Vinay Bhagat, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer over at Convio has a new blog post about why to invest online in the tough economic times we are having.

A couple of points he makes:

“Direct mail-based donor acquisition has been getting more difficult and more expensive due to postage rate increases, mailing list fatigue, postal mail delivery challenges, and shifting consumer preferences.”

“As direct mail-based fundraising has become less effective, online fundraising has grown significantly.”

“Much of the online fundraising growth has come from new, younger donors. Online donors are typically 15 years younger than direct mail donors.”

[Younger doesn't have to mean young. Often this age gap means that online donors are in their 50s while direct mail donors are in the their 70s]

“If there is a silver lining in the economic cloud, it is that consumers and nonprofits are aligning around the online channel. Given its growth, it is imperative that nonprofits invest appropriately in the online channel to realize its full potential.”

And a very important point:

The value of online marketing should not be measured solely by money raised online. There is increasing proof that online marketing attracts new donors and influences existing offline donors to give more. At the 2007 Convio Client Summit, Jeff Regen, VP Online Marketing & Communications at Defenders of Wildlife, shared how the organization uses online advocacy as a way to attract new constituents, and subsequently deploys a multi-channel approach using email, direct mail and telemarketing to convert non-donor activists to donors.

At See3 we are more and more managing campaigns designed to use compelling creative (often including video) to reach people and get them to affiliate first. It is then the job of the email strategy — primarily — to deepen the engagement leading up to an ask for a gift.

Link [Convio]