Several posts on this blog explore a topic that fascinates nonprofit marketing professionals: pride of association and how it can be enhanced and harnessed.
Here we take a look at a small element of that overarching topic…… how you might inadvertently betray your intentions and weaken the impact of your pitches.
FUNDAMENTAL PREMISE: Premiums are not gratuities! They are not gifts. Avoid those concepts and the words that communicate them.
Do not waste the power of your premiums by verbally undermining the role they play in your fundraising program.
Over a weekend in late October Janice and I visited about 25 station websites. We were reviewing our clients’ online response to the Juan Williams incident because it plopped a media-frenzy into the middle of National Fundraising Week. While Williams was the Topic Du Jour, we also clicked over to the fundraising section of each station’s website.
It was disappointing to discover so many stations have reverted to the old counter-productive practice of calling premiums “thank you gifts”. So we will again offer analysis VisABILITY began to share in our print publications back in 1985.
Think about the interaction each of us encounters several times each day. Someone holds the door for us. Someone passes the salt. Someone says “Gesundheit” when we sneeze. In each case we automatically respond with a murmured “thank you.” The thank you phrase is usually nothing more than the response – the trivial unconsidered reflex – you and I automatically offer after we receive a minor service or favor. Without Thought! Without much meaning! Automatically!
So, here is the question for station management:
Why work against your own best interests by extolling the premium’s virtues and then – in the same solicitation pitch – devalue that premium by implying that it is a common, bare-minimum gesture of automatic acknowledgement, a mere reflex – a thank-you?
The premium you present to your contributor is not a “thank you” from the station. It’s not a “present.” It’s not a “giveaway.” It is not a “gift.” These common words and phrases open doors to places you do not want to go.
Responsible nonprofits do not waste contributed resources by giving stuff to their supporters. There is no reason to do that. But there are important financial and marketing reasons for to offer a premium to potential contributors – as long as you understand what you are doing and then do it effectively.
A properly presented premium is a badge of affinity – a tool to push your most committed listeners over the edge and into the membership roster and/or into a higher gift category. The premium is a motivator. It is a tool to get renewals and upgrades. To market-savvy station executives the premium is an incentive to be carefully selected and thoughtfully presented so that it initiates a response favorable to their station.
BADGE OF AFFINITY! MOTIVATOR! INCENTIVE! Your premium is absolutely not an after-the-fact thank-you. Nor a gift.
BOTTOM LINE: Understand and communicate your premium’s incentive-power. Make sure your audience thinks of it as a must-have prod to action. Make sure your colleagues’ written and on-air comments reflect its role as a motivator - an inducement to contribute. Enhance your premium’s perceived value by emphasizing its relationship with your brand and by avoiding labels that undermine its function.
By referring to the premium with words that reflect its critical role in your marketing and fundraising programs you will create both perceived value and enhanced revenue. That Is the bottom line, isn’t it? (This bottom line also applies to nonprofits from beyond public broadcasting.)
