The Future of Direct Mail for Nonprofits: Bring Joy Back to the Mailbox

In a world where nonprofits are competing with overcrowded inboxes, direct mail is experiencing a comeback. And if your direct mail looks the same as everyone else’s, there’s a good chance it’s heading straight for the recycling bin.

Brandon Gaty and Cait Connolly work at LettrLabs and help brands create hyper-personalized donor experiences with robotics-powered handwritten mail. This makes it possible to personalize EVERY piece of mail at scale!

So today, we are unpacking how to spark joy in someone’s mailbox, how segmentation and automation can dramatically improve ROI, where you might be overspending, and why focusing on donor retention and upgrades before acquisition can unlock faster results

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Transcript

Why Direct Mail Is Coming Back

SPEAKER_03 0:55

When was the last time you felt joy opening your mailbox? Not to see a bill, not a general nonprofit appeal, but something that felt personal, unexpected. Because in a world where nonprofits are competing in very overcrowded inboxes and can feel like noisy social feeds, direct mail, I think, is having a comeback. Today I am joined by Brandon Gady, CEO of Letter Labs, a robotics-powered direct mail company reinventing what personalization looks like at scale, and Kat Connolly, who leads community marketing and helps brands build meaningful real-world connections. We are unpacking what joy in the mailbox actually means, how nonprofits can rework sending what used to feel like transactional mail and some really smart multi-channel strategies and what they look like now. Like where might you be overspending? Where are you underinvesting? How can you dramatically shift response rates? Because if your mail is going straight to recycling, I think there's some ideas in this conversation today. We are also going to have a great webinar together on March 30th at 1 p.m. It's going to be about taking a deeper dive into direct mail with Letter Labs. So join us there. Link is in the show notes. Let's go ahead and today's conversation.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Well, I think the thing that we've really been successful with is, you know, taking the software to help kind of elevate direct mail in a way where it's like through hyper-personalization to the individual, you know, segmenting out the donor audience that you're going after, like what your messaging is as a result, and pairing it in together with email, SMS, and paid ads as well, so that it's not just direct mail, but it's direct mail working alongside your other marketing channels. And I think all of those things together are ways that it's really elevating direct mail to be at a lot more value as you know, more of a key piece of your like modern marketing channels.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

We are recording this fresh off of the Monthly Giving Summit. Actually, literally, it happened yesterday as we are recording this live the day after. I might have spent the majority of this morning in my pajamas with my laptop on my lap, working away on all the things. And one of the most talked-about sessions was around direct mail with this Letter Labs team. Brandon, Kate, welcome to Missions to Movements. Thank you. We're so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Thanks, Anna. Yeah, we're that's a pleasure being here.

Meet Letter Labs And Kat Connolly

SPEAKER_03 3:37

I'm excited to like take people really behind the scenes of what you don't get to hear during like a live video produced experience and like behind the team. Cause I think that really makes up about also who you just like want to work with and partner with is the people behind it. Brandon, I really want to start with you and like what drew you into this work? What made you want to create this company and like direct mail specifically with robotics? I think is really interesting and different. What made you think, like, oh, there's something about this that maybe is different or people are underestimating, or I can do different?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Absolutely. You know, so it started back in 2016. I actually had an e-commerce brand previously, and I had done a ton of marketing, you know, everything from email, paid ads, and everything under the sun. And I had really stumbled upon direct mail. And what I quickly realized is that there's a huge potential, but that was kind of a pain in the butt to execute. And so after having done that, you know, I'd actually stumbled into writing my own handwritten mail to clients, basically just like thanking them for you know making a purchase and just seeing how impactful it was and the connection I was able to make as a result. I quickly realized that you know, this is making a huge impact, but it's really not scalable. And so that was kind of like the impetus of starting Letter Labs, where you know, I met my co-founder and we ultimately created our own robotics to create handwritten mail to start. So then as we progressed further, just realized that, hey, there's a lot more we can do in the space with you know, rigid mail, handwritten mail, and creating the software around it to make it a kind of a seamless and scalable experience.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

