Nonprofit marketing - a primer

Over the years, I've worked for and with several non-profits. A common refrain among the fundraising team is frustration with "the people who don't give."

"Why don't people give? Don't they know you don't get something for nothing?"

People are not ungrateful. They are not, as a rule stingy. The primary reason people don't give is because they are not asked. You may think you have asked, but if they did not hear the request, or they did not realize it was for them, you have not, in fact, asked in any useful way. You have a communication problem, not an "other people are bad" problem.

So, if you have asked but they have not responded, review your communications. We'll publish tips over the next few weeks on ways to increase giving by amplifying your message, connecting the reasons people want to give with what you want to accomplish, and making it easy to give. Let's start with that last one.

Eight tips for making it easy to give - and two things to avoid.

1. Investigate Paypal and, if possible, provide an online donation option.
   
2. Accept credit cards and publicize that you do so.
   
3. Provide a return envelope when sending direct mail or enclosures in your children's folders for school fundraising.
   
4. If you're raising money for a church, make sure your pledge cards and donations cards highly visible and accessible throughout popular gathering places on your campus.
   
5. Have clearly marked, secure donation boxes available around your community.
   
6. Collect donations at every event - not necessarily actively, sometimes a simple jar is enough - but give people an opportunity to give at the time they are feeling the most connected to your cause.
7. Selling items or trying to get a scrip program off the ground? Put a personable team together to staff an ongoing table.
8. Identify a point of contact to answer all questions related to fundraising and make that person regularly visible.
9. One don't? Don't underestimate the time, talent, mutual support and commitment it takes to get a solid fundraising effort off the ground - nor the number of man hours it will take to sustain it.
   
10. The most important don't? Don't be ashamed of asking for money. Make your case passionately, clearly and forthrightly - and often enough to get the results you need. If you are timid about asking for the resources to make the change you want to make, people will pick up on your ambivalence. They will not support your programs because your reluctance to ask for funding makes it look as if, perhaps, your entire heart is not in the effort. Since that is not the case, be confident in your fund raising.
    

Next - What's the big idea? That is, do you have a big idea to wrap around your fund-raising effort? Why should people support your cause? (Subscribe to be notified when the next post goes live)

Bruce Almighty brings my Sears dryer back to life

An affable guy named Bruce from my old repair shop favorite, A&E Factory Service, showed up to fix my dryer. He was not from Colorado Springs like the competent Norman of old, which makes me wonder if the A&E repair guys are semi-independent contractors, perhaps. I believe Bruce is from Arvada.

Regardless, he got straight to work in my messy washroom. After about half an hour of tinkering with the dryer, he told me the element had burnt out. I now have a new element, a working dryer and boundless gratitude for Bruce. He refused any remuneration, so here's to you, Bruce, wherever you are. Thank you. You restored my faith in Sears.

I highly recommend A&E for your appliance repairs, in Colorado at least, because they have now fixed my broken dryer twice. They've done so quickly and efficiently both times. They're just all around good guys. And Sears? Well,

1. Sears customer service has cut the block of time one has to allocate from all day to a four hour period.
2. They rescheduled just once this time.
3. They called ahead to let me know they needed to change the time- a huge improvement.
4. Yet again, the repair guy was competent, professional and pleasant.

So, thank you, Sears and A&E. This was a much better experience than last year. I am glad I am still a customer.

Sears customer service update

The technician from A&E just called (at 4:10.) He is 25 minutes away, which should put him here within the 1:00-5:00 window. Odd - we are not supposed to be in his territory. He is not the guy who called yesterday, which is also bemusing. But A&E did a great job last time, so I am not complaining.

Sears puts the "cuss" in customer service, part two

Over a year ago, I did a series of posts about Sears' awful customer service. My clothes dryer ceased to work. After a series of unfortunate events caused by Sears' absolute determination to place multiple layers of contact between the customer and the service person, the dryer eventually got fixed. It took something like twelve calls over eleven days to get a technician to darken my door. But Norman from A&E eventually showed up, fixed the dryer, and I was a happy woman.

This week, my dryer broke again. No heat. Drat.

Ironically, I had called Sears last Saturday, despite my vow to avoid them. They sent a coupon in a direct mail piece offering carpet cleaning. Our carpets really needed cleaning, their prices were terrific, so, what the heck.

I called that Saturday, they scheduled the cleaning for Monday afternoon at 1:00 - and they showed up three hours early. But they called first to make sure it was okay. The guy did a fantastic job. Since we were luckily ready for him, the early showing was not a problem.

