.  She will guide attendees through integrating the channel into the fundraising mix, planning and executing a successful campaign. Find out more here.