Acquisition: Why ‘Best Practices’ Suck
The problem with most ‘best practices’ is that they lead to stealing. One organization copying another organization’s seemingly successful acquisition package simply leads to the next doing the same. And on and on.
Tote bags change logos. Address labels change colors. Greeting cards filled with happiness, snow scenes and balloons proliferate.
Problem is that copying is nothing more than a race to the same old/same old. In short: through the theft of techniques (excuse me, ‘adoption of proven techniques’), the nonprofits who steal and adapt them become nothing more than unidentifiable commodities themselves.
I’ve often wondered why we copywriters advise that, if in doubt, the ‘best’ teaser for an outer envelope is a blank envelope. At least the reader has to open it to determine its contents. Sad.
How many meetings have I sat in where clients told me “when we tested our logo against a blank envelope, the blank envelope won.” Doubly sad.
So couple lack of innovation (the duplication of the same old/same old prospecting packages) with the horrid absence of brand awareness and you have 90% or more of today’s acquisition mail.
Yes, I know. There’s not a copywriter alive who doesn’t hate the mindless, idiotic spend many organizations make on ‘brand building’. For good reason. Most exercises in brand building are promulgated by advertising agencies and brand strategists interested mostly in impressing CEOs and boards with their expensive froth, not fundraisers.
BUT … listen up! The fact is that where there is no brand recognition for a nonprofit there is likely to be poor acquisition. Even more important, where there is little brand commitment, there is poor retention. Churn.
Since retention is the only path to stability and growth, it follows that organizations need to pay serious and meaningful attention to their brand. And right now, our sector is in lousy shape where brand differentiation is concerned. To put it in commercial terms — our sector, as a whole, is to the commercial sector what generic store brand laundry detergent is to Tide.
That’s why most organizations who use their logo in an acquisition mailing find a depressed response when compared to a blank envelope.
Stay with me. If McDonald’s or J Crew, or Starbucks found out they could get more folks in the door and sell more product if they took their name off the door they would consider this a ‘crisis’ of epic proportion.
But in our over-contented, over-complacent nonprofit world, we accept that where our brands are concerned, there are only coffee shops, clothing stores and burger joints. No Starbucks, Caribou, McDonalds, Wendy’s or Burger Kings.
Instead we substitute tote bags, labels, calendars, T-Shirts and the gods only knows what, believing that because the response rates are better we’re safer and more stable.
I dare any of our readers to lay before you 5 environmental, 5 healthcare, 5 disease or human services packages. Black out the names and see if they’re distinguishable one from the other. Now you understand the price of theft and the damage it’s done to our sector.
Donors see this phony array multiple times a week or month. And we wonder why acquisition and retention rates are down.
Roger
P.S. For a fuller explanation of the dangers of copycat strategies and the only metrics that matter – plus an even more passionate tirade about the dangers of following so-called ‘best practices’, take the time to read the research-based findings of Kevin Schulman, our colleague over at DonorVoice here.
7 responses to “Acquisition: Why ‘Best Practices’ Suck”
Behavioral Science Q & A
Integrating an individual giving appeal with other communications from a charity can have both positive and negative effects, and the outcome largely depends on how it’s executed. Advantages of Integration Brand Consistency: Maintaining a consistent appearance and messaging across all communications can reinforce the org’s brand identity and strengthen brand recognition and trust among your […]
Read Full Answer
I’m not aware of any in-market tests specifically comparing recurring vs. gift frequency language. I suspect the answer might not be the same with all gift frequencies, nor with all people. It sounds like a great opportunity for you to test and find out what works for your audience. Based on the literature, here’s a couple […]
Read Full Answer
Based on what we know from existing data, those renewal notices can actually be pretty effective in getting people to donate. They tap into our psychology – creating a sense of urgency, reminding us of past support, and using personalization to make the message hit home. They’re playing on our natural tendencies to feel obligated […]
Read Full Answer
Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
Read Full Answer
There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
Read Full Answer
I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
Read Full Answer
Couldn’t get this to post on the linked article, so I’ll try my luck here and see what you can clarify for me.
