 Thank you for being here. Glad that you have chosen to spend your time with us, either live or recorded. We have Laura Ingalls with us, CEO of Abehah Solutions, talking to us about four keys that will unlock direct mail. But before we dive into this conversation, we of course want to make sure that you know who you are looking at or perhaps listening to. Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd. CEO of the Raven Group. We are honored to have the continued support of our amazing sponsors. Please check them out, not now, but in about, you know, 29-ish minutes, it's a great time. So thank you so very much to Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy, Nonprofit Nerd, Your Part-Time Controller, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader, as well as the Nonprofit Atlas. We are marching towards our 600 episodes. Do you remember when we used to say 100 or 200? Well, 600 thanks to our sponsors. And if you've missed any of our episodes, or you're really intrigued, do you want to go back and listen for more? You can find us on Roku, YouTube, Vimeo, Fire TV, as well as podcasts. So wherever you stream your podcast, go ahead and tell the lady in your phone, or at least mine's a lady in my phone, to queue up the non-profit show and you will listen to this episode and all of our others there. So let's dive into the meat and potatoes with Laura Ingalls, CEO of Bayha Solutions. Welcome back, my friend. Good to be here. How are you doing? Fantastic. In our green room chatter, we were nerding out about AFP icon. I'm still buzzing about that. And there's a connection about buzzing and a Bayha. So what does a Bayha mean, Laura? Well, a Bayha is a women-owned small business that helps nonprofits master direct mail. And a Bayha is actually Spanish for B because we think we are nonprofit folks ourselves and we know that nonprofits always need more worker Bs. So we just thought it was really appropriate name for our company. I love it. I love, love, love it. I love the way your logo has, you know, the geometric patterns. And if you look closely, it's, you know, the cells of a beehive and how we're stronger when we work together like that. It's so cool. Hey, before we dive in, it's also actually a metaphor for the direct mail process because direct mail has four pieces, writing, design, data and production. Okay, no, I love it even more. Hey, before we get going too far into this, we're all wearing these buttons and we're gonna get into this just in a little bit. Fundraiser Appreciation Day is coming up. So if you're wondering like, what's up with that? Let's, we'll dig into that, but I wanna make sure that everybody's good to go with that. Okay, so you've got four main pieces that you want us to follow. And let's move really quickly into this because there's a lot of information. First off, what is an integrated campaign? Help us out, sister. Well, if you are checking your email regularly, you know that you are flooded with a million things saying you need to be 100% digital. But anyone with a marketing degree in modern marketing or anyone who's an experienced fundraiser knows the question really isn't to mail or not to mail. The question is, how do I put traditional and digital tactics together to get an even bigger response rate? So that's all an integrated campaign is take the best of digital, take the best of traditional, put them together and get a huge response rate, in comparison to the smaller little individual tactics. Yeah, definitely the multi-channel approach is so important. And again, if you joined us in our green room chatter which is edited out prior to us providing these episodes live, I was talking about how I've been privileged to work with Abehah with several clients and creating these integrated campaigns. I'm in the middle of one now. I still learn from you, Laura and Brianna. There's so many things in your mind. And as we talk about this integrated campaign, there's so much to learn here. So let's talk about how we can use mail because you said something, wow, mail, people actually like that. It's not a bill, it's not any of that, it's not another email. So how do we use mail for elapsed donors, new and even a young donor constituency based? You know, we've got a client right now in Seattle. I just, just as an example, they just had Washington Gives which is a little bit like Arizona Gives Day here. And so it's a primarily digital lead campaign but now they're using a print piece to sweep anyone who didn't give. So really smart integration with those campaigns. And mail really is perfect again as you said for elapsed donors. Someone who is lapsing and we know over 50% of all your database is gonna lapse, you need something special to reach out to them. And mail is that special piece that can say, we really miss you and we want you back. And it gives you a chance to tell a fuller story. You've got 500 words to tell a story, maybe 600 as opposed to 150 words in an email. You can't really say much in an email. So it's great for elapsed donors and to make them feel