A new study by the DMA has been launched investigating the effectiveness of charity marketing.
The research analyses 1,057 DMA award entries housed within the DMA’s Intelligent Marketing Databank and measures the number of reported ‘effects’, which are grouped into four categories:
Response effects: including conversion, acquisition, sales, donations, bookings, footfall, downloads and CPA efficiency
Brand effects: including brands awareness, ad recall, consideration, purchase intent, brand trust, brand perception, recommendation, customer satisfaction
Business effects: including profit, market share growth, customer penetration, loyalty and shareholder value
Campaign delivery effects: including reach, frequency and impressions
Direct mail was found to be the most effective channel at driving response effects – particularly in the short term, which is important for charities looking to boost donations for specific fundraising campaigns. The channel delivers an average of three response effects per campaign close to double that of the poorest performing response channel; out of home at 1.9 responses. TV was found to be the best channel at driving brand response, with advertising mail taking second place.
The research also revealed that for overall effectiveness across all four measures a multichannel approach matters. Campaigns that run across three or more channels were found to be more effective than those running with just one or two media channels at 3.4 effects versus 23.7 effects respectively.
Campaigns that employ three or more marketing channels are more effective at generating brand, response and business effects (3.4 effects) than those running with one or two different media (2.7 effects).
The research is important because charity marketers need to be armed with data-driven insight to inform the role of their marketing mix to both build the brand, but also to deliver response effectiveness, ultimately the key fundraising driver.
The research finds that charities come in at fifth place in the overall sector effectiveness rankings: behind the financial, retail, utility and automotive sectors, but ahead of the remaining majority, including public sector.
To maintain response effectiveness what is clear for the charity sector is a continued focus on campaign quality. Since the introduction of GDPR and the Fundraising Code of Practice targeting has become a key priority and engagement has improved as a result. Data quality and efficient data processing lies at the heart of good targeting ensuring that only the most relevant people receive a campaign.
For information about our cost effective, award-winning data processing solutions please give us a call!
