2022 erratic mailing performance – what to do

We know the pandemic years have added dramatically to the pressures of most charities. So, it was fantastic to see some charities achieving amazing results with their direct mailing activities during this time. Not just to their existing donors but also in finding new ones.

As the country emerged from Covid’s restrictions we were looking towards a return to “normal times”. But the UK is in fact facing a cost-of-living crisis, and the macro implications of the war in Ukraine are beginning to become apparent. This has led to many organisations (not just charities) seeing unexpected erratic campaign performance, for both warm and cold campaigns. One campaign may not reach target, yet the next one overachieves. And when every pound is needed, charities not only want to know why this is happening, but what they can do about it.

Here are some of things I recommend my clients review, which you might also find useful.

Is it a data issue?

The first consideration is whether any lists or segments of mailed data are doing significantly worse than expected. For instance, has a top performing file or segment suddenly dropped from the top quartile of results to the bottom quartile? If this is the case, the solution is relatively simple: investigate what, if anything was different. Don’t just think about the segments that are doing poorly, but also those that are doing better, as the name of the game is to get predictable results. If it’s a cold data file, did the supplier change how they recruited these names, perhaps by altering the mix of channels? If it’s warm data, was there something different about this cohort of donors, such as in the way they were recruited?

Have you done anything differently?

If nothing’s changed here, and the best lists are still the best lists and the worst segments still the worst segments, it’s unlikely to be a data issue. In this case, first review if there is anything different in the creative/messaging/prompting or even timing. If so, take stock of the learning and change tac if you can. Revert to previous activity, or accept that this was a test that didn’t work and move forward.

Is there an external reason?

If this isn’t the case either, then the erratic performance may be down to external factors. And there is currently a plethora of those to choose from! However, this does not mean you need to abandon all activity – after all if you do, you will lose all that vital learning, momentum and engagement that comes with it, especially when communicating with existing donors.

Making a decision on action

So, what might you do instead? You could decide to reduce your mailing volumes to cut down your exposure. But if all your selections are performing erratically, it may be impossible to identify the best and worst performers, in which case I suggest keeping any file that overachieves on response or donation value compared to the previous campaign’s average.

You will also most likely give more weighting to files and segments that have historically delivered an acceptable performance. Depending on your organisation’s overall goals and aims, it may make sense to keep files that give more response, providing these data sets have a good lifetime value associated with them, and drop those with lower donations if you are looking to continue growing the donor base.

Alternatively, you may decide to be guided in your selections by the performance of the latest, or most “complete” campaign, especially if you do not run particularly frequent campaigns. The main concern with this approach is that you could be leaving some good data out of campaigns.

And finally…

Of course, infrequent campaigns, with erratic performance could also mean a seasonality issue, which can easily be missed as it’s difficult to see a trend of performance within sparse data. So look back over previous years and see if the campaigns compared to previous years. It may simply be that response rates and donation levels are returning to pre-pandemic times. In which case, it’s time for a conversation around re-setting targets, because if the data was previously working at an acceptable level and targets have simply been increased because it’s not been possible to increase the mailing sizes, then it may be time to downscale expectations.

As you can see, there are a variety of reasons why campaign performance might suddenly become erratic – but there is a process to working out why, and several solutions available.

If you’d value a more detailed conversation about this, do get in touch!