I get the point about positioning and branding and the emphasis on how that builds retention. But what I’m not clear on is “best practices” as the problem. For me that term includes some very important fundraising guidelines, like thanking donors promptly. If it’s that everyone jumps on the latest “must do” style of mail appeal formatting like Hollywood producing ten copycat versions of one good movie, I’m with you. It would be helpful for you to clarify what aspects of fundraising best practices are the problem.
“… non-profit Boards and Senior Management, who also suffer from zero understanding of strategic positioning, do not insist or demand that long-term metrics like retention and life-time value be of equal or greater importance to short term metrics.”
What is life-time value? And how is it measured?
I get overwhelmed with the many things I’m supposed to be staying on top of, so recommending what good branding looks like or pointing readers to good resources would be helpful. I have a general sense of it, but mostly I see blog posts and articles written about it as an idea and not as a practice. And at this point, that ain’t helping me.
Not sure I’d go along entirely with throwing the ‘best practice’ baby out with the proverbial bathwater Roger, but broadly, you’re right. Our sector pays a heavy price for slavishly copying what everyone else does, even when it works. As a consequence we’ve become an industry where almost everyone looks not just alike, but the same.
Which is bad for our customers, so must in the long run be bad for us.
At SOFII.org we advocate a strategy of informed creative plagiarism. This involves copying the best of what others do but adding to it, adapting, not merely adopting their brilliance so that you make the resulting new promotion your own, distinctive and different (and of course, always appropriately acknowledging the source of your original inspiration).
We encourage early birds of course; innovation is a major part of our name. But though early birds in fundraising really do get worms by the bucket-full (witness Greenpeace with street fundraising) genuine innovation is invariably uncertain, risky and expensive. So for less well-resourced or less adventurous non-profits we recommend the strategy of the second mouse. Let the frontrunners take the development risk and costs, then move in quickly behind them with your plan for creative plagiarism. The first mouse may get squished, the second mouse invariably gets the cheese.
It works, but only if you’re sure-footed, quick and clever and can spot what really is an idea worth adapting. Most non-profits can’t afford to be anything other than copiers, but they should work harder at the art of creative plagiarism. Why trouble to think of your own big idea if you can borrow, adapt and add to someone else’s?
For all the reasons you and Kevin outline, we should keep close by us the old Ogilvy aphorism, ‘the beginnings of success is to be different, the beginnings of failure is to be the same.’
Or was it Rosser Reeves, who said that first?
Who cares? Far as I’m concerned, it was me.
If Client A has the same culture of philanthropy as Client B, we can use our “best practice” copy and mail package for both clients with equal or better results. We’ve built a solid business based on testing and using “best practice” applications among 40-50 clients, but culture of philanthropy is a major factor!
This posting reminds me of Henny Youngman’s reminder that, “There are no old jokes, only old audiences.” In the case of state-based organizations, best practices and proven winners are a godsend. These groups frequently lack the resources and in-house expertise to do anything more than “reinvent the wheel” without best practices. Access to viable lists is also a major challenge and can seriously limit testing opportunities.
In such cases, it can be invaluable to adapt a successful communication by a similar group with a similar mission in another state. The audiences are distinctly, geographically different — but their motivations and priorities may be very much the same. Sharing and learning from success in these cases is a smart use of collective wisdom and can significantly streamline a complicated and time-intensive process.
One other thought on branding: Many groups need to change their name to grow. If your organization’s name is more than 20 years old, it may well use dated terms, refer to a mission or geography that you have expanded beyond, or be so complicated that you now refer to it only with initials — and sound more like an anonymous government agency than a compassionate service provider.
Yes, your insiders will protest that everyone knows your name. They don’t. And even if they do, just the action of changing your name shows that your group is innovating and deserving of another look. Plus, the change doesn’t take long to be adopted (as most women who changed their name upon marriage will tell you). How many people remember that EarthJustice used to be Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund?
