When is relevant irrelevant?

I was talking to a couple of friends recently who over a quiet dinner, both relayed their days from hell. Though the situations were quite different the problems in both cases related to a failure in a process and ultimately the choice of communication.

Essentially in both examples, email requests were sent by their staff members, high priority for an important matter and for whatever reason they weren't actioned. The results were disgruntled people, a delay to the service, complaints, and some repercussions at a higher level and a review of the current procedure.

What I thought was interesting was the steadfast reliance to just one mode of communication - and not necessarily the most appropriate or relevant.

This got me thinking about how we as charities communicate with our supporters and sometimes I think that too readily we choose one way, whether or not we are getting a response or not or because we always do it that way.

Equally sometimes we don't take into consideration as quickly as we might what is the most appropriate mode of communication for the message we are sending.

Thus we are probably not as strategic as we could be about trying to capture as many of the personal details as possible to give us more choice in how we can communicate.
And we certainly need to give more thought to the various channels open to us and how the use of these may change as the relationship develops. In the same way they do for us in our personal lives.

For example:

Q1. You want a friend to look after your beloved pet while you go away for the weekend - would you (a) text them to ask them to look after your treasured pet (b) write them an email (c) get on the phone?

Q2. You are at work and the light above your desk has gone and is flashing and making you feel a little queasy - would you (a) email facilities team letting them know about your strip lighting (b) give them a call to let them know (c) pop-down and just mention it?

Now there are no right or wrong answers to the questions above (though some would get you a quicker more effective response than others) - and equally I would say that the answers chosen would depend on a number of things: how good a friend is it, have you asked them to look after your pet before, do they live close by, do they need time check their diary several week's in advance, do they constantly text or are they always forgetting their phone? Or with facilities department - where are they in the building? Two floors away or 14 floors away, are they particularly busy at the moment due to staff holidays or sickness? You see what I mean?

The point is, there are variables that should probably be considered for all our requests to supporters too.

Recently I had the pleasure of collecting the IOF award for best use of the telephone for an emergency campaign. Which asked ActionAid Child Sponsors linked to a region of Pakistan whether in the emergency they would allow us to derestrict their support to enable a quicker response on the ground. The response was overwhelming and I was thrilled that we won.

But when the situation was originally being discussed there was an assumption that it would be a mailing because that is one of the main channels we use to send out our emergency communications.

For me however, there were a number of factors that needed to be weighed up:
It was an emergency, people would be worried about their own sponsored children (a letter no matter how well crafted would possibly raise more questions than answer), the request was urgent and we wanted to get the attention of as many people as possible, it was a potentially sensitive subject and required time for explanation if people had questions about their support, their child even our emergency response.

Therefore, the campaign was much more suited to the telephone and it had the desired affect. Allowing us to speak to our supporters, reassure them where needed and ultimately get them to understand why we were asking for what we were and the difference it would make to the people of Pakistan.

I appreciate that we are often limited by only having certain supporter details and thus there is only one route open to us. However, if we ensure that data capture of key contact information is part of the wider strategy for our supporter communications and look at it as a way of enabling us to better communicate to our supporters - then it is a worthwhile effort.

Of course our supporters will soon let us know if they don't want to be communicated via this means or that..and of course we should give them a choice - but if we have the choice to start with and choose the appropriate channel with the right communication based on their support and the other information we know about them - then I think we may also find the number of 'don't mail me or email me or phone me' exclusions could go down.

Relevant communications are all very well and good but at the end of the day they are only relevant if they get seen, read and hopefully acted upon. Therefore, how we choose to communicate these messages can be just as vital as the messages themselves.

A big thank you to Ethicall in Bristol for doing such a great job on the campaign.

The power of a 60 second critique..

Over the weekend, an insert I have seen before several times dropped out of the Guardian. I always have a look - but today my boyfriend beat me to it.

A little later - checking that he hadn't put it in the recycling pile, he asked me what I thought.

Now, the conversations I usually have with him about such things are always interesting because other than his voluntary work, his work is a million miles from the not-for-profit sector

and he usually comes at things from a very different perspective (usually a legal one) to the point that we can disagree quite strongly.

The insert in question is the UNICEF 'Please Pick Up' which I think visually is really compelling. But I am always interested to see what non fundraising people think. So with some devil's advocacy thrown in...the conversation went something like this:

Me: "What do you think of it?"

Peter: "Powerful photo and message - but it was ruined by the amount of copy inside it - unnecessary. Too much and not saying anything."

Basically a page of copy giving context and making the ask for £2 per month - several times (as he pointed out).

Me: "Don't you want to read about the what UNICEF is doing and the case for support to make the decision to support or not?"

Peter: "No, you don't need it - no child should be in that position. That's enough of a story."

Me: "But doesn't it tell you how you can help children like him and what is needed?"

Peter: " No - just goes on about £2 a month, probably not helping the little boy at all.

It's all about the organisation and nothing about how I will be making a difference specifically AND the copy font is far too small for anyone to find it comfortable to read (considering the size of the insert actually quite true). The original impact of the photo is weakened by the text."

Me: "Are you going to sign-up?"

Peter: "If I do, would need to know a bit more about where my donation would actually be going and what impact it would make - it's pretty vague."

Now this conversation took probably about a minute and hardly a detailed critique - but it was clear that Peter was not convinced. Now this is just one person's perspective - but it is still valid because for him there is something in the way of his support - and it could be easily rectified.

Now I am guessing that this is a pretty successful insert for UNICEF because I have seen it before, and I wish them the best of luck in their recruitment. But it made me wonder whether, despite the relative success of our banker communications, we do enough to test them in order to make sure they are as strong as they can be and I don't just mean the sign-up rates but also on-going retention figures.

And just importantly, thinking that all charities should probably have a Peter or a group of them to call on - ideally before work goes out, just to check whether we are ticking the necessary boxes with our advertising - which would be no bad thing at all.

Sorry...but thank you seems to be the hardest word

Now in my day to day job as the Head of Retention and Development as well as a supporter of many charity organisations, I am frequently stunned by the communications I receive and read - but quite often not in a good way.

There are many elements that could and should be included in a supporter communication to make them as effective and engaging as possible - but the one I lament the absence of more than any are the words or at least sentiment of Thank you.

Now to me it isn't rocket science - far from it - it is one of the simplest ways to show appreciation yet it is still the most underused.

Without our supporters we couldn't do what we do. Yet why do so many communications and additional requests for support not start by thanking supporters for what they already do. Even on a practical level, acknowledging their support up front and thanking them for it would make any additional request much easier to make after all.

So a plea, the next time you are sending an email or mailing etc asking for them to take part in an event you are running or asking for support for an appeal, please check to ensure you acknowledge them for what they already do - with a big Thank you!

For those to which I am already preaching to the converted - the next thing to do is to ensure that everyone that is involved in any production of supporter communications also understands this and has bought into it. It is an organisational wide buy-in you need - otherwise you and your team may be the only ones sending thank you infused communications - with other communications undermining all your hard work.

Of course there should be additional parts of your supporter programme that are just thank you. Not thank you and or thank you but... but a wonderfully celebratory, unmistakably clear thank you only. But for everything else you communicate there is no reason to ever not include it.

THANK YOU!