So, oh my God. So from a founder like entrepreneur side, tell me like from 2016 to now, a decade later, what's changed the most in what you do or what you've seen work, I guess, too.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Well, I think the thing that that we've really been successful with is you know, taking the software to help kind of elevate direct mail in a way where it's like through you know, hyperpersonalization to the individual, you know, segmenting out the donor audience that you're going after, like what your messaging is as a result, and pairing it in together with email, SMS, and paid ads as well, so that it's not just direct mail, but it's direct mail working alongside your other marketing channels. And I think all of those things together are ways that it's really elevating direct mail to be at a lot more value as you know, more of a key piece of your like modern marketing channels.

Handwritten At Scale With Robotics

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Totally. I love that point. And Kate, you were in the workshop room yesterday with Rob and Arnor team, and you had like 250, 300 people in there. And I think what I was seeing was also there's such a variety of size of organization that really wants to do direct mail and sometimes can't because there's that quantity minimums. Can you talk about like what did you hear? What did you see? Like what was popping up during the workshop to you in regards to that and like top things that maybe came up in the chat.

SPEAKER_04 6:37

A lot of people using direct mail. I think there was a lot of curiosity about how it can honestly just save them time and bandwidth. You know, a lot of these nonprofits that we're working with and that were in the workshop yesterday, they are very limited on resources. And so if they're spending a thousand dollars to blanket a large list of folks, it's not necessarily the most thoughtful use of those resources, let alone if they're, you know, handwriting thank you cards to every donor. It's so impactful and wonderful to receive. I know because I'm a recipient of a lot of those as well. And it you have that moment of like, wow, they that really made an impact, but it takes time. And what I think the most curiosity that I was seeing in the chats was the authenticity that comes through with it and how scalable it is. And the big point of difference for me when I started with Letter Labs, I was looking at our mail, and what I love the most about it is because it's actually written with a pen. I'm a skeptic. I've done mailers myself. When I receive, you know, a roofer leaves a handwritten note.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Oh my gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:46

And it's clearly laser printed. It to me, it has the opposite of that authenticity because I'm like, you didn't even try to make it, you know? And with ours, because of the technique with the robots, it is actually pinned to paper. So when you're receiving that, it is someone spent the time writing you that note.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

And I don't know if I ever told you guys this. Sorry, I was just saying two years ago for MGS 2024, I sent right, we sent out mailers. Did I ever tell you I got one back? No, I got a thank you card back for my note.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

You know that's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 8:18

We've heard that from several clients. It's so sweet, it's such a lost art.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Yeah. So I think, okay, I loved this conversation too. And I know you both can maybe like pepper in on this, it's like, where do you think direct mail in the nonprofit sector is really uniquely positioned for 2026 and going into 2027?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

You know, we earlier in the conversation we were talking a little bit about you know personalization and segmentation. And I think where it's really well positioned is kind of flipping the script from nonprofits approaching things from uh talking about, hey, what have we done and what I need essentially to personalizing it to involve the donor, helping to quantify their impact and helping them understand that their continued support is going to continue to impact XYZ result. And I think really involving donors to help them understand their impact and taking them on a personalized journey so that they're not just getting the same note that you know, a first-time donor isn't getting the same note as a monthly giving donor. And so I think that that level of personalization helps connect with people. And I think coupled with the handwritten approach, each piece of mail can be totally personalized to the individual, where our software is able to create that automatically based on segmentation from your CRM, like Bloom Reach or other things like that. And so I think that level of personalization and segmentation is a huge opportunity to level up nonprofits' direct mail campaigns, whether they're sending you know a few notes a month to you know tens or hundreds of thousands a month.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Which I think that's super powerful too, is like the old school quantity piece, right, of having to send out mass mailers at one time and really making it customized. And you brought up something too that I want to bring up around integration. So historically, it's been very manual to do. And one of my favorite things was I remember when we started like partnering together, you even asked me, like, who should we partner with? Like that was one of your questions. Who are the CRMs out there? And I think that's part of a great partnership is both learning from each other. As of now, this recording, what CRMs do you partner with to be able to do this like really customized automation? And I don't know if you can talk about some of the ones that are kind of in the works.