special and use all the personalization that is in mail. So that's great for lapsed. Should we talk a little bit about new donors? Please, take it away. Or other questions. I've got a question. I've never heard anyone give an actual word count. And that is a really cool thing. I really appreciate you doing that because that kind of frames it up for me. So let's revisit that. When you're looking at the difference between telling your story, I'm hearing you say you have a lot more opportunity if you want to maybe even use the word real estate. Absolutely. In a snail mail piece versus an email piece. Yeah, you have a chance to really give agency to the person you're writing about. You know, often we're writing about kind of sensitive topics in nonprofits. You can give agency. You can show how that person was part of their own change and how the donor met them at their time of need. And I think that's really important. And the reason it's about 500 words, it's because you never want to send anything that's under 12 point type. It should be 12 to 14 point type. Why? The average donor is 65 years old. Yes. I'm not quite yet 50, but I have a very hard time reading some of the tones that I receive in 11 point type. Same, absolutely. I'm a little less than that age, not far, but absolutely. And you know, these nerd glasses, Laura, as you know, they only go so far. There's not prescription in here, but I love that. Do you ever suggest to increase the font even greater depending on your audience? Absolutely. If you are able to write a complete story, establish what the larger need is and make repetitive asks that are custom to the donor when you can in that reply slip, you should absolutely increase the font size if you can. Wow. 12 to 14 point is the absolute minimum you should use in a letter. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Carter. Yeah. Okay, so I interrupted you because I was like so taken aback, you know, with that number and I wanted to drill down, but you know, new and young donors, as Jarrett was saying, talk to us about that and how this can integrate into how we're communicating. Yeah. Well, you know, those first two weeks after you get a donor are really the most important. So how are you going to recapture them? A lot of people say, you know, you've got to send that handwritten note and handwritten note card is just much so much more meaningful than an automated CRM email. People know that's automated. If you want to get above that 43% retention rate, you've got to make it personal. And funny enough, a lot of people don't realize making an ask right after someone has given you money is actually really effective. The donor fatigue I really feel in most cases is a myth. Okay. Okay. You are disrupting a thing. I was like, look it up, look it up. Donor recency, you'll see that recency is one of the main factors for giving. Question, because I actually just got a ping this morning from a donor database saying brand new donor, right? So I have the opportunity right now to do a handwritten note. How does that compare to a phone call? Should I do both? Oh, good question. I think you should do both. Okay. Telling people how grateful they are and then telling them what's the impact of their donation going to be. That's exciting stuff. And so, you know, you can actually, some people do send thank you letters that tell a short story. Here's how your donation is going to help a person. And you can't do that in an email well. And again, most people have 20% open rate on their emails. That's I think about the average. I just deleted mine. I was on like three page and I'm really glad that I got down to 87 and I still need to pare it down but there is so much noise out there. How are our young donors taking to mail? You know, it's funny. Everyone says, well, you know, they're the digital, they're digital natives. So they just think mail is terrible. And that's not actually true. The mail is really novel. The US Postal Service did a study and said they actually engage with their mail more than older donors because it is so interesting. And when we're talking about mail, we're talking about mail that's well done, quality mail. And that can be really challenging for a small team to do. But if you've got a really compelling piece, they're excited to get something in their mailbox. That's not a bill. Well, small teams need worker bees like you. And if you joined us in the early part, you know that Laura and Brianna are the worker bees so that you can be the A team. And that's exactly what needs to happen. Let's move into the timeline of this and the timeliness. You know, what's important with the email part of the integrated campaign? How does this work? Because direct mail, I thought, was just snail mail and that was it. But you're telling me there's another component? Well, direct marketing is actually a really large field. And I'm a nerd just like you. And I keep track of all of the response rate numbers. So right now, physical mail, something like this, this physical mail piece has about a 6% to 9% response