What Is This Multichannel of Which You Speak?

On a cold and windy Wednesday afternoon a few months ago, I became a rabid online activist.

Curious about the current state of multichannel marketing and integration efforts, and, more specifically, about what nonprofit organizations are doing to convert online action takers to donors and members, I signed petition after petition. I took pledges. I contacted my elected representatives in Congress. I sent letters to the White House and the United Nations. And I signed up for a slew of e-news offers and action alerts. It was an exhausting, but illuminating, exercise.

Determined to do my part to advance the cause of integrated, multichannel marketing, I gave out my postal address freely, everywhere I could. I was surprised to discover that out of dozens of organizations, only 60 percent provided the means for me to offer my mailing information.

Sometimes you can’t even give it away
Roughly half required the address fields be completed, the vast majority of whom needed the information in order to send my petition or letter to my representative in Congress.

The American Humane Association and Chesapeake Bay Foundation had opt-ins to receive postal mail, which I happily checked in the affirmative. And during its petition submission process, the Brady Campaign’s privacy notice near the “submit” button alerted me that my e-mail address would not be traded or sold, but it might send me e-mail or postal mail in the future.

On several Web sites, I had to provide my name and address information repeatedly, first for the petition and again to sign up for an e-news offer, for example.

Accustomed to prepopulated forms and the “click if this is correct” button while shopping online, my experience on some nonprofits’ Web sites was almost as frustrating as dial-up Internet connectivity. Maybe it was because I’d been at it for hours, but were I a less determined online activist-to-donor conversion investigator, it could have been cause to bail.

Too often, it’s like you mean nothing to them
Admittedly, my study of what a few dozen nonprofits do to convert online activists into members and donors is extremely modest, given the thousands of organizations offering opportunities to engage with them online.

But among the organizations I selected are luminary national and international causes and charities, as well as a number of well-established nonprofits with a regional focus. Nearly all (if not all), I suspect, are names familiar to readers of this magazine.

As a fundraiser and a champion of many of their causes and concerns, it saddens me that I never heard from more than 17 percent of the groups after I either went through their “Take Action!” processes or joined their online communities. Not even a “thank you for signing the petition” confirmation e-mail or a “Welcome!” greeting … nothing.

Is that really all you wanted?
Several of the groups have yet to ask me for a donation or even utilize a passive, unobtrusive “Donate” tab in their e-mail newsletters. I suspect these nonprofits’ e-mail campaigns are managed with an “activists are activists and donors are donors, and never the two shall converge” philosophy.

Or if the nonprofits do believe it’s possible for activists and interested individuals to also want to support the cause financially, it looks like they prefer the would-be donor really works to make it happen without any help from them.

It reminds me of something a visionary nonprofit leader and veteran direct marketer often said about marketing, communications and development professionals who find asking for money lacking in good taste and dignity. He said, “The Bible does not say, ‘Do good PR and you shall receive.’ It says, ‘Ask and you shall receive.’”

But here’s the good news …
In addition to several outstanding e-mail newsletters, action alerts and overall online communications strategies to engage my activist spirit, the majority of nonprofits make a respectable effort to maintain a relationship with me. Most urge me to take additional actions and intersperse the requests with occasional (sometimes relentless) requests for a donation.

And that’s all good. But only one nonprofit has so far proven its multichannel marketing mettle and made use of the address information I freely offered by sending me a direct-mail solicitation. (Interestingly, it’s not either of the nonprofits on whose Web sites I opted in to receive postal mail.)

I’m responding by mail with my signed petition and a donation, with the hope that the nonprofit first out of the gate on direct-mail integration will provide us with an ongoing, winning example of relationship-building efforts with this newly converted activist/donor. I’ll let you know what happens in a future column. FS