Mailed out

Kos, of the Daily Kos fame, has had it with direct mail. He recently vowed that he would no longer fundraise for candidates who don’t allow people to opt out of snail mail appeals with their online gift:

It really is infuriating. I blame direct mail consultants who charge per piece sent. They must love these growing contributor lists because they get to send more crap to people who OBVIOUSLY prefer to donate online. I get direct mail from campaigns and it goes straight into the shredder and recycling bin.

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It’s a waste of money, and it’s degrading to the environment. I’m tired of it. People are tired of it. And if campaigns won’t listen, then I’m through with them.

While this is certainly stronger antipathy toward direct mail than most people feel (though, to be fair, Kos has a bigger podium than most of us), it’s not completely unreasonable – donors give through a given channel, they’d prefer if you communicate with them through that same channel.

It’s a perfectly reasonable proposition… and one that non-profits and businesses ignore far too much of the time. Follow me below the fold for more:

Integrated marketing is always a tricky question. Obviously, if it’s cost-effective to send direct mail to your online donors, many NPOs are going to do so. You can send a much longer letter by snail mail than people will tolerate by email, and include glossy graphics that get eaten by outlook. Plus it’s another channel to communicate with your best supporters: those who care enough to make a gift.

But beyond even the question of direct mail to email subscribers, what about the way you communicate to your online supporters. On your non-profit’s MySpace page, do you ask people to sign up for email? Does your Facebook application primarily funnel people into your house file? Do your YouTube videos end with a call to visit your website and join the conversation there? Do your SMS messages tell people to go to a computer and watch a video? And when you post on a blog, do you end it with, "Sorry I can’t stay and comment, but please visit mynonprofit.org for more information?"

Chances are that you do – most NPOs engage in this sort of thing from time to time (I’ve commented previously on this practice, particularly with regard to SMS, here). It’s a sensible distribution of resources – you’re already focusing your efforts on your email program, and while you can afford to create a social network presence, it’s just not practical in terms of staff time ROI to adapt every communication to every audience.

In addition, many organizations live and die by their email list size. It’s their daily, weekly and monthly barometer of their online program’s heath. It’s much harder to figure out the equivalent value of supporters across your social networks ("Well, today we lost 5 MySpace friends and 2 YouTube subscribers, but picked up 3 Facebook installs, 4 Twitter contacts and a LinkedIn connection.  So… good day?") and the tracking can get pretty time-consuming (will OpenSocial change that? Look for posts on that later this week).

So how much do you tailor your messaging for a number of audiences while still managing an integrated campaign? Part of it is closely monitoring individual users responsiveness to your messaging. There should be a much lower threshold for direct mail recipients who don’t respond offline, but are steady givers online – these folks are sending you a message: don’t waste your postage.

Another part is picking your primary engagement methods, and treating the rest as value-adds. For example, you might decide not to have a strong presence on Twitter as a place of primary contact, but for folks on Twitter, you can offer them a chance to be part of a special rapid action team.

Lastly, when a campaign comes up that makes you reach for the big red button that sends out a message on all channels, take a look at the most effective way to deliver that campaign to each. What are the demographics of each platform? What are its strengths – play to those when you’re sending out the message. And don’t be afraid to offer the other channels as options, but don’t expect everyone to be willing to switch from their preferred method of contact to your’s.

I think we’ll see more revolts like Kos’s as we increase the number of marketing channels. Smart non-profits will weather them by wisely selecting how they’ll engage people with what tools. The rest will just send another letter.