I bet the conventional wisdom about how often nonprofits send email and direct mail to their supporters is this: nonprofits are sending direct mail less frequently over the last four years and sending email more frequently.
But that’s not what our data says.
At Nonprofit Marketing Guide, we’ve surveyed thousands of nonprofits for each of the the last four years to produce the Nonprofit Communications Trends Report in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
I just went back and looked at the communications frequency numbers across those four reports, and guess what? Not much has changed.
About 75% of nonprofits email at least once a month.
About 40% of nonprofits send direct mail quarterly, and about 10% do so at least monthly.
While the numbers have bounced around by a couple of percentage points here and there, the trend line is pretty flat.
Bottom line: Nonprofits haven’t changed the frequency with which they send email or direct mail much in the last four years.
Have you seen data that shows otherwise? I’d love to hear about it!
