Feedback Week: Channel and Volume Preferences
For those who missed yesterday’s post, we are going through the top donor comments to top nonprofits. And you don’t get much more “top” than channel and volume comments.
Almost 20% of the total substantive comments were either “don’t mail/email/phone me” or “I would like to receive less mail/fewer phone calls/fewer emails.” For perspective, the next most comment response accounted for four percent of comments. So this is a big category.
We covered the three reasons people want to stop getting communications in a channel a couple weeks ago, but for those who don’t commit these posts to memory (I had to look it up, and I write these things!), they are:
- “I never asked for this”
- “Why are you wasting your, and by extension my, money?”
- “I tried, but this is too much”
The chief violator for both channel and volume is postal mail. Interestingly, though, telemarketing was the second most frequent channel people wanted to quit, but email was the second most frequent channel people wanted less of.
Apparently, people are more likely to object to telemarketing as a channel or medium, whereas they are more likely to object to the specific way that email is being used.
In the interest in fairness, out of the 12,000 comments, there were also three people who asked for more emails.
So let’s talk solutions, beyond honoring donor requests and analyzing whether you are overcommunicating (I’d say that would be beating a dead horse, but I’ll probably be back on the topic soon enough).
The top solution is to actively ask people up front if they want to receive communications through a particular channel. This will reduce their irritation and save you money. But more importantly, people who say they want these communications are more likely to respond to them. As Spiderman’s Uncle Ben would have said if he were a direct marketer, “with great consent comes great response rates.” You are showing the donor you know what they want and are giving it to them.
And if you want to show off and increase your response rates even more, you can play this back to them: “you asked that we mail you when there is an urgent need for help in poverty-stricken areas of the world. That time is now.” The human need to be consistent with previous statements will help these folks be more likely to respond.
Asking permission also increases opt-in rates. Consumers today are thrice-burned wary, knowing from painful experience that, if they give their information to someone online, they will never hear the end of it. (As we got 60 comments about nonprofit communications to dead people, they are not wrong.)
In our “How to get people to opt-in” white paper, we talk about a test of different consent language. Five options were given: a control with no consent language and these four options:
To quote from the paper:
Every test execution did substantially better than no control with about twice the response in each case. Of the tests, the executions that asked about channel preferences (e.g., email, text, post, and phone) did better than the executions that asked about frequency preferences (e.g., weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, and annually).
And doubling response rates is certainly nothing to sneeze at. (Incidentally, unless you are fundraising in Australia or maybe New Zealand, don’t use “fortnightly.”)
What about for your existing constituents? A good rule of thumb is if they have never donated to mail or phone, ask them before dropping them into your next campaign. (If they have donated, you can probably assume they are OK with the channel if not the frequency.)
You will likely have some people who opt out of the campaign. That’s great; you are saving money and they won’t be irritated. And those who opt in will be expecting and perhaps even looking out for your next mailing.
What’s your experience in requesting channel and volume preference?
Nick
10 responses to “Feedback Week: Channel and Volume Preferences”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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It was an insight disguised as a complaint.
I remember vividly the first time I heard from a nonprofit ED, “We tried direct mail. It didn’t work for us.” I thought about that for a couple of years.
Real-world translation? “We tried our uninformed, badly written, self-centered, poorly targeted direct mail appeal and — surprise, surprise — it generated nothing.”
My point? We ask questions of people. But those questions have unspoken implications and generate answers that seem solid but could be as flimsy as balsa wood.
“Would you like more email?” “NO!”
“Would you like a piece of inspirational email every couple of weeks showing you exactly how wonderful your support has been to someone who depends on your compassion and kindness?” “Well, yeah, maybe.”
In the same vein: “Stop mailing me your printed newsletter. You’re wasting my money.” And yet some printed newsletters joyously raise extra millions for a good cause every year. Why? Because they are welcome visitors, bringing psychological gratification.
Not all email is created equal (discover ye, donor-centricity). Not all newsletters are created equal. And I couldn’t care less about phone calls, unless it’s a board member calling to thank me sincerely for my “help in this fight.”
What Tom said. Every bit what Tom said.
We know that what people SAY they want and what they actually do, and what they RESPOND to, are distinct and separate animals.
Permission is key. Lately I’ve been hugely irritated by the amount of text messages I’ve been receiving from progressive organizations I love and support. In my world, texting is reserved for friends and family. I never gave permission. Yes, it does make me love them less.
Who wants more email? Who in their right mind would respond with a “yes?” Yet when emails captivate and respect and LOVE the reader…ah, well then you can never get enough.
Yes feedback is key. But so is engagement. In some respects, feedback is still very much organization-centered. How are we engaging the donor?
So enjoying this series, Nick! Happy Valentines Day!
There’s definitely a quality (read: relevant, impacting) problem with some communications.
That said, I think we err if we assume everyone who says “I don’t like mail” means “I don’t like bad mail.” For you, the best telemarketing call done by the best telemarketer doesn’t matter – you couldn’t care less about them. It’s not the channel for you. And that’s fine.
For me, it’s text – I hate the implicit assumption that what the nonprofit has to say is more important than everything I am doing in that moment. It could be the best text ever (if such a thing exists); I unsubscribe with extreme prejudice. And that’s fine.
I also hate beets. Could be in the best dish in the world. People have said “well, my beet dish is different.” For me, it isn’t. Beets just aren’t for me.