What Changed Since 2016

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Of course. No, absolutely. And so, I mean, at this point right now, we have three main channels that we're able to integrate with for nonprofits. Like the first that's you know, easy just to start with, is gonna be Zapier that connects with, you know, seven to eight thousand different integrations. Everything. So you can do everything from basically connect with everything. With that being said, the other two options we have as well are gonna be webhooks, so that that's another way that you can send data from your CRM and with a variety of triggers or open API. We're currently actually in progress working on multiple nonprofit integrations right now from Bloom Reach, Razor's Edge, FundraiseUp, and a host of other integrations. And so over the next couple of months, we'll be have quite a few native integrations up and running. We're actually uh in beta testing now. So we have the ability to get moving on that. So Salesforce and HubSpa are other ones that are we have ready to go that are great integrations for our nonprofit donors.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Amazing, amazing. And then Kate, I know in the session, this was something that Robert brought up too like joy in the mailbox. And it sounds so nostalgic, but it's true. Like actually, every single day with my daughter, who's almost three, because she comes home from school, and I'm talking every single day, I open her door and she's like, Mommy, did you get the mail? And we run down to the mailbox together. She's not tall enough to open it yet yourself. So I lift her up. I'm gonna cry the day she's tall enough. And I lift her up and she pulls the thing out and she pulls out the envelopes. And that's like most of the time, it's credit card applications. And I do get a lot of nonprofit mail, and it's very traditional 10-inch. You guys would probably know the size better. I think it's envelopes. But how do you create joy and delight in the mailbox these days?

Nonprofits’ Constraints And Authenticity

SPEAKER_04 12:18

It's such a good question. I keep bringing this up with Brandon because this is something that's like I experience it so often, but I I always just think about like the kitchen table moment. That is something that you could talk about in so many different industries. I worked for a long time with a specialty chocolate company, and we would talk about like sitting around the table and the memories that you have of like your grandma made cookies, and it's this place where it's the kind of the cornerstone of your house and your life. And for me, in in relation to mail, like mail isn't all that exciting. It feels like a chore as an adult to go. I mean, how wonderful you've got your daughter to bring some joy into it because when I check the mail, I'm like, I'm excited if I get a handwritten card or you know, like a wedding invitation, or maybe the flyer or whatever, but most of it just goes straight into the recycling. But I take it in and I set it on my kitchen counter and or my table, and I'm sorting through it and immediately discarding 90% of it. I don't even open, it just goes immediately to get recycled. And the moment when you get the thank you card or the Christmas card or whatever it is, it genuinely feels like the world kind of calms down around you. There aren't that many sincere human moments in the world that we live in right now, right? We're all working remotely or, you know, sending text messages instead of making phone calls. And there's just something really emotional to me about when you're holding this letter that was made so intentionally for you and someone thought of you. And I just think it's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

