November2013
Issue: #49

Henry’s Mail

Owing to the quirkiness of birth order and longevity, my wife’s first cousin Henry recently turned 99 years old.

Now his hearing ain’t what it used to be, but he’s sharp as a tack, keeps up with current events and is as quick as anyone with the one-liner.

Over the last few years I’ve made it a point to stop by Henry’s house from time to time for a visit and some lunch.

Inevitably, during a lull in the conversation, he’ll point to the big stack of bulk mail sitting on his table and sigh, “You wouldn’t believe how much of this crap I get every day.”

You see, Henry has donated to a number of causes over the years.

And as we all know, no good deed goes unpunished. In his case, cash donations begat ever more solicitations.

While reading through several of the letters, I noticed a few distinct styles…

There’s the one we’re most familiar with, the personal story. It typically begins with a heartrending narrative about an individual, family or community.

There’s the no-nonsense, in-your-face style. This one firmly and repeatedly directs readers with statements like, “I need you to make a donation today so we can continue our mission.”

Then of course, there are the guilt-laden gifts: address labels, note pads, pens, flags, posters, calculators and even hard cash.

Afterwards, I began wondering if these approaches still work.

Turns out that the Direct Marketing Association, the group that measures such things, says the response rate for non-profit mail has dropped by a whopping 25 percent in the last 10 years.

Social media and email have taken up some of the slack, but not nearly enough to close the gap. And while telephone solicitation still produces the best results, it comes with a big price tag.

So what’s going on? Why keep doing the same-old-same-old in the face of declining returns?

I think the answer partly lies in not adequately identifying and responding to valid contributor concerns. And as luck would have it, these concerns are pretty similar to those of B2B buyers.

Here’s what I mean…

• You all sound the same. It’s hard to distinguish nonprofits in the same category. They tell similar stories and describe similar achievements. It’s true for B2B companies, too. And things get worse when vendors selling vastly different products claim to solve the same problem.
  
  To set your company apart, try whitepapers, case studies and videos. But instead of crooning that you’re the best, emphasize your company’s customer value proposition and offer evidence that your solution leads to the best business outcomes for buyers.

• Where’s the value? For nonprofits, this translates to, “How much of my money goes to your organization and how does it get used?” For B2B, it could be questions about implementation or installation costs, disruption to existing systems and processes, or the cost of training and maintenance.
  
  Come up with bold and imaginative ways to address those questions. For instance, create a document titled, “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?,” which demonstrates to buyers not only that you understand the risks involved in purchasing your product, but how you mitigate those risks to control costs and disruption.

• I never heard of you. The nonprofit response rate for new-prospect lists is less than one percent, well below that for those who have already given. B2B buyers also tend to ignore companies they’ve never heard of.
  
  Back in the day, communicators managed awareness and demand-generation campaigns separately. We seem to have lost that distinction with the onset of always-on digital. Ironically, digital also gives us an overwhelming set of tools (blogs, e-newsletters and webinars) to create content that makes prospects aware of: who you are; what you do; how you do it; and why you do it better than your competitor.

• You’ll sell my name and address. Contributors have caught on to the fact that their names are likely to be sold to other nonprofit organizations. B2B buyers are concerned that you’ll spam or call them incessantly if they give up their contact information.
  
  As I wrote way back in 2010 there are ways you can reassure reticent buyers. They include offering high-value content… publishing a privacy policy… requiring minimal contact information on registration pages… and explicitly requesting offline contact from sales.

The bottom line: Buyers are concerned about more than products and services. But most B2B companies tend to ignore those concerns in their marketing and sales messaging. And that opens a big opportunity for you to differentiate your own company.

In the meantime, Henry has about 1,400 calendars he’s trying to unload. Let me know if you need one.