For some, it’s mail. No matter how much the newsletter shows the donor’s impact, it’s still going in the three-arrowed bin. And that’s fine. To your point, it’s not a reason not to do the newsletter. It is a reason, however, not to send the newsletter to that person.
Mail is their beets.
I agree that, for example, you should show someone what that are opting in or out of so that there is informed consent one way or the other. Maybe they usually don’t like emails but will like yours. Maybe not.
But to assume that your mail (or email or call or etc) is different and everyone will or should like it is to assume that you will like a call because it’s good, or I will like a mind-blowing text, or that these beets are different because they’re are candied.
These folks that opted out don’t like the beets. Not to their taste. Probably best to serve them to someone else. And probably best to ask before they get the dish.
Sorry, Pamela; looks like we posted in parallel.
Can you explain what you mean by feedback being organizational-centered? I’m not sure I understand that point.
Agree that permission is key – sounds like you, like me, aren’t a text message fan.
Thinking aloud, I’m thinking Tom, you, and I may be saying the same thing:
– relevant, impacting communications about the donor are necessary, but not sufficient, for it to be a good communication for the donor
– informed consent to a channel is necessary, but not sufficient, for it to be a good communication for the donor
Nick… I guess I buried my lead. What I was saying (really) was simply that survey questions that deal in broad generalities (“Do you prefer to hear from us by email?”) produce, for this practitioner anyway, only wobbly conclusions.
I would guess that 90% (at least) of the donor comms I evaluate are built to fail, judged against the dozens of criteria now available from research and experience.
These same comms are, by the workaday criteria of sales and neuroscience, blissfully thoughtless, glaringly self-serving, and emotionally of no value to the recipient.
Forever, we have trained donors to see the comms we send them as crap. Because the stuff, in mass, IS crap. There, I said it: most nonprofit comms are crap to begin with … and why WOULD donors want more of it?
Maybe questions might read more like…
“Would you like to receive our crappy, narcissistic newsletter?”
“Since we actually only see you as a life-support system for a credit card, would you enjoy being hammered by our crappy emails day after bloody day after bloody day?”
I know you folks are doing interesting, money-making work for high-volume NGOs like Amnesty in Belgium (Ilja shared some results with me at IFC; impressive). I just feel that the full truth of the donor comms failure in our industry can’t be captured by surveys that don’t somehow account for quality. If all you’ve ever had to drink is polluted water that makes you sick, what are you going to say when someone asks, “Do you want more polluted water?”
Of course, I’m not a researcher (though I do own a clipboard and lab coat and can sustain a neutral facial expression). Maybe this isn’t do-able. Maybe the only ask-able questions are quantitative, not qualitative.
On the nutrition front: Would you accept a teensy bit of beets in your salad if I could prove to you that beets make you even smarter than you already so spectacularly are? (And, fun beet fact, make you pee rose-colored urine.)
Well, I can “prove” (the evidence mounts with every trial) that NON-crappy, non-narcissistic, donor-focused comms are welcomed and raise a ton more money.
The channels aren’t the problem. The content is the problem. In my keyhole view.
I would not. I do not like beets.
Another example is I don’t drink alcohol. Part is for personal reasons, reenforced from my years pushing anti-drunk driving legislation and not wanting to fund the attempted kicking of my own ass.
There’s the potential for heart disease in my family. Red wine can help with heart disease. And my writing probably suffers because I must both write and edit sober.
But I don’t drink alcohol. Have not. Will not.
I totally agree with you and the mountain of evidence that better written and targeted communications are better for donors and raise more money.
But to Pamela’s point, she thinks less of a nonprofit if they text her. So do I. No message will change that. Better targeting can’t just stop at the message – it must also apply to the medium.
Well, there goes that in-depth drill down in a bar I was hoping for. Poo.
Nick,
That’s okay. Since November 8, 2016 I’ve felt like I’ve died and awoken in a parallel universe.
Yes, I think we’re pretty much on the same page in terms of communication… Relevant, impacting. (But where’s the love?)
It’s probably separate from this conversation, but our survey and feedback tools are primarily about how the donor’s relationship to our organization. Not about the donor’s hopes and dreams and passions – who they are as individuals. What makes them tick? That’s what I mean when I talk about engagement.
Pamela, agree, and I think it goes hand-in-hand with solicitations that don’t address a donor at all — the “enough talking about me. what do you think about me?” focus that is too common.
Some of this is required – if you don’t ask how satisfied with their recent interaction someone is in a satisfaction survey, you’ve failed at a tautological level. But, for example, some donors give to child sponsorship organizations (especially) as a way of their children learning about the world and about the value of philanthropy. If you ask “do you have kids?” you’ll miss this, as it’s not every parent. But if you learn whether they involve their kids in their philanthropy and what their hopes are for them, you can get to a core reason for their support.
Boy, I’m loving this conversation. Thank you, Nick.
Tom and Pam, I agree with you both: unless you’re a friend, don’t call OR text me, please. And far too much fundraising communication is pretty bad.
I think if permission/consent is sought in a really donor-centric way, that’s a win. If it’s the first step in a relationship that’s respectful and interested in what the donor cares about, that’s how it should work.
I’m not sure how you translate that into something that can be largely automated, though. Maybe I need to eat more beets and get smarter.
(But there I also agree with Nick. No thanks.)