In the monthly donor journey, I always advise organizations to really think about the moment of retention, right? And like as soon as somebody gives, like having that initial that one week later, they're getting that handwritten postcard or card. Then can you capture really meaningful data points like a birthday or a six-month anniversary, happy six-month anniversary, right? Those like personal, exciting things that you're it's not a wedding invitation, but it's personal to them, or happy one year anniversary of being part of the program, or a milestone moment of like, wow, you've donated over X time a thousand dollars towards this cause. And this is the impact it brings. Like you can get so smart, like with the zapier integration, zapier or zapier, I don't know which way is like technically the right way to say, but you can get so personalized on making it special to them. And Brandon, what do you think if you're advising a listener right now on, let's say it's a mid-sized nonprofit, all nonprofits are tight on budget usually. How would you rethink and strategize if you're like sitting down with them in a strategy session on how to use direct mail and how to work it into their budget?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Well, I think to really focus in on what are kind of the like low-hanging fruit and like the quick wins we can accomplish and then build from there. And I think the two things that really stand out to me are retention is a much bigger ROI to start than new acquisition. And so let's go after who can we win back and how can we get them back? And who can we move from a you know once-a-year gift to a monthly giving? And those are two kind of quick wins that I would go after. As you kind of progress from there, I think going after you know, donor elevation is probably like the third. And then once those things are working well, then I would say look at the acquisition. And you know, there's a lot of opportunities we have there to create like look-alike audiences and you know, targeting prospects who reflect your best donors as well. But I think that if you can get quick wins here, that'll start paying for and supporting your other, you know, more complex campaigns.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

So interesting. Where do you think, and I might know the answer based on what you just said, where do you think organizations would be overspending right now?

SPEAKER_00 16:14

You know, when I think of like typical nonprofit mailers, you know, it's the like number 10 envelope, color outside with a you know, mini pages on the inside with a you know nice looking return envelope. The thing about it is it looks very nice, it's worked for years, but everybody's doing it. And it's the exact same thing as everybody else is doing. And so I think the thing about it is mixing it up and trying different formats. And I think whether it's handwritten or you even have products that are you know a mix of handwritten envelopes and printed mailerps on the inside to kind of change the approach here. But I don't think you need to have the return envelope unless it's you know for you know specific segments and yeah, donor segments. But overall, it's like those pieces are so expensive and are so time consuming to create that I would really kind of flip the script to be rather than focusing on doing these mass, mass mailers, change it to be let's do automated sending, where it's you know, each piece is personalized to the individual rather than the blanket, you know, one size fits all. Because the second you receive the one size fits all, you know it's that's not meant for me, that's meant for everybody.

Joy And The Kitchen Table Moment

SPEAKER_03 17:22

True. I've been sent so many, and we've had this conversation, like 60 direct mail pieces that I like analyzed. They were all the same or had nickels in them. And one had a fake 50 cent coin in it, which I don't know how much that was to send. A ton of them have the return sticker. It's like all these like Chomsky things. And I just think the personalization, which doesn't necessarily like doesn't cost anything more, it's probably less to be able to send it out and just put it in a way more authentic way to that person. I think is so true. We're gonna talk about all of these like more strategies and visuals. We have a webinar that's gonna be on March 30th, listener, at 1 p.m. Eastern time. I'll have the link in the show notes. You can check it out. It's diving deeper, a direct mail webinar with Letter Labs. And so we're really gonna be like combing through questions and things that came up in the chat from the monthly giving summit in this conversation and in your registration to be able to pull together a really great webinar to show you some of these examples. You talked about something interesting just now, and that was lookalike audiences. And then Kate, you also talked about lead reveal in the workshop. Can you both talk about these are kind of like maybe new terms that feel innovative and a different way to use like acquisition?

Personalization Across The Donor Journey

SPEAKER_00 20:03

You know, talking about lead reveal first. What lead reveal is is that we have the ability to uncover who your anonymous website traffic is so that we can target them with direct mail. And so how we do this is that we have a pixel that we created that we add to your site, and under specific situations, we can have this pixel fire. And so a good example of this could be like, let's say, Dana, if you go to a nonprofit's website and you check the about us and let's say one or two more pages, that would indicate to me that you're very interested. And what we could also do is that if you don't donate during your session, we can actually send you a printed postcard or some type of mailpiece at that point. But if you do donate, we won't send anything. And so there's a lot of opportunities we have here to leverage this. And I think one really great kind of a tactical use case that I always recommend is you know, if nonprofits are spending on digital ads, which can be quite expensive, add this pixel to the landing page. And so you'll understand who goes to that landing page if they don't donate. But if they do donate, we won't send anything. And so it's a really great way to increase the ROAS on your digital campaigns and also help you understand who these people are, because in many cases, we'll be able to not only get their name and their address, but we can also get their personal email so you can retarget through other digital channels as well. And so that technology is an absolute game changer and works so well. So that's one if you kind of go back to our earlier conversation, one strategy that I would recommend would absolutely be this you know, turn on lead reveal, especially if you're doing digital campaigns.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

