Pentera helps senior gift-planning advisor breathe life back into school’s planned-giving marketing efforts with an integrated multichannel marketing strategy
When Marvin L. Kelley returned five years ago to his alma mater and former employer, Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH) School, he immediately realized, “I needed to reinstate a significant and wide-spread marketing program for planned giving.”
Marv already knew the solution: Pentera. Beginning in 1981, he worked with the leading planned-giving marketing company first at Wesleyan University and then at the University of Cincinnati Foundation.
“Pentera was always at the top in terms of the writing and design of its materials and its service to me as a client,” said Marv, a 1960 graduate of NMH and now its senior gift planning advisor. “Pentera has some of the best writing in the field, and from the get-go they were very flexible with regards to content, design, and service.”
Working closely with Marv, Pentera came up with an effective multichannel solution to NMH’s marketing needs, combining print and Web to create an integrated marketing communications strategy.
Relationship-marketing and the multichannel approach
Pentera worked first with Marv to update the look of the school’s newsletter, switching from two- to four-color to make it more inviting and eye-catching.
“Newsletters are the foundation of any successful long-term planned-giving marketing effort in terms of education, donor recognition, and relationship-building,” Marv said. He’s a fan of Pentera’s donor-interviewing and story-writing service. And he likes knowing that he can rely on Pentera to write his entire newsletter and that it will be both legally accurate and donor-centric.
Marv was concerned that recipients don’t always open envelopes, so the newsletter format was switched to the “Pentera Pleat.” “It’s better for the recipient to see exactly what they’re getting, and the self-mailer format saves me money on postage,” he said. He also uses Pentera postcards on hot topics such as the PPA, as “they heighten awareness of the topics” and complement the relationship-building aspects of the newsletter.
Marv had great results from a marketing solution offered by his account executive, Sara Hildreth. Marv wanted to market deferred gift annuities to a younger audience, so he and Sara worked together to create a newsletter to be sent to an expanded, younger list, touching on both gift annuities and deferred gift annuities, with donor stories to match each. Eight of the many responses came from the younger audience who had never received the newsletter before. Marv was delighted to connect with potential younger donors who were not on his radar screen before.
State-of-the-art Web solutions
But he also believes that the marketing and education efforts necessary for conversion of prospects need to be done on multiple fronts. Along these lines, Pentera’s second step was to design a 100% customized, state-of-the-art Web site for NMH. Pentera’s Web team tailored the content specifically to the school’s donor base. “Pentera’s Web site service is great,” Marv said. “I can pick and choose what I want, and it doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg.”
Marv also appreciates how proactive Pentera is about suggesting and automatically adding continual improvements to NMH’s Web site, such as increasing point size for easier reading. Marv never has to worry about his site. Pentera’s Web team also keeps it up-to-date, by automatically adding donor stories and newsletter pdfs to his site and making sure it’s legally correct and never has stale information.
Beyond marketing partnership
Marv keeps on top of developments in the field by attending Pentera’s planned-giving seminars conducted by company founder André R. Donikian, JD, and Frank Minton, PhD. “They are excellent,” he said.
As a Pentera client, Marv enjoys being able to turn to Pentera not only for marketing suggestions, but also as a resource for advice on planned gift questions. “For 28 years, André has always been there to talk with me on some technical or legal matter. He’s an invaluable resource.”
Thanks to Pentera’s help, the planned-giving marketing program at NMH is now operating in full gear. And Marv Kelley has a few words of advice for his counterparts at other institutions.
“I’ve looked at a lot of vendors,” he said, “and I’ve never found anyone better than Pentera.”
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