targeted email acquisition

One of the long term "holy grails" of electronic fundraising is that we have to spend nothing to bring in thousands of new donors. For a little while in the late 90s many folks felt that mail was on the way out and that email would be the replacement.

Moving into the 2010s it is obvious that that prediction wasn't right. We tend to hear the same things associated with the social media tools now. I fully expect that email, direct mail, the phone program and that oldest of all, the personal visit will continue to exist and for that matter thrive 15 years from now.

I had a conversation with my communications team last week regarding our email communications and my interest in focusing our communications on the future donor group. As we talked about it, the idea was presented that we take a look at the folks who are actively engaged in our communications who have not given - something new that we have insight into that we didn't until a couple of years ago.

We have targeted a population of about 6,000 future and long lapsed donors and will be presenting them with a multimedia campaign utilizing email, direct mail and phone calls to generate additional participation. I will update this post as the campaign progresses with successes and failures throughout the semester.

Anyone have thoughts or ideas that have worked for them?