That afternoon, the dryer ceased to heat. Feeling warm and fuzzy about Sears, the next day, I called for an appointment. They asked if I had run a load without clothes (me: "no") or cleaned the duct (me: "I don't know how, can you walk me through that on the phone?" Them: "No. We will make an appointment instead, since your dryer is under warranty.")

The very pleasant phone rep then made an appointment for my still-under-warranty dryer for today between 1:00 and 5:00. Last night, they called around 6:30 to remind me they were coming.

Today, the technician called around 11:00, ahead of his 1:00-5:00 appointment, and the conversation went like this:

Me: "Hello?"
Technician:" Hello, this is Sears. We have a service call scheduled for your house today between 1:00 and 5:00."
Me" "Yes - for the dryer. I'll be here. "
Technician: "Well, we're not coming."
Me: "What?"
Technician: "We're not coming. Can you be there tomorrow between 1:00 and 5:00?"
Me (steaming, because we are so clearly, again, not a priority for them): "Someone.will.be.here."

Of course, it is Friday, and we do have plans for Friday night, so we shall see if Sears and their local representatives FUBAR this repair like they did last time. I find it jaw-dropping that service guys think that customers find it easy to set four hour blocks of time on hold for them multiple times, on short notice. As a consultant, I bill by the hour, and even though I can do *some* work at home, their disdain disrupts my business.

I guess Sears doesn't care whether we continue to purchase Sears appliances or the warranties - or the local guys they use don't care. Either way, I am interested to see what happens tomorrow. But I am going to blog this again, with hopes it has a happier ending than the last marathon.

PS: I checked to see if Sears has a Twitter account. I found one with 102 followers and no tweets. If you know of a way to get in touch with them besides their tortuous phone service, let me know.

The Smith & Hawken email offer: five reasons it's Hail Mary marketing gone bad

Today, I received an email from Smith & Hawken announcing that "everything is 50% off!" - except furniture, which is 60% off. As an occasional customer of theirs, I clicked through to see if there were any early Christmas presents to be had. Because of the poor construction of the campaign. I wasted fifteen minutes I'll never get back in order to discover that the sale was good only at their retail store, which is 45 minutes away.

The campaign is a terrific example of bad marketing, but there is a story behind the bad marketing. It turns out that Smith & Hawken is going out of business. There seems to be some bad feeling between Scotts Miracle Gro, the parent company, and Smith & Hawken. Whoever created this campaign passes on that bad feeling to the customers by making us jump through hoops to find out how to purchase.

Why is this bad marketing? Let us count the ways.

1. No online component to the sale. The email was meant to send me to a local store. I read the email title, and, unsurprisingly since I have been an occasional customer, was interested in finding something to buy. Email offers usually mean online sales. Since I did not know the back story, I expected to find a sale on their website.

2. No text-only version. The email required you to be able to see the image to understand the specifics. Since I have images turned off by default, which is not uncommon, it was difficult to even find the hotspot to click through to the site. For some reason, the only clickable part of the ad was the top 20%.

3. Poor usability on the "website." The home page of the site is now a monolithic image with a hot spot on the bottom left. Poor usability: since we scan from top to bottom, left to right, I had to scan three fourths of the ad before I found where to click.

How long does it take you to find this call to action - the entire purpose of the email and ad?

4. No website. The only functional part of the website is the store locator. Can you read the yellow text on the teal background below? Our online store is currently not operational. That implies that it may be operational again in the future. In fact, I initially thought they were redesigning the website and, perhaps, staging a sale because the redesign was not finished on time. But then, in even smaller print, it says "all sales are final."

Tiny print (especially compared to the huge fonts above it), light on a dark background, -- located on the bottom right of an ad - says that the designer intentionally diminished the visibility of this text.

5. Deceptive whitelisting messages. At the very top of the ad, in teeny-tiny type, it asks you to add Smith & Hawken to your approved email list. That implies I will continue to get email from them, and that they are an ongoing concern. In fact, of course, they're going out of business. If Scott wanted to continue to keep me as a customer, they would acknowledge that this is from the parent company and perhaps give me the option to opt-in to their communications. But these brands are wholly divorced from each other. Whoever sent this email obviously does not have a goal to retain or convert me to a Scotts Miracle Gro customer. I *do* have the option to opt out of the Smith & Hawken mailing list at the bottom of the email. That makes me wonder who will have my email contact information after the company is dissolved.

If you can read this, your eyesight is so much better than mine!

So, it's clear, based on the bad customer experience, that Scott does not expect those who respond to this ad to continue to be their customers. The lack of thought and resources that went into this campaign effectively torches the Smith & Hawken brand. However, at least in my case, they damage the Scotts Miracle Gro brand as well.

Online tools connect those who wish to learn to those who teach

Several years ago, I taught college business courses for Oregon Tech on their Fort Lewis campus. My students were primarily soldiers, though there were a few civilian adult learners who worked during the day and took my courses at night. They shamed me because, as students, they knew what I had not when I was a casual undergrad: that the education they were receiving was a stepping stone to a better life. They took it so seriously. Their commitment inspired and challenged me to help them realize their dreams by teaching them useful information as well and thoroughly as I possibly could.

Back then (2001-2003), distant learning tools were cumbersome and required a deeper understanding of technology than most professors and instructors had the time and inclination to obtain. My, how times have changed.

Twitter as class aid?
This video features a Dr. Rankin, who is a professor of History at UT Dallas, and her students. They are using Twitter to broaden the classroom discussion and to create an ongoing archive of class topics for students to sue as a study aid. (Oh how I would have loved this tool back in the day, since I could have tweeted from home, in my pajamas. But that distorts the concept).

• Useful link: Getting started with Twitter - a link to their support resources.

Facebook - it's not just an adventure, it might be a job
Stanford students have been learning how to develop Facebook applications for several years. The class is one of the most popular at the university. The students seem motivated by, well, greed - not that there is anything wrong with that.

The faculty at this school use Facebook as a feedback tool. Students can critique each other's work. Alumni also weigh in on student efforts. Alumni participation in class projects via social media is a largely unexplored aspect of the technology. They are usually asked to help with the job search or internships, not the classroom experience. Yet, here is a large pool of people familiar with the class topics who might help enrich the learning experience in a variety of positive ways.

• Useful link: Get started building Facebook applications.

YouTube - keg parties and class notes at the same place, just like real life
YouTube is fertile ground for finding lectures, student projects, and online learning aids. If you go to youtube.com and search on TeacherTube (an educational video sharing effort), you will find hundreds of related links to educational videos and resources. Here is just one article discussing the pros and cons of YouTube to augment your college curriculum.

I am amused by the woman who says teaching is not just content delivery, so these online tools cannot replace faculty. I respectfully suggest that the train of thought misses the point - which is that committed faculty can reach more students better than they would in any other way, simply by using these tools. To begin with, we can attract more students by using these tools to enable students to sample our classes before they sign up. We can also provide more value by augmenting our (perhaps sparkling, perhaps not) personalities and inarguably limited personal knowledge base by adding the wealth of subject matter expertise that is found on the Internet. We add depth to the classroom experience by providing a variety of ways to access the information they need to learn and to foster the discussions - in-person and online - that deepen their knowledge.

• Useful link: How to embed a YouTube video in your webpage (or blog)


• Useful link: How to upload a video to YouTube

Super resource list
The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies list 100 top online learning resources here. Although they source a relatively small sample of 102 teaching professional, the list is a terrific starting point if you are interested in finding technologies that will enhance your teaching - or learning experiences.

Bad use of social media - FanIQ harvests address books to send deceptive email invites

This morning, I received an email from a friend of mine. The title was "Compare yourself to Joe Schmo" (joe@schmo.com). (Obviously, I changed the names).The body said that Joe had sent me a private message and to please read it or Joe would think I ignored it.

The site that sent the email is called FanIQ. They apparently really, really want to harvest email addresses. This site lists the sequence of steps they take you through to get you to register.

FanIQ will now send me a series of reminders to subscribe, much to the embarrassment of my friend and to my irritation. My friend is tech-savvy, yet was taken in and thus forced to send an apology to everyone in his address book.

This is so clearly bad marketing that I am unable to figure out what it is they hope to achieve. it's bad for the FanIQ brand and bad for their entire business.

So, I will never join their community. The people who unintentionally allow FanIQ to access their entire contact list, including business contacts, job-related addresses, and other people to whom it's hard to explain a gaffe like this, hold them in low regard.

It's too bad, because I am an avid college football fan and thus a member of their target market. I might join a community like this one if they were not so needlessly aggressive - and thus incompetent - in their marketing.