Valentines Day appeal

The Story: For the past 2 years, Compassion in World Farming has run a legacy campaign in early February to coincide with Valentines Day. Legacy pledges make over a third of the work they do possible, so is an incredibly important part of their vision of a brighter future for animals, people and the planet. Previous legacy packs were sent to their warm donors and legacy enquirers with the aim of encouraging them to take the next step in the legacy journey.

The Brief: It was felt that their previous packs lacked the compelling reason for supporters to pledge their legacy. So CIWF tasked us with addressing this and creating a new engaging pack concept that really gave a reason to give, with a clear impact, whilst still retaining the Valentines link. This campaign would also be an integrated multichannel campaign to include email and social media activity to support the DM pack.

Our Response: We wanted to really focus on the love messaging within this pack, to link Valentines with the obvious love that these loyal supporters have for the animals. The visuals needed to be positive and warm (CIWF campaigns often show the devastating conditions that these animals have to live in) and in order to really elevate the doorstep intrigue, we added a Valentines card from Joanna Lumley (a dedicated Patron of CIWF).

The response form included multiple heart tick boxes to show the stage of the legacy journey they’re at, from ‘I’ve already made a pledge, please send me a pin badge’ or ‘I’m ready to leave a gift, please call me to discuss’, to ‘I’m interested in leaving a gift, please send me more information’ or ‘no I’m not interested’.

Why it works: The refreshed visuals, warm nature of the pack and the added draw of Joanna Lumley, made this pack incredibly attractive to the audience. The added impact of leaving a legacy included in the pack also prompted a better response that previous packs.

Results: This pack performed better than previous Valentines campaigns, with 89 responses (from 9,565 packs sent). This is a 0.93% response rate compared to 0.56% and 0.38% in previous years. There were over 24 existing pledgers who responded, almost 30 who requested more information or a call and 20 bonus donations as well. There was also incredibly positive feedback from supporters saying that they hadn’t received a Valentines card in years so they really loved this!