How New Orleans City Park

increased DM ROI between 360% and 3100% (not a typo)

Revitalizing fundraising with Personalized Matching

The theory

We can all agree that if you match appeal copy to the recipient, their attention, engagement and response will go up.  Great in theory, but in practice most organizations know very little about the person on the receiving end. Almost invariably what information they have (e.g., demographics, giving history, etc.) does not and cannot explain giving. So, they send a one-size-fits-all appeal hoping the donor will align their perspective with the cause.

Meaningful tailoring is based on a person’s identity (the part of self that aligns with your mission) and/or personality (the way they view and respond to the world) – it’s what we call Personalized Matching.

What we did

In this case, we tested tailoring copy to the recipients’ personality traits. Our traits shape our priorities and guide our attention. Appeals that align with an individual’s personality are more salient, relevant and persuasive.

Using our proprietary models, we segmented NOCP’s donor file by personality trait. We then targeted people who score high in Agreeableness, Openness and Extraversion. We then split each of these personality audiences into control and test groups.

The control groups represent business-as-usual and they all received the same one-size-fits-all postcard. Each of the test groups received a postcard which was tailored to match that specific trait.

  • Open people assign value to aesthetics, beauty and wonder and are naturally curious.
  • Extraverted people are sociable, energetic, and cheerful. They enjoy the company of others and are “the life of the party.”
  • Agreeable people are natural helpers, they like to say yes, and are motivated by providing care, and preventing harm.

The results

In which scenario would your creative team ever pick an image of a statue over one of a kid? And yet, with the Open audience, that tailored postcard, which used the statue to emphasize the beauty of the park, outperformed the control with an 1460% ROI increase.

In the extraverted audience, results were even more dramatic. The tailored postcard, which emphasized fun and community,  resulted in a 3100% ROI increase over the control.

The agreeable audience also responded more to the tailored ad with a 360% ROI increase over the control. This was the only case where the image between test and control was the same. The image of the kid matched the agreeable audience which allowed us to observe the impact of tailored copy alone. Based on these results it seems just tailored copy is sufficient to significantly increase response rate.

Why does it work? Personalized Matching removes the mental work a donor needs to do to align themselves with the cause. Instead, the tailored appeal frames the cause within their existing interests.

We want to be in the attraction business, not persuasion. (Curious about Personalized Matching? Read more about it here).