Don’t Waste Their Time

February 23, 2012      Admin

One of the worst things you can do to a donor is waste their time.

I was reminded of that reading this article about marketing to the affluent.

But it’s not just the affluent who are time deficient. It’s everybody!

How do you waste a donor’s time?

By sending them something that’s not:

#1 Relevant (use whatever you know about your donor to make your message, and even the fact that you are communicating in this instant, uniquely appropriate for them to hear)

#2 Important (your message can’t always be urgent, but it should never be trivial … as though you were simply making a deadline in your contact schedule)

#3 About them (Jeff Brooks drives this point home in this recent Future Fundraising Now post)

Tom

 

One response to “Don’t Waste Their Time”

  1. Tom, I agree with all the points you raise above. Big time wasters, and very discourteous of us. One of the biggest time wasters, however, (and one I blogged about just today http://clairification.blogspot.com/2012/02/shall-we-dance-how-often-should-we-ask.html) is wining/dining/cultivating/stewarding… and then never getting around to the ask!