Yeah, that's big. And I think some people might be like, whoa, that's creepy. But I'm kind of like, but that's already happening, everyone, on digital. It's been happening for decades on digital, by the way. That's how you get retargeted with ads all the time. And it's actually happening in a ton of for-profit businesses, and that's why you get random mailers all the time. I've noticed like when I'm on the Delta website, oh wow, suddenly I'm getting like a Delta Amex mailer in the mail. Like, this is not new. It's just new to more new to us to use. And so I think if you do it in a very personalized, again, not weird way, it actually is very cool. And again, can help you because we are all have lizard brains in recapturing people to be able to actually take action. And look, if they don't want to give, they're not gonna give at the end of the day. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

And I totally agree with you. I think in this situation, my recommendation would be you know, send a printed postcard of some sort to the person, handwritten in this situation. You can do it, but it can be a little overbearing, I think. But when everybody's so busy in their daily life, clearly these people were interested in your nonprofit and your mission. And so this is just another kind of touch point to help remind them hey, it can just be impact-based. You're interested in this.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Send them to a video, send them to a blog. It doesn't even have to have any ask messaging on it, but just getting them back involved, back seeing your name come across the screen, I think is amazing. So as we wrap, five years from now, we're gonna do some like macro, and I want answers from both of you on this because you've both been in the marketing space for a while. What will separate nonprofits whose mail gets opened from Kate to your point, for ones that go straight into recycling? Kate, I'll start with you.

Budget Strategy: Retain, Elevate, Then Acquire

SPEAKER_04 23:33

I think at the end of the day, it is the nonprofits that embrace the technology that we are living in the world with anyway. And they're they're using those automations and segmentations to hone their audience. They're working smarter, not harder, on who they're sending to. And I think instead of the staff bandwidth that was going to manually sorting and handwriting and everything, they're using that on the impact side of things. And they're doing more case studies on the impact that their donors are having, and they're putting that messaging on paper and reinforcing the impact their donors are having. Whether it's small monthly donations, annual donations, whatever it may be, those are the nonprofits that are going to come out ahead five years from now. This reminds me my coach that I had worked with when AI was kind of coming out a few years ago. I was like, I hate it. It's so creepy. I don't want to use it, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, I get it, but you got to join in because otherwise you're going to fall behind. And you don't have to love the macro concept of it or all of that, but the rest of the world is using it. So if you don't, you fall behind. And that's where I think we need to think about where technology and direct mail intersects. We have all this brilliant information and this pixel capability for lead reveals and all sorts of ways to measure ROI and impact and all of that. Other nonprofits are using it. So if you're not, you're not getting the visibility or the fridge space or the kitchen table moment.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

Yeah. I love that answer. I love what you just said. It's the blend of mail is the thing that's been around for as long as we can remember riding on horseback to deliver a note to someone, right? And then you have the blend of technology to make it hyperpersonalized, kind of like it was super back then, but at scale. So absorbing and like having the curiosity to really get creative, I think that's a great, great perspective. Brandon, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 25:46

