Providing health checks as incentives to retain blood donors — evidence from two field experiments

The collection of blood given by donors has proven to be a substantial societal and a managerial challenge. Consequently, blood donation services seek for incentive mechanisms to retain donors. However, economic or material rewards might entail negative side effects such as motivational crowding out or even attracting “bad blood”. In an effort to increase the retention of established blood donors, we conducted two randomized field trials (N1 = 53,257, N2 = 31,522) in cooperation with the German Red Cross Blood Donation Service and tested the effectiveness of an incentive strategy that is directly related to the blood donation itself: offering a comprehensive blood health check. Contrary to previous related research, we found substantial positive effects of a comprehensive blood health check incentive on donation behavior. In addition, unlike previous studies, we examine effects of repeated exposure to this incentive and do not find any wearout effects. Considering the positive effect of this incentive on donor retention and the relative low cost for providing this service to donors, our findings suggest that offering comprehensive blood health check incentives is a viable and cost-efficient marketing strategy to increase the retention among previous donors even if offered over the longer run.Accepted manuscrip

Catch them if you can : the effect of reminder direct mailings on the return rate of first-time donors

Despite the relevance of interactive marketing strategies, most nonprofit organizations rely on a marketing mix with a focus on direct marketing. Previous research shows that, by optimizing the mailing frequency, organizations are able to distinguish their mailing from other mailings that donors receive. However, some organizations, such as blood services, struggle to convert the frequency recommendations into their marketing practice. As donation events occur irregularly and blood donors are only able to donate a certain number of times, mailing strategies have to result in blood donations. This study examines a strategy in which a reminder direct mailing follows the regular invitation a few days before a particular donation event. A field experiment was conducted with 396 donors; 203 received the double mailing. Surprisingly, the results from hierarchical binary logistic regressions do not reveal any differences between the experimental groups. A single direct mailing approach is recommended, leading to considerable cost savings