Baseball Hall of Fame Scores with Segmentation

Read how the Baseball Hall of Fame turned its members into donors using custom-built segmentation models.

By Chantal Tode

A certain level of passion for a cause is required in order to plunk down $1,000 or more towards it; the kind of passion that one would think baseball fans might have for their beloved sport. However, until recently, turning $40-a-year members into bigger donors had proved a challenge for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Five years ago, the National Baseball Hall of Fame was doing very little direct mail, says Ken Meifert, director of membership and sales for the organization. Then the decision was made to build up the National Baseball Hall of Fame's membership program primarily via direct mail.

"Our membership program has been growing by leaps and bounds," Meifert says, adding that the organization is sending out approximately 20,000 acquisition pieces per month and adding between 8,000 and 10,000 new members a year. The National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY, currently has approximately 25,000 active members. Two years ago, the total was closer to 10,000.

However, while efforts to sign up new members were proving successful, the organization was having a harder time figuring out how to turn some members into "donors and bigger supporters of the museum," Meifert says. The challenge it faced was "figuring out who in our database of names was most likely to donate gifts of $1,000 or more," he continues.

This article was published on 8/24/2007. Read more on the DM News website.