rate. That's mail. Email 0.08. That's the new M&R benchmark survey that came out. 0.08 in terms of response. And when I mean response, I mean someone giving you money. And the real heartbreaker is only 17% of the people who come to your digital landing page actually give a donation. But the nice thing is when you combine those tactics, you can look at 27% response or a 37% response rate. On average, that's some research from Japs Olson, which is a printing company. And you can get those large response rates. So why wouldn't you go for that multiplier effect? You're on fire, Julia, because my hair is on fire. And the thing that I really love about this conversation and, Jarrett, I would love your response on this because I feel like a lot of the conversations that we have, not just on the nonprofit show, but across the sector, is like choose one or the other. Don't dump everything. And don't you feel like that, Jarrett, the message is you got to do it one way and only with one thing. And so I really appreciate this more multi-pronged effect. It's so important. And working with a Baha has really shown me, and again, taught me because direct mail is not my jam. Like that's not my wheelhouse. It's their wheelhouse, which is exactly why coming to a Baha is so important because just the number you shared, Laura, increasing that because when you first mentioned the direct mail return, it was what, 6%? Jarrett mail is about 6% to 9% right now. That's according to the Direct Marketers Association. Which is well above email, but then you combine those two and it's almost out of this world. Yeah, no, it's fantastic. And multi-channel is where it's at. You shouldn't really be thinking about things in terms of individual tactics. And I think nonprofits fall into that because we're thinking about our campaigns from our own perspective. What's easy for us to get out? What's easy for us to get out? As opposed to how does a donor actually encounter these pieces? They see a mail piece and if they don't immediately write a check or go online, they put it in their mail pile and say, I'm gonna do that over the weekend because I love that organization. And then they see an email that has a similar story and it reminds them that they've gotta go online and do it. Then they go to your optimized landing page and there are a lot of tricks to making great landing pages. And they see a same photo. They see a same story and it reminds them the kind of impact that they're making as donors. And so that multi-channel effect just makes sense. Okay, I'm gonna put you on the spot and Jarrett and I wanna make sure that we get you back for one whole episode just on optimized landing pages and how they interact with the snail mail and the email because I think that's a big thing that we're missing. So many nonprofits are shooting themselves in the foot with the donation page. We'll talk about that soon. I'm just saying. Okay, well, I'm sorry. You got me like all freaked out. It's gonna be August because we're just about booked up through July but we will absolutely get that scheduled. Great time to do it right before fall campaigns come out. Let's get from 17% of people making a donation on your landing page. Let's get that higher. Let's get it higher. Well, one of the things before we jump into fundraiser appreciation, I wanted to ask how often should we do a direct mail? How many should we do? Is it one and done? Is it once every six months? What does that look like? It depends on the organization. If you are on top of your data and your data is clean, you're gonna be able to do much more targeted, personalized pieces of mail. You're going to be using custom ask amounts that say, you know, Julia gave us $50 and Jared gave us $500 last time. I'm not gonna ask you guys for the same amount. Your mail piece allows for that personalization. Most nonprofits that we work with are in the one million to a $10 million range. Those folks are mailing about four times a year. So, and each of those mail campaigns has segmentation. So they'll make sure that they're asking for a monthly gift. They're asking their monthly donors for a special one-time gift and they're trying to bring when back those lapsed donors. And then during the year, they might put in a few other things. They might have a planned giving version. They might have a version that references a gala or a special giving day. But so you're actually, you know, you think about it, you're hitting four times a year, but each of those is segmented, so. Right, okay, that's fantastic. One more question in the hot seat. How is inflation and the cost of paper impacting direct mail? Good question. No, you know, I don't think the cost of paper is necessarily impacting people that much. What is impacting people right now is the availability of envelopes. It's been really challenging to get. You're number nine and window envelopes, which are pretty standard for direct mail. So that's actually been a lot more challenging for folks, but nonprofits that are starting eight weeks in advance with their