Thanks for your great columns — and happy holidays!
I have no doubt many a consultant has built a solid practice copying work from one client to another. That, paradoxically, is the point and yet, misses the point all at the same time.
Setting that aside, the real question is that if Client A and Client B have the same culture of philanthropy (though I admit to having no idea what that means) and they mail the same thing to the same people with, not surprisingly, the same result then why do both exist?
Seriously, the non-profit sector needs a very healthy dose of mergers and acquisitions and for that, a market maker to facilitate. If the real goal is impacting the mission then scale and removing redundancy in the model can be extremely helpful and necessary. The sector has a similar uptake (i.e. new org creation) and failure rate as the commercial sector yet no viable market or structural support to facilitate what is a healthy and necessary pruning to apply basic laws of scale and comparative advantage.
I follow Roger slavishly (he’s breaking the path, as always) – and I loudly cheer the call for innovation and bold creative thought.
But I DO think that sometimes a blank envelope is the best teaser for an acquisition piece. For an appeal, no; if you can’t preach to the choir, find a different pulpit.
But prospects go out to the great unwashed – to people who don’t know yet how important your mission is going to be to them. It’s not wrong (or creatively weak) to tempt the prospective donor inside the envelope by refusing to disclose who’s mailed them or why before they’ve ripped open that flap. Once I have them inside, I can persuade them – and if mailing blind gets them inside, then they are MINE!
Starbucks, J. Crew, and McDonalds are destinations; I went out in search of them and I’m glad to see their sign looming in the darkness. If they came to my house uninvited (like a prospecting letter), I’d be more likely to shout through the door “What do you want?” if I can’t see their corporate logo on their sleeve.
Hiding logos is BAD for appeals.
Hiding logos is A VALID OPTION for prospects.
Innovation and creativity is ALWAYS GOOD.
In the words of the alas-not-immortal Jack Juhasz, “Show me the results and THEN I’ll tell you if I liked it.”
Love this conversation!
Brand? Don’t we attempt to mobilize donors based on mission?
If the brand promise is strong and unambiguous (think Operation Smile, St Jude Children’s Hospital, Wounded Warrior Project, American Cancer Society), then the brand, by extension, is a powerful tool, allowing us a shorthand for all the nuance, emotion and impact of a philanthropic mission. It’s strength should allow us more innovation opportunity, less reliance on “best practice”.
In the commercial world, there’s usually little divergence between brand promise and product satisfaction. When there is, when the brand over-promises and product under-delivers, consumers immediately speak with their wallets, profits plummet, and brand strategies are instantly revised.
The problem in our world? Too often many nonprofit brand czars conflate brand with message, railing against tone and implication, and by doing so inadvertently distance brand from product (read mission). “We sell hope, not hopelessness, we sell healing, not disease, we sell redemption, not despair.”
But as my first boss Richard Viguerie would say, it’s much harder to raise money FOR something than it is to raise money AGAINST something. Donors want to know they are helping to solve a problem. So being constrained by brand police from describing the problem the missions address, it becomes much harder to sell the solution they hope to achieve.
Couple that with traditionally risk-averse boards, who control fundraising investment decisions AND are highly sensitive to their organization’s public perception, and it becomes obvious why Roger’s very accurate and sad observation about our sector rings true. Best practices are safe, and for many nonprofits, whether their brand is first in market or an also-ran, safe is good.
Okay, there is ample reason to use best practices to govern strategy and process. Hiding behind it to drive creative decisions is risky, however, because it’s too easy. It allows direct fundraisers the excuse to avoid the hard work of mission (not necessarily brand) persuasion. And the result, as Roger points out, is invisibility by ubiquity. Lots of blank envelopes and labels, because, yes, they work, marginally, but no, they do not and will not break new ground for our clients. Sad, indeed.