Melbourne City Mission

Melbourne City Mission (MCM), which helps homeless youth, decided to adapt its proposition for their annual Christmas direct mail appeal to a cold acquisition piece. Given the precise alignment in organisational values and mission, they partnered with The Big Issue newspaper, which supports the homeless through work opportunities. The MCM team felt the target audience (Melbourne-based readers) would deeply engage with the proposition, especially during the festive season.

MCM purchased a full-page advertisement and one insert in a single issue, published 4 December 2017. They developed an unaddressed mail pack small enough to meet the insert requirements and adapted their warm proposition from their direct mail copy/creative for a cold audience of 11,880 Melbourne readers.

The team aimed to engage the readership and introduce them to MCM’s strategic goal of ending youth homelessness in Melbourne’s CBD. The response was overwhelmingly positive, evidenced by the volume and value of gifts, which both exceeded expectations and sector benchmarks. The team also smashed their ROI target!

Excited about future opportunities and delighted by evidence that Melburnians will demonstrate compassion towards those sleeping rough, MCM plans to build further connections/engagement by walking their newly acquired supporters through the journey towards the goal of ending youth homelessness.