Multiple Choices

Last fall, Compassion & Choices, a Denver-based nonprofit organization that seeks to improve care and expand choice at the end of life through support, education and advocacy, was torn. Continue using targeted messaging that focuses on a specific issue it's battling in its annual fund appeal—as had been its approach in the past—or go with broader messaging?The original annual fund control was a survey package that Dennis Lonergan, principal/president for New York-based direct marketing consulting firm Eidolon Communications, says "clearly defines death with dignity as a choice issue along the lines of women's choice or reproductive choices, other personal choices that people should have the liberty to make themselves." Eidolon, the Compassion and Choices' new direct mail agency in the fall, was inclined to go with broader messaging. "We had a fairly long meeting with the program team and the development team and the communications team to try to develop not only keys for giving, but some narrative discussion for them," John Graves, principal/vice president at Eidolon Communications, says. "We'd been struggling because it's a very multipronged organization. They do counseling services. They do advocacy work. They're involved in so many different areas that it's sort of difficult to tell the story of Compassion & Choices."It decided to test that original control against a mailing with a broader, more moderate message on end of life issues. Graves explains, "The old control package was much more advocacy-focused. ‘Don't let them take away your rights.' Our package is more the control thing and the advocacy and the great work that they're doing in the states and the great work that they're doing with the media. It's just broader."But the timing of the test couldn't have been worse. "We mailed into October and the economic meltdown," Graves says. "The new package that we had developed was actually the better-performing package, but only modestly. It wasn't a clear-cut winner, and because of all of the uncertainty, we actually ended up retesting just to get a better picture and to make certain that we were actually making the right decision." The new package—which, in addition to broader, more moderate messaging, included an informational brochure that the control didn't have—brought in an average gift almost $10 higher than the control (Archive code #601-708858-0907).Encouraged by the success of the test with the broad message and how well it resonated with current donors, the organization decided to go out with a modified version for its acquisition appeal. The organization did a three-way test for the acquisition mailing that included the original control, the test from the annual-fund appeal with the informational brochure and the mailing featured here, a more condensed version of the original test with the same, broad copy approach, sans the informational brochure. The test's outer envelope features fresh copy that serves as both teaser and brand: "Truth over lies, Dignity over dogma, Free will over obedience. Here's how to protect your choice at life's end." That first part of the teaser actually was coined by Compassion & Choices' president, Barbara Coombs Lee, signer of the enclosed letter. "I happened to notice it in a blog post that Barbara Coombs Lee had written and ... in nine words, just kind of really captured what we stand for and what we're up against with this issue," Lonergan says-an example of how content for new media can be repurposed for other channels.Inside is a four-page letter on two sheets of 8-1/2" x 11" paper that begins by laying out the broad issue at hand: "Your right to make informed decisions about end-of-life health care ... is under sweeping attack." The letter lays out Compassion & Choices' role in advocating for death with dignity in a straightforward, yet passionate, way. "Something I've noticed about our copy with new clients is when we're writing about an issue for the first time or in the early stages, the first few packages, we're discovering it ourselves as writers and creative people, and the copy kind of reflects our emerging passion and our shock at what we've learned about where rights aren't protected and some of the outrages that the organization we're working with is trying to counter," Lonergan says. The 7" x 7" folded lift note features a testimonial-along with a head shot-from Barbara McKay, a Washington state resident who has personally benefitted from the passage of her state's Death With Dignity Act, which Compassion & Choices helped push through. "That was an opportunity to showcase a great victory for Compassion & Choices and also to put a human face on it," Lonergan says. The organization makes great use of the reply device to announce a great array of donor benefits. On the lower panel of the reply, donors are offered a hefty back-end premium—a personal protection kit customized according to a donor's state laws—that helps them think through and lay out their end of life options. Donors of $100 or more also are offered a free, wallet-sized CD of their advance directives."It's really a service," Lonergan says. "You're providing people with information in a very user-friendly format about something that couldn't get more personal. It doesn't get much more personal than somebody's advanced directive about how they want their life treated when they get into the hospital and are facing their own mortality. So this was a way to underscore exactly what Compassion & Choices is about, and it's relevant to the donors' lives."Graves adds that the $100 premium offer helps the organization in its goal to not only acquire donors, but also acquire higher-value donors, and helps it get a significantly higher average gift than the old control package.Though results for the test acquisition mailing aren't in yet, the hunch is that the test may bring in donors who have better long-term value at a higher average gift. "We think this package maps out more comprehensively the full spectrum of work that Compassion & Choices does," Lonergan says. "The fact that donors coming in to this package will have a clearer idea of exactly what they're signing on to. The client is in fact engaged in a really strong program of advocacy and service that this reflects. We think this puts it all out there in terms of the really good, strong, multifaceted work the organization is doing. And so when you have a lot to work with that way, you can come up with a package that's going to appeal to people in all sorts of ways.""I think we're moving in the right direction," Graves adds. "One of my hunches is that this will also get a very strong average gift not only because of the back-end incentive, but because I think the copy sort of speaks to a more sophisticated donor." Create That Bond"When you do issue-specific acquisition to get new donors, you run the risk of having people who are only attached to that issue and not to your work as a whole," says Jane Sanders, Compassion & Choices' director of membership and planned gifts. Of course, certain issues, specific laws or advocacy bills that the organization is working on, will change over time. "But if you bring in donors that are tied to ... the organization's mission overall, then you don't have the same lifetime value concern if that issue goes away." Why exactly? "Because these people are bonded to your organization and all the work you do," she explains.

Performance Marketing

Multiple Choices

Abny Santicola

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Abny Santicola