Last week, I applauded blogger Jeff Brooks, who was critical of Charity Navigator for casting aspersions on direct mail fundraising … specifically for buying into the "myth that fundraising is a form of harassment."
I stand by that. But I do accept that most direct response prospecting is intrusive by nature … "cold calls" of one form or another.
Agitator reader Mark Hierlihy commented on that exchange, and I thought his point was excellent, so I’m giving it more attention here. Essentially, he’s applying the famous Seth Godin "permission marketing" maxim.
In his words:
"Demographically, I am a Gen X’er and have been in fundraising for over 15 years. And, I believe in direct response. It works…so far! But I have to tell you, as a donor, I am increasingly resistant to the"push" tactics that have been inherent in the direct response mentality. Reality is, that as younger donors come on stream (who knows when?), they want to be in control and they will turn you off more quickly than their Boomer or Civic predecessor donors.
The question in my mind is, will charities be able to transition to a "pull" strategy to transition to more engagement tactics than interruption tactics? It’s a difficult transition. I’ve been struggling with this myself, but I think we’re going to have to become far more clever as marketers of our mission."
Personally, I think prospecting is bound to get tougher and tougher … and the resistance to "push" tactics by generations who are anything but infatuated with and tolerant of "marketing" is just one of the reasons.
Harnessing the electronic "word-of-mouth" facilitated by online social nets might be one of the answers, but this opportunity might die before it gets off the ground, if "friends" abuse "friends" by willy-nilly passing along marketing messages … abusing their original permission to communicate, which lies at the heart of social nets.
What ideas do you have for getting around the "push" conundrum? Using "pull" approaches with your house file is one thing, but how might "pull" be applied to prospecting?
Tom
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Good points from Mark. I too have been thinking a lot about that same issue. I too am a Gen X’er who believes in the proven effectiveness of direct mail but at the same time, am leery of its reputation which seems to only tarnish more each year of late thanks in part to many efforts to “control” unwanted solicitations and capture public “preferences” (thinking of the DMA’s efforts to appease Congress a couple years ago which resulted in a half-baked idea they call their Commitment to Consumer something…)
At the same time, I also think the jury is out on the efficacy and overall effectiveness social networks will have in fund raising (not to be confused with friend raising which they do very well). I envision such media playing the role of filling a charity’s prospect funnel over the brim but, at the same time, the conversion strategies at the bottom of that funnel might, ultimately, not feel much different than the cold prospecting direct mail piece after all.
Now imagine for a moment if we started to use pull tactics and web advertising promotion to attract new “investors” in our mission like the for-profit sector has done (very successfully) for years. I suggest you take a look at Dan Palotta’s “Uncharitable” if you haven’t done so already.