Category: advertising

Nonprofit mailings need more quality, less quantity

~ penningink ~ 1 Comment

The United States Post Office has a nice service called “informed delivery.” People who sign up for it get an email each morning that shows them an image of each mail piece or package set to be delivered that day. It’s a nice heads-up feature for anyone looking for some important mail. As one who uses the service, I find myself often looking at the email and saying “again?!”

A stack of various envelopes, including a white envelope labeled 'BILL ENCLOSED' and several colored envelopes in the background.

It makes sense that an organization will send a thank-you and acknowledgment of a recent gift. It also is to be expected they would ask past donors to consider another contribution. But the frequency of these mailings from individual organizations often exceeds what is reasonable. As a result, the mailings defeat their purpose to generate another response. The likely response to being flooded is to toss or shred the mailing unread in an inevitable “cry wolf” effect.

The frequency of mailings from each organization is made worse by the number of mailings from multiple organizations. I contribute to a number of nonprofit organizations. Of course this places me on their mailing list. But because organizations sell or share mailing lists, or addresses appear in the database of professional mailing houses that serve nonprofit organizations, my name gets added to the mailing lists of organizations I have never given to or even heard of.

This all adds up to a pile of mail, and my conclusion that nonprofit mailings need less quantity and more quality.. Part of my past career doing public relations work for nonprofit organizations included direct mail fundraising letters. So I offer some suggestions as a consumer as well as a professional in this arena.

  • Segment by recency, frequency, and quantity. It is conventional advice that organizations should segment their publics and avoid the folly of thinking there is a “general public”. In nonprofit fundraising, this means having a database and using it strategically. Sending mail, and writing corresponding content, that considers how recently someone gave, how often they historically give, and how much they typically give is just common sense. Asking someone to give when their last contribution has not even appeared on their bank statement or credit card bill is annoying. Taking them off the list for a period is respectful and likely will have more response. A targeted letter to lapsed donors, those who have missed a pattern of regular giving, can also be effective if written well to acknowledge the appreciation of past giving and asking if there is a reason the contributions have stopped. Related to recency is frequency. Some people give monthly, while others prefer to give quarterly or annually. Once organization I support smartly recognizes that I give each July and they send me a reminder appeal shortly before then. Finally, appeals should be written differently to groups of donors according to they amount they have given or have potential to give. A letter to a wealthy individual with check boxes for $10 or $100 is a missed opportunity. Asking for a large gift from someone of modest means will cause offense or distress.
  • Match donor intent and cause. When I worked for an NGO, we allowed donors to support specific staff, projects or a country where we worked. This gave donors more agency and the opportunity to feel more engaged with the organization. It also matched their preferences and considered why the donor gives and not just what the organization needs. If a donor gave to a project that was fully funded, we let them know and offered to return the gift or redirect it to something else of the donor’s choosing.
  • Be a relational vs transactional nonprofit. Corporations that make and sell products or services talk about what type of brand they are. Transactional brands merely offer a product or service in exchange for payment. That’s fine in some product categories and industries. Others seek to be a relational brand, where there are repeat customers who engage with the company in ways beyond a purchase and actually have relationship with company representatives. Some of the nonprofits I support achieve this relational status well. I receive correspondence not from some nameless organization, or even a development director, but directly from a person in the field doing what the nonprofit mission is. Often it was that person and my association with them that encouraged me to give in the first place. But the ongoing relationship also keeps me on the list of engaged supporters.
  • Manage the report to request ratio. I wrote above about the instinct to shred or trash mail from nonprofits who flood my mailbox too frequently. One way to encourage me–and others–to open mail is to ensure that some mailings do not request more contributions at all, or do so subtly. