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Hi everyone, this is Michael Hoffman from C3 Communications, and I'm here today with Jeff Brooks, who writes the blog "Future Fundraising Now," which is a regular blog about fundraising that I've come to rely on and get a tremendous amount of value from. I have Jeff here today because we produced a white paper at C3 called "The Future of Fundraising," and I thought we should talk because I think there are many things in our white paper and in Jeff's content that line up. There are things that Jeff emphasizes and different things that we emphasize, so I wanted to talk a little bit about that today.
So, Jeff, I think that if—tell me if this is right—but I think one of the things that we put in our white paper was that the future of fundraising looks a lot like the present of good fundraising. There are a lot of technologies, and things will come and go, but there are some fundamentals that really stay the same.
Yeah, absolutely. And actually, that's why I chose that as the name of my blog, because if you read my blog, you'll see I'm not one of these shiny object guys who's always trying to lead you to the next best thing. The best practices stay the best practices. Now, that's not to say that you ignore new things, but there's nothing that's going to make it easy, and there's nothing that's going to change human psychology. If you keep those two things in mind, you'll be smarter about the changes in technology as they come along.
I think that's a really great point. Some of the things that we talked about in terms of the technologies that we've pointed out—one was about mobile, another was about video. What do you think of those technologies and how they're actually changing or adjusting fundraising tactics today?
Yeah, well, those things are importantly matter. You better get good at them. We know that an increasing percentage of email readers are reading on a mobile device, so if you set up your emails or your landing pages in a way that they're unreadable on a mobile, you're in trouble. It's like you're sending direct mail with four-point type in it; you know, that's just not smart. So, you know, be there, be with it. We also know that videos can be very persuasive. I'm a little more skeptical of that because it's hard to jump from a video to a call to action. It's possible, but it's difficult. But, you know, be smart about videos. Know that short, emotional videos can have a huge impact on what your donors do.
I think that's a great point, though, about the transactional moment. One of the things that I talk a lot about with video is that there's a lot that often happens with people before that transactional moment. You need to use video where video is effective, and if somebody has decided to donate already, don't get in their way; give them that form, whatever it is, right away. So think about really where the donor is in their cultivation and then use the right tools at the right time.
Yeah, a lot of like when you send people an email, the response to that email is a tiny fraction of what you can expect from direct mail. That doesn't mean there's a problem with email; that just means it's a colder medium, and it's just not what most people are used to. We know, though, that people who are getting your emails become more responsive to direct mail, and that is all part of the relationship. In fact, we have some evidence that people who are on your email list and never open your emails are responding better to the mail. So it's almost like being in their inbox and not being read is something you need to do to stay in their mind and be part of their life.
Hmm, yeah, that's a great point because, you know, we hear a lot of talk about multi-channel fundraising, and a lot of it doesn't really exist in a lot of organizations. I think maybe that wasn't in our paper, but I think it is part of the future of fundraising—really making that multi-channel opportunity real.
Yeah, it is. You know, what's a little surprising to me is that direct mail is better at driving people online than vice versa. In other words, the fact is that direct mail is the best way to get online gifts because you get people to get the thing in the mail, to get all that warmth and involvement, but they are used to doing transactions online, so they go online and do it. Sometimes, who would have thought? But it's a very big deal. In fact, if direct mail went out of existence today, I think online would too.
Mmm, as a core, it's so important. Very interesting. And we do see—I mean, I think it's very marginal—but there are people who say, you know, direct mail is dead or dying. I think that things are changing, but the reality for most organizations that do direct mail is that it's a much bigger source of funds.
It is. Well, direct mail is somewhere about ten to twelve percent—excuse me, online giving is ten to twelve percent of charitable giving. In that sense, it's almost unimportant, but I don't want to say that other parts are very important, and it's getting more important all the time. But it may not be the best way for gifts to come in, but you better be doing it because it's a way people get involved with.