I totally agree with Kate. I think to add further to it, would say the personalization segmentation allow each note to be personalized to the person. By leveraging automations, we go from sending 10,000 generic pieces to one of one piece. And I think nonprofits who focus on creating different journeys or cadences that donors will flow through will ensure that we're speaking to the individual and taking information that we already know about their impact and other information, we can use that to really personalize each piece. I think with that being said, further, I think that it all makes sense. I would say from that perspective for sure. But on the backside of it, I think really being curious about testing, measuring ROI, doing A-B testing. And you know, some of the features that I'd recommend all nonprofits use on our platform include A-B testing to see what creative and copy makes the biggest impact. Also using holdout testing so that we can measure incrementality to show, hey, would these donors would have donated either way, or what's the actual the incremental lift? And I think with that being said, is really treating this as you know, pulling direct mail into kind of the 21st century with the same tools that you use for digital ads, we've developed as well for direct mail. And so not only focusing on connecting with people, but also measuring the lift and constantly be tinkering there because I think the big difference here is that so many nonprofits have done the same, you know, number 10 mailer for the last 20 years.

Ditch Mass Mailers For Automated Sends

SPEAKER_03 27:22

And the donors, and what's big is changing is the generational giving. And so there's going to be a big shift. And usually, like our generation, I do love getting mail. I am not going to put a check in an envelope. I don't own checks.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

Right. And so we have to really start thinking about these mass mailers, if they're going to go out, like talk to whether no matter who you're working with. This is my big thing. Like, are they actually a partner of yours or are they just a vendor? Because if they're not going to have a strategic conversation with you about looking at the future of how you're sending out direct mail pieces, I would not be working with them. Like, you want a strategic advisor that's along your side to be able to make sure that it's of value to not only your organization, but the people who are receiving these pieces. So it's all about relationships and understanding like, where is our future donor base going? Who are we trying to attract? What's going to actually work for them? So thank you both so much. Oh yeah, Brandon, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

One thing that we recommend too is, you know, let's cut down the waste and cut down the waste in terms of, you know, we don't need to include a mailer that goes back or like the, you know, the to mail the check back, you know, and it's it's something where no direct mail person ever. Right. It's like obviously like, you know, we'd make more money if we did, but to be honest with you, like we're focused so much on providing the best ROI for our clients as possible. And we know that, you know, include a QR code on there or a URL because your donor also sees the waste and they don't need the the remens envelope. They want to know that their donation has the biggest impact possible. And so by being you know effective in these ways, it ultimately provides you know more resources for your mission.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

I love it.

SPEAKER_04 29:14

That's such an important point because this is a pet peeve of mine with mail that I get to what you were saying, Dana. You know, you're getting a nickel or whatever. When I'm donating to you and then you're sending me unnecessary things back, I'm not donating to the nonprofit to fund you putting nickels in envelopes to donors. I'm giving you money to feed these dogs.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

In some cases, it must work, or else they wouldn't do it, right? It must work. I mean, I'm sure I look, I open them because I don't want to waste a nickel.

SPEAKER_04 29:44

Yeah. It's illegal to throw it away. And pennies are pennies are going extinct. I think it's really important. Sure, I'm sure that that is working for certain segments, perhaps. Sure. Some audiences, some nonprofits, but but I think it provides like a layer of guilt.

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Oh, they sent me money, therefore I must give. And that's a horrible place to have it come from, in my opinion. Absolutely is. In my opinion. I would love to like, there's gonna be so many examples that we can talk through and some case studies of actually how this like donor journey, like different ones, can be broken up and show some different examples in a visual way at this webinar. So join all of us back on March 30th at 1 p.m. It's totally free to join us. It's gonna be 60 minutes. We will have recordings available. So just get your name on the registration list. Brandon, Kate, thank you so much for all of your thought leadership at the Monthly Giving Summit and today here too. And then see you all in a little bit. Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 30:41

Thanks so much for having us today.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Yeah, thanks so much, Dana. It's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Missions to Movement. If you enjoyed our conversation and found it helpful, I would love for you to take a moment to leave a review wherever you're listening. Your feedback helps us reach more change makers like you and continue bringing impactful stories and strategies to the show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button too, so you'll never miss an episode. And until next time, keep turning your mission into a movie.