Compassion in World Farming: "Here today, gone tomorrow" project

24/05/2006

'Here today gone tomorrow' Project
Compassion in World Farming works to obtain better standards of animal welfare. CIWF launched a DM campaign to cold lists. The mailing was to recruit new supporters for the campaign against live calf exports. The aim was to increase the donor-base significantly to prove that DM could work effectively for CIWF.

Objectives
· to show CIWF could recruit a large number of supporters within a short period of time
· CIWF was resistant to DM due to poor performance in past.
· needed to prove that DM was an effective means of bringing in new supporters at an acceptable ROI.
· needed to identify what data types could be used confidently in future
· needed to be able to make more accurate campaign forecasts
· project needed to prove it was possible to find cost effective data even without swaps (CIWF database was not available for swaps; swaps lower costs).

Implementation

· targeting was based on profile of existing CIWF supporters; predominantly females 50+ with interest in animal welfare or environmental concerns. As this was a DM campaign, individuals who had responded to mailings before were targeted.

· test cell sizes were set to allow statistically robust results across 20 list selections.

· a range of sources was tested to maximise the opportunity for learning. Test lists included lifestyle, charity donor, animal interest, publisher and mail order lists.

· the CIWF house donor-base was profiled against a lifestyle list. A three way test was formulated, to test modelled data against other manual selections

· emphasis was on charity files, particularly with animal welfare interest, but also charity files with no animal indicators.

· CIWF’s in-house team designed an innovative A3 poster format mailpiece, polywrapped. The mailpiece achieved excellent cut through with this unusual format.

Results
The cold mailer had an 85% higher response than targeted; the CIWF donor-base was increased by 9.25% overall, rather than the targeted 5%. This success is directly attributable to the quality of the mailing lists selected, and the innovative mailing piece.

· donor-base has increased substantially. DM is now seen as a high-value asset

· clear patterns of response existed for different data types. Overall, Average RR for charity donors was twice that compared to non-charity donor lists; not all animal interest lists worked equally. Some non-animal charity lists responded well.

· insight into response/donations by list type is used for forecasting future campaigns

· project identified portfolio of data types that can be used with confidence in future.

CIWF is now confident in DM and planning more campaigns. The next campaign’s response rates are forecast more accurately, which helps with budgeting and gives the charity more confidence and certainty. Testing is less risky as suitable data types have been identified.