CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hi everybody, I'm taking care of a fundraising start-up and now I'm facing this issues. Thanks to our e-mail newsletter (which is really appreciated by our subscribers, as analytics reveal) we have collected a considerable amount of e-mail adresses and every week we have new subscribers. We experienced that, the less data you ask for, the more people opt-in, so we decided just to ask for .name .surname .e-mail .
Now that the list keeps growing and growing, it's clear enough that we'd like to have their postal addresses, in order to contact them also via letter.
I'm conscious that sending an e-mail just asking for more data would be a failure, but I can't decide what are the best ways to try...
I thought about:
- organizing a special event, then send an exclusive offer to the newsletter subscribers asking them to give their data so that we can send them a discount coupon on the ticket
- ask them for datas in order to send them some insights on our projects, with real photos attached
- ask them for datas in order to send them a gift, like a little handmade artistic object produced by the disavantaged people we host
- waiting christmas, ask them for datas in order to send them some special greetings card they can use for their purpose...

...what's your opinion? How would you approach this issue?
Many thanks!

That is a sticky question, because email addresses are relatively anonymous but giving an address would be a big step. Generally I wouldn't give my address even if it were an organization I was really interested in. The only approach I believe that would have any level of success is to offer some tangible item that you would send them - I would consider a bumper sticker or a patch with your organization's logo or the gift made my your disadvantaged people, and then of course you would need to know where to send it. Don't ask for the address first - just offer the free offer and then when they accept it, take them to a page where they have to provide the address to send it to.  However, postage costs for this would be huge and you have to decide if that is worth it. I used to run a business where we got all our leads from direct mail and the costs eventually outweighed the profit. As a nonprofit, it would be a little cheaper than bulk rate.
If you are just looking for general regions, I think people would be willing to provide that information - you could say you are trying to set up local support organizations or recruitment groups.
As a fund-raising organization, I assume you are already collecting money from these people. Why not just offer a free gift with their donation, for which you would need the address? Some organizations offer nicer gifts with larger donations, which encourages people to donate more than they might have otherwise.