Right. So, one thing that we talked a little bit about in our paper was about personalization and the idea of really trying to speak to people as individuals and see people as individuals as much as you can. That's something, obviously, you get at the major donor level, you know, which is, "I'm going to talk to this person." How does that play out for you in terms of low-dollar donors, and how do you think that—where do you put that idea of either—and it may be personalization around your name, but it may also be about the kind of content you get or the frequency of things or whatever it is?
I think the more important thing than using the name is sending the relevant content. In fact, in direct mail testing, there are frequent tests where a non-personalized piece does better than a personalized piece, and more often than not, in that kind of testing situation, there's not a difference. So throwing someone's name onto a piece of dreck is not magic; it's not something you must do. There are different cases where you should, or there are cases where you shouldn't. So I will say, you know, I hear this a lot—that you have to use their name or you're in trouble. No, it's not really the case. What matters is that you know enough about them that you're sending something they care about, and that's the real personalization. They'll overlook the fact that you're calling a friend rather than Mr. Hoffman if you're sending something they want.
I think it's a great point. You know, we've done some experimentation and work around personalization and video that's shown a really high lift in fundraising, but again, I think it's very dependent on those things and testing. As you said, there are these senses like we have to do this, we have to do that. No, you actually have to do what works, right? And do more of that.
Yeah, the only thing you can count on that you better do, or you're in trouble, is you need to have meaningful calls to action that they want to do. That's the one thing you must do, and there's no way around that. Actually, let me take that back. There is a way around that, and that is to be top of mind in their mind. In that case, you can almost send them a piece of blank paper, and they're going to respond. Most of us are not in that situation where we can do that, so we need to define, "Here's something you can do that makes the world a better place, that supports your values, and makes you feel good." You do that, and there are a lot of other techniques you might or might not do, but that's the one that matters.
Great. Well, I want to wrap up just with your thoughts around, you know, it's 2015. What would you tell somebody at the beginning of the year? Everyone went through the year-end cycle; there's planning in this Q1 timeframe. What would you tell fundraisers today about how to think about this year, how to do better? What would be one piece of advice you would give to the fundraisers out there?
Maybe I'll give you two. One would be—and this is not for everybody, but it's for almost everybody—connect with your donors more. Most people are not doing it enough. They're so infrequent in their direct mail, their email, whatever it is, various ways they contact that the donors are kind of forgetting they're there. Whatever you're doing can probably add to it. There are probably some people who are currently at the limit, but most people are not even close to being part of their donors' lives daily in that way. You get complaints when you communicate more, but you know, get used to it. Doing the job right means you're going to get some complaints, and you want to be smart—turn those complaints into relationships.
The only one that worries me a lot that people don't do and need to do is get their offline and online communication and branding together. I think that is an absolutely critical thing that's going to matter every day more. Right now, there are a lot of organizations where the offline channel is run in one silo of the organization, and online is in another silo. The online people say, "Well, this is how we want to look," and it all slips into modern online, while the direct mail people are kind of jumping into old-fashioned direct mail. When you do that, you are losing gifts because people are crossing lines in both directions. We have seen evidence that when you make your online channel look like your direct mail channel, online giving goes way up. There are probably two reasons for that. One is that people are coming from the mail to showing up online, and if your site doesn't look like the piece of mail in their hand, they're going to think, "Oh, well, I'm going to the wrong place." But two, the junky look of mail and print and those things work that way for a reason. We've been tested for years and years and years. They change slowly because we have to change with the donors, which is more slowly than we want to. I think online, some of us have come way too far beyond where real donors really are. So, you know, I would say, all you people running websites and email programs, look at your direct mail. Be that way. I know it hurts; it doesn't look nice, but it's going to work a lot better if you do that.
That's great. That's really interesting advice, and I appreciate it, Jeff. I really appreciate you joining us on this chat, and hopefully, we'll have an opportunity to do more of this. Everyone, please check out Jeff's "Future Fundraising Now" blog. You can sign up to receive an email every day with the content there, which is how I receive it. It's terrific. Also, check out C3's "Future Fundraising" white paper. Thank you very much for joining us.
Thank you for talking to me.