appeals, which means if you're doing a fall appeal, kick it off July 1st. Okay. So the envelopes have become the 2020 toilet paper. They become a little more scarce. Yeah, but you know, it takes about six weeks to do the writing design and the data part for most nonprofits. Then give your printer two weeks to source those materials and get it done. If you're doing it in-house, that's the no stress timeline. But right now prices haven't. The US Postal Service is increasing prices on stamps that is going up only two cents though, which people are pretty excited about. However, nonprofits should be sending most of their mail, their mass mail using their nonprofit authorization, which allows them to send it for 14 to 17 cents a piece versus a first class stamp, which is now going to be 60 cents or more or more. So, you know, and that's that, you know, first that that's that little in Disha right there. That says that they paid, these people are smart. They paid only 14 to 17 cents for their mail piece. Yeah, very good. Okay. Bring us home now with why we're wearing these buttons, Fundraiser Appreciation Day, which is what that says. And then this is what I was also sharing earlier. We have this amazing Don't Wait. So June 30th is Fundraiser Appreciation Day. You know, during the last couple of years have been really hard on fundraisers. Before the great resignation, they were sticking around in nonprofits about 16 to 18 months because they have a lot of opportunities. It hasn't been any new data out on how long they're sticking in their jobs, but we think one of the reasons, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy just put out an article that said, you know, fundraisers really need to feel more appreciated. Appreciated, yes. Yes, they need to be paid more. Yes, they need to have more flexibility in their schedules. But, you know, just a simple thank you. And how can we do that? We were really surprised at BEHA that Fundraiser Appreciation Day didn't exist. There's days for talking like Pirate. There's Donut Appreciation Day. There's Nudist Day. How is there not a Fundraiser Appreciation Day? They are multi-tasking miracle workers who are constantly pulling out the stops and for, you know, to help their missions succeed. So we went around, you know, in 2021 was the first Fundraiser Appreciation Day. And we just invited nonprofits to spend one pure day thanking their fundraisers for keeping their missions stable and growing. And it was a huge success. So we're bringing it back again this year. Yeah. And what are the great parts? Go ahead. Can we nominate someone? I see on this card FundraiserAppreciation.com. So that's FundraiserAppreciation.com. What happens on that site? Well, one of the things we're asking people to do is add a fundraiser's name to the wall of fame. It doesn't cost anything. All you do is make a few short keystrokes and you're able to add someone's name. And it just really is a very public thank you to remind them just how amazing they are. And when we say fundraisers, there are a lot of different kind of people who contribute to fundraising success at a nonprofit. So it might be the admin who inputs gifts. It might be the person who keeps your database clean. It might be a great comms person who is writing and designing their appeals. It might be your executive director who's making those major gift asks and just crushing it and making your life as a fundraiser easier. So yeah, it's just a free way to give recognition to just these amazing folks. Maybe even your board. Maybe even your board. Yeah, we all have those gala chairs. Wow, that is fantastic. I remember because I did receive your previous fundraiser appreciation day, what you just said, I had no idea that day existed, but you know, pie day, doughnut day, I didn't know about the nudist day, but there's so many days out there and why not celebrate fundraisers? But you said, you know, the last two years have been extremely exhausting, extremely challenging. I think that's also what we saw at the latest conference, the AFP icon is, it was just so good to be with our peers and to be in person and, you know, to give and receive of that energy. So fundraiserappreciation.com. Let's do that. There's also a toolkit there. So if you want to have a little party, if you want to create a really funny, old-timey proclamation, declaring it fundraising appreciation day and put your organization's logo on it, there's a lot of fun tools that are there. And the thing that inspired us to do this, besides the fact that fundraisers need a day to just be purely thanked, was that, you know, June 30th is about the time that a lot of organizations are starting their new fiscal year. Yeah. And a friend of ours who's a fundraiser confessed to us, you know, I dread this time of year because there's no pause, there's no real thank you. They just move on to the next year and say, how much are you going to raise this year? Right. So we just want to have that moment to say. Grinding and grinding and grinding, which is why the stat of 16 to 18 months