Special Report: Pulling It All ?Together: Smart Channel-Integration Strategies
5. Consider adding a button on your Web site that graphically reflects your current direct-mail package, and change it out to the next one during its in-home delivery.
6. Plan the communications stream your donor will get across channels, and then test, test, test!
For those of you who already have the basics down, here are some ways to take your programs to the next level of channel integration:
1. Break down your internal silos between departments. Get all of your acronyms — DM (direct mail), TM (telemarketing), DRTV (direct-response TV), OL (online), MD (major donor), PG (planned giving), COMMS (communications) — together in a room at the very beginning of your fiscal year and campaign planning, and talk! What campaigns, issues, offers and news will be going out when? Put ?together a master communications schedule that ?coordinates campaign timing and messaging throughout the year.
2. Once you've broken down all your silos and created a coordinated master plan that each channel feeds into (Whew! That was easy!), set up ongoing meetings — weekly, monthly or whatever works for you — to touch base and plan the details as you execute your master schedule. Things will change based on channel testing, world events, your organization's progress toward its mission and the political environment — and you'll need to adjust your plan accordingly. Often this is to the benefit of everyone: Imagine a new development arising on an issue discussed in a recent mail package — you can send an e-mail to those who received the package with the update and boost the response to your original mailing! Or how about asking donors to choose their favorite images for next year's member card or calendar?
3. Test different channels of follow-up to your new online donors and constituents: Do they convert better through a direct-mail acquisition piece, telemarketing call, or appeal or renewal mailing?
4. Test a customized follow-up ask based on the issue the online donor or constituent originally responded to. For instance, if a new online ?name joined your e-mail list on a "Save the Mountain Gorillas!" ask, send her a variable-print package ?or call her on this same issue to ask for a donation.
5. Get your program people involved! Multichannel campaigns demand content that shows supporters their dollars and clicks in action. Ask your field personnel to take pictures and video and provide "reports from the field," and incorporate these into your campaigns to show donors and constituents the difference their gifts are making or to ask them for additional support.
