To quote my marketing consultant husband, "If you want to know why John Smith buys what John Smith buys, you have to look at the world through John Smith's eyes." And I think by asking us here for advice, you are looking at the world through John (or maybe Jane) Smith's eyes.
If any company, fundraising to a PTO or any other type, really understands what their customers want, communicates their solution, and then delivers that, they'll own the marketplace. That said, here's what I want in a catalog-based fundraising company:
* A return that will earn me about $50 per participating student since that's historically how much we earn - show me stats that support our goal, compare demographics, etc.
* An assortment of products - not just one product line - to appeal to a broad customer base
* The company should accept individual order forms - don't require the volunteers to consolidate the orders themselves
* Products that come to the school packed by student, by teacher. We don't want to repack hundreds of items for hundreds of students
* Consumable products so our parents need to buy again next year
* Products that live up their expected quality, that are delivered on time when promised
* Customer service that makes returns easy, replaces broken or missing items quickly
* A rep that is quickly reachable by phone or email if our committee has questions. A rep who can give advice on improving the results - and not simply by offering more trinkets to the kids. A rep who understands that at the elementary level, it's the parents who need to be sold on the benefits of the project
* Flexibility in incentive programs - can we opt out of the prize program and take a higher percentage? Can we get a signing bonus?
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Like the others, I've seen tons of fundraising mail come to our PTO. I won't bother to read any of it unless it addresses our needs - and I won't know that if the headline of the glossy brochure is simply the name of the company superimposed over smiling kids. Get it?
We also have already signed all contracts for next year. We are pretty much decided on what we want by Jan/Feb, and then vote in June. All the research (if any) is done during the slow months of the year.
As far as your packet - it needs to stand out. If it's just another piece of mail coming, 9 times out of 10 it will get tossed. We also would need a reason to give up what we are doing to consider what you have to offer.
It's going to be hard to break through - there are tons of options for us to review.
HMMM--while sympathetic to your plight--I have to agree with MichelleB here. You're basically asking potential customers how to contact them, or in other words, for free marketing advice. While it's one thing for the members of the boards to ask each other about who they deal with, or good/bad experiences, this I'm a little uncomfortable with.
That said, yes, this time of year is bad, and September isn't better. As others have said, our fall fundraisers are already scheduled. Not knowing what you're selling, I can't really make any other suggestions, other than finding REAL people to ask--friends, family, friends of family--that sort of thing. Maybe it's not your phone calls, but the info packet, the prices or the product that's not garnering the response you'd like. I'm thinking the powers that be at the company you work for should really be working on this!
Whether you are marketing to a PTA/PTO or the schools or whatever, you are still a salesperson. Am I correct in that you are asking us how you can sell your products to us? Not sure I like that but I'll answer as a sales professional-
When you are making your cold calls, you need to find the correct contact and voicemails and messages generally don't get a huge response unless you have a prior relationship with them. You need live bodies to talk to, the right bodies to talk to and you have a small window to convince them they should keep talking to you and give you some of their time out of their busy schedules. If I tell you "mail me something", I'm trying to get you off the phone. When you do, I might glance at it but it will likely go in the garbage unless it is unique at first glance.
It took me a year and a half to make contact with the right person at AMR and it had been worked for 7 years prior to that by other salespeople. I worked for six solid months on Mckesson Corp before I closed a sale and others had yet to purchase when I left the company.
I used relationship selling. I genuinely liked my potential customers and they had to know me before they did business with me. I am still very good friends with quite a few of my old clients but as an Insurance agent in NV, have no business interest in them now (my clients were in CA and other states)
As for marketing to PTA in specific, we have huge numbers of fundraising companies who attend our state conventions and our leadership trainings, that pay a small fee to have a booth there. That is where finding your contact is important. Find out who the decision maker is and contact them. I don't want to give you too much as a PTA person because since there are so many wonderful businesses out there, I'd admire the ones that work for our business (it wouldn't be fair to them to just hand you the information when so many have done the legwork themselves). Percentages and incentives etc are important and I might go looking for you, especially on word of mouth which is big, but if you are trying to market to me, you need me to notice you, that's your job as a salesperson to make me notice you. I will have huge numbers of people contacting me. Many of them really work for it. Why are you better? Show me. Even then, if your percentages are low and your incentives are few, you have a chance to become my friend but probably not my first fundraising choice.
We also have much of our fundraisers in place for next year. I can tell you that every day we have a ton of "junk mail" in our box. We take a glance but unless it is something new and unique - we most likely trash it. Sorry.
We actually have next years fundraisers already planned and contracts sign, that includes our spring fundraisers.Our district likes to have as many planned dates as possible going into summer so that they can do a year calendar, for the most part all of our event/fundraisers dates have been penciled in, not sure what a couple of our family events are going to be but we set the dates! To be honest if we get catalogs now they just get thrown out.
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