is the tenure of a fundraiser, you know, professional in an agency. We've talked about that, Julia, you know, and this great reshuffle, great resignation, the stats aren't out yet, but that was standard 16, 18, 19 months. So that's essentially a short amount of time. Yeah, let's just pause and just say, you know, thank you for what we've achieved in the last year and just take a moment because you don't want to have this fall be surprised by a fundraiser who's moving on to another opportunity. So make it feel great now. That's something that you can control. You may not always be able to control how much you can pay them or what you can do in terms of time off, but you certainly can make them, write a personal note to them, post on our fundraiser wall of fame and have a little fun on that special day. Fantastic. I love it. You know, I wanted to say you are so good at your work. You sent us, pardon me, a packet of information with the buttons, your beautifully branded things, really, really smart. I got super excited because I had something in the mail and you know, everything that you've said really has circled back around and it's so much about that relationship as the nonprofit nerd always says, R-O-R return on relationship and what it is you can do to help navigate and steward that reaction to a company or to a mission to a nonprofit. It really can be done in some of these forgot, I want to say forgotten ways, you know, that we've let go of this concept that we can be sending swag in essence, I guess, you know, that we can be moving through. And so I really appreciate you reinforcing that just with my own experience. Just, you know, it's important to surprise and delight donors. Give them something they don't expect and make sure that you have quality communications and that you are making sure that you control the costs on that. And you can do that with that integrated campaign. Yeah, I love it. I'm really, really thrilled. I do think we do, we will get you back on to talk about that all important landing page for donors and how we can be driving them to that and what it looks like and how we need to really be thinking about that as opposed to this all or nothing kind of mentality that for some reason we've kind of become hostage to. And so I'm looking forward to that. I want to make sure that we get all of Laura's information back up here because there's just so much that you share with our community. Your blog is incredibly robust. I was super impressed with all of the different technical things that you share with the nonprofit sector. And I'll witness to you is I think a lot of professionals, they don't want to give that out unless you're a customer. And I found it really liberating and very impressive that I could go onto that site and just get a lot of research. Yeah. So thank you. Thank you. You know, our approach, our philosophy is all of our secrets are out there. If you need to do, some nonprofits need to do direct mail in-house for various reasons. We actually put a toolkit every summer that tells you step-by-step directions. My business partner Brianna is an instructional designer by trade. So actually we have a course from end to end is here's how to do it and to do it right. And we're confident that people will do that. And some people will come to us and say, I would prefer to spend my time with major givers. And you calculate the custom ask-a-rays for each of our donors. My time is better served developing a planned giving program because there's gonna be a huge wealth transfer with baby boomers. Laura, can you manage that? Make sure that the Oxford comma is inserted in every one of our pieces. Absolutely. We do the little stuff so you can focus on the big stuff. I love it. Well, Julia, let's pull up her slide so we can share that with those of you watching. For those of you listening, of course, you will be able to find a Baha Solutions at abahasolutions.com. I'm gonna spell a Baha because it's A-B-E-J-A, a Baha Solutions. Laura Ingalls, you're one of my favorites. So glad that you said yes and that you brought your valuable expertise with us today. We are so grateful. Thank you so much, Jared and Julia. It has been such a pleasure to give away all of our secrets. And I hope that everybody listening will have a very successful year-end campaign. I love it. Well, we definitely are going to with your help. Again, I'm Julia Patrick. I've been joined today by the nonprofit nerd herself, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. And again, we wanna make sure that we thank all of our presenting sponsors without them. We would not be here having such an amazing discussion with Laura. Hey, Blue Morang, American nonprofit academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit nerd, fundraising academy, staffing boutique, nonprofit thought leader, and the nonprofit Atlas. You make the nonprofit show possible. And so we thank you, thank you, thank you. As we end every episode, we wanna remind everybody and I think ourselves, stay well so you can do well. Thank you, ladies.