The Salvation Army has hailed a major rethink of its fundraising strategy, which has seen the charity ditch all cold direct mail activity yet increase its income and boost return on investment.
Driven by GDPR and the diminishing availability of cold lists, the charity decided to cut all cold mail – which accounted for just shy of 22% of cold recruitment spend – from its 2018 Christmas campaign.
Widely recognised as one of the largest annual campaigns in the UK fundraising sector, the festive activity generates around £16m for the charity.
The Salvation Army briefed Marketing Metrix to look at the impact of removing this key channel and to recommend an optimum media mix strategy to combat the loss of cold mail income.
Using its proprietary attribution tool, Omniatt, Marketing Metrix developed a suite of machine learning algorithms, aimed at optimising media spend, without negatively impacting income.
Using Omniatt they were able to optimise their spend across other channels which included digital, social media, PPC, display, press, and third-party inserts which were devised by the charity’s roster of agencies. It also included DRTV and door-drop activity through WPN Chameleon.
As a result of the changes, year on year prospecting income increased by almost £700,000 and ROI was up by almost 20%.
Marketing Metrix managing director Bill Portlock said: “When we developed Omniatt, we under-estimated the demand for this type of analysis, understanding what is driving response in a multi-channel and touchpoint environment is fundamental for not only charities but most businesses.”
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