The impact of direct marketing appeals on charitable marketing effectiveness

Building on behavioral decision research, this article provides guidelines to charitable marketing managers regarding the effect of charitable direct marketing appeals on donor decision judgments. Several charitable direct mail appeals (factors) were empirically tested simultaneously in a factorial experimental design involving 18,144 potential donors to determine how donor decision strategies influenced choice judgments about whether to give and estimation judgments about how much to give. The results indicate that suggested anchors and framing influence response rate (choice) but not size of gift. Reference information (factual/statistical and narrative/experiential) influences size of gift (estimation) but not response rate. Implications for charitable marketing managers are discussed. He received his D.B.A. from Boston University, M.B.A. from Harvard University, and B.A. from Brandeis University. His research interests include managerial pricing, marketing communication strategies, and customer value. His work has been published in theCalifornia Management Review, Sloan Management Review, Pricing Strategy and Practice, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Marketing Communication, Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, andJournal of Promotion Management, among others. He earned his S.B., S.M., and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. He is coauthor ofDirect Marketing Management (Prentice Hall) andCases in Business Statistics (Allyn & Bacon). He has published a variety of articles in journals such asManagement Science, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Direct Marketing, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Journal of Business Forecasting, American Statistician, andJournal of Finance.