Your views, good and bad, on DM agencies

Just to add another two pennys worth! I take all the points Tony has made, (If you are a DM Fundraiser and are not thinking through the questions he has given you really should not be in the job!). However the main point I want to make is that a successful campaign depends on a sucessful relationship with the agency. Like a marriage you need to be open, honest, and frank in your communication - This is what I mean by giving the agency a proper brief, Everyone needs to know what the mailing wants to achieve and over what period! You bring to the agency a knowledge of your cause and your fundraising skills and experience, they bring a creativity and a knowledge of the industry and what works elsewhere! make sure you are contributing all your skills into the mix rather than just leaving it all up to them!! (Yes I know it can feel that you are doing the work and they are getting paid for it, but unless you add your expertise they are working in the dark!) Before you commit to working with an agency you need to see examples of their work, and talk to their clients, they need to see examples of what you do so that they understand who you are, ALL the agengies I have worked with have been happy to do this. Then, and perhaps MOST IMPORTANTLY, you need to trust each other, will your agency deliver? well, maybe not. It is a creative process, has every letter you have ever written outperformed all previous ones?! The more they understand you and the better they are briefed the more chance you have of success. But please don't get into a slanging match mentality - it helps no-one!

Can I be frank? I own a (small) direct marketing agency, and to be honest, the number of agencies I've come across whom I would trust as far as I could throw a corpulant Charman or MD could be counted on one hand...possibly after an accident with a lawnmower.

I've been supplier side for 11 years, and was client side for some years before that. I have been appalled by the standard of service offered and the money charged for it by the great majority of direct marketing agencies.

I don't know what goes on inside the heads of most people who start agencies, but I really think their main aim in life is to make themselves big, make themselves a lot of money, then sell their agency, making even more money, so that they can retire early to the kind of lifestyle to which they would like to become accustomed.

I really think some of them regard charities as a soft touch. Given the number of lazy and formulaic campaigns that there are out there, maybe they are right.

When you are evaluating an agency, I think two questions are crucial:

1. Do I really trust these people?
2. Why did they go into this business? Was it to make money, or did they have any intention of really helping people?

Obviously a DM firm can be a force for good or bad in the fund-raising sector, but this will largely depend on the compny's ethics regarding securing profit, repeat business and protecting the client's reputation.

The client is normally concerned with 3 main areas, the first and most obvious is it's return on investment. The second is the volume of new donors recruited, and finally, and perhaps most overlooked is how securely its reputation is being protected.

The DM company I work for is part of a large organisation whose network of offices renders it one of the most potent fundraising tools available. It's ethos is simple.

1) The client is charged a one-off fee per donor recruited, but this fee is claimable only once 3 full monthly DD payments have been made. The DM Company therefore bears the risk of recruiting poor-quality donor's, the client bears the risk of those donor's whose circumsatnces change unforeseeably. Statistically, most donor's who subscribe for 1 year, will subscribe for a further 4. The return on investment is therefore quantifiable, facilitating the client's ability to make decisions regarding contract renewals.

2) The training, promotional opportunity and pay options for fundraisers and MD's has led to high motivation at all levels generating record volumes of new donors.

3) High quality training combined with a difficult interview process secures the client's reputation. I have in the past 6 months represented clients as well know as the Red Cross, Scope, RSPCA and DogsTrust, and hope to work on behalf of Barnardo's next year, securing such high quality clients is only possible when care is taken to present their message in an appropriate way.

In conclusion, the client benefits on all levels from having a dedicated, well trained and highly motivated team of fundraisers who represent its interests professionally and passionately every day, and happily bear the risk of poor quality donors on the clients behalf. Fair enough the company profits from this service, but is it not a service worth paying for?

David---I’ve been thinking about your query, and pondered whether or not my experience with Direct Mail here in the US could relate to the DM culture in the UK. For the sake of discussion---or argument---here are my comments relative to your interest regarding DM firms and the balancing of their concern for personal income gain, versus that of their clients.

Consciously, any reputable DM firm wants you to be a satisfied customer---one which realizes rewarding gains in net income to help further your mission. However, I have seen far too many instances where this did not happen, and the resulting perception made it seem to be factual that the DM firms were indeed more interested in taking more money from the program than would accrue to the charities. Here are the ways that happened:

(1) Working with a DM firm which has no, or little, experience with non-profit organizations, often results in serious mistakes being made by DM firms when they expect to “market” fund-raising for a charitable cause in the same way they market the sale of business products or services. They fail to recognize---and factor into their strategy---the very wide and significant difference.

The sale of commercial products involves an explicit selling and buying environment which customers understand and expect. Prospective donors are asked to consider making a gift to something in which they believe and that they want to support. A DM program soliciting a gift is involved in a very different transaction from one selling a product. Too many DM firms do not understand the difference. They expect voluntary donations to come in for a charity just as they have seen orders received for a company’s fruit baskets.

(2) DM definition is often a troublesome factor: (A) Previous donors and/or non-donors who have a relationship with the organization; (B) “Cold” prospects---those having no known relationship with, or knowledge of, the organization.

Naturally, the rate of return and success or failure of the mailing will be quite different when solicitations are made to the two groups. In the latter (B) instance, you need to be ready to accept the strong possibility that the making-a-profit point will not be reached with the first direct mail appeal---and that it might even take four or five or more such mailings to make a net profit. In other words---a sound direct mail program is a long-term investment, and is not a quick and easy way to raise money from distant and uncaring prospects.
Even a Direct Mail campaign to the (A) group could result in subsequent failure should the DM firm and the organization not realize that the choice---prime---donors and prospects should be removed from the scatter shot mailing and turned over to the campaign committee for personal solicitation to ensure that the larger gifts are at least renewed, and when possible, increases are sought. Leaving such key sources of contributions to the uncertainties of only a mailing, risks the loss of significant renewal money and all but eliminates the chance to obtain increases.

(3) Too often, too much is expected of a DM firm and the result is that an organization does not do its own “homework” to the best degree possible, starting with determining with the DM firm the answers in advance to the following questions so there are no surprises at the end:

(a) Which lists will we work with?

(b) Why will we work with those lists?

(c) What are the demographics?

(d) How many names will be required to make a meaningful mailing?

(e) When can we expect a break-even point?

(f) Will we carefully prepare and project the program with explicit knowledge of the best mailing rates and methods, that we know if stamps or metered mailings make a difference, that we agree on the length of letters, copy type, colors, use of personalization or facsimiles, which type and style of enclosures and how many, etc.

(g) How much will the total program cost?

In summary, I know that most of the mistakes made which doom or dim a Direct Mail campaign are made out of ignorance. I also know that most of the charities which lose money on such ventures often blame the Direct Mail firms for those failures since the DM firm was paid and made money, while the charity lost money.

I hope some of this helps.

Cheers,

I may be a cynic, and I have worked with all sorts of agencies with both excellent and rubbish results. Of course DM agencies are there to make a profit - and actually they want you to make a profit as they want repeat business
However the main point of this post is that most (of my) crap experiences with agencies is because I have failed to brief them well enough.
Ah - but I'm older and wiser now!

David