Y Care International - Direct mail appeal, reminder and acquisition insert

15% response rate, beat the income target.

DM appeal, reminder and acquisition insert

Y Care International’s Christmas appeal has always been their most successful of the year, generally delivering one-third more income than cash appeals at other times of the year. Cherry Tiger were asked to maintain this ratio in 2018, with a core appeal and a reminder. We used the same ask to boost the performance of their cold acquisition insert.

The appeal needed to deliver unrestricted funding using case studies from around the world, but to add a sense of urgency we were asked to focus the pack on Liberia and how Y Care International works with young people in slum communities to recover from and prepare for disasters such as civil war, Ebola and flooding.

To keep the appeal fresh for their warm audience – many who have been supporters for 10-20 years – a double donation ask was added to the proposition, with an unnamed institutional donor, promising to match any donation made. This same double donation proposition helped to strengthen the cold acquisition insert.

In addition to audience-specific letters, Cherry Tiger ensured content remained engaging with lift inserts in the form of two Christmas cards included within the pack. Each card included a story of a young person and how Y-Care International is helping them. The idea was for the supporter to write a Christmas message to the young person, which would be forwarded to them by Y-Care International.