September 2007–New York’s Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) completed its first zoo membership direct mail acquisition campaign with Schultz & Williams this past spring boasting exceptional results with gross profits of more than $521,000 and the highest response rate in recent history. With high response and a strong average gift of $122.37, WCS generated over $495,000 in net income from this campaign.

"In order to reinvigorate our membership acquisition campaign, we turned to Schultz & Williams who successfully helped us develop and execute an integrated and strategic campaign that generated thousands of new members and brought in significant income to support our conservation mission," said Gale Page, director of membership for WCS.

With a diverse and vast regional population surrounding WCS’s five New York City wildlife parks —Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Queens and Prospect Park Zoos—Schultz & Williams targeted the most viable prospects by identifying households with demographic profiles that match the family composition of a member. In addition, a series of strategic test packages was mailed against a new control to ensure S&W would maximize our understanding of what offers, messages, premiums and creative components work and don’t work in this unique marketplace against the target audience.

Based on what we learned from the test results in 2007, WCS is in a position to further hone its mailing tactics and improve membership acquisition results in 2008 and beyond. The success of our 2007 campaign is twofold: it generated significant revenue for WCS and set the stage for continued membership growth.

Founded in 1987, Schultz & Williams is a national consulting firm headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Today S&W works with nonprofits throughout the United States and continues to exemplify its legacy as one of the first firms in the country to combine the principles of development, management and marketing into our consulting services - an approach that proves successful for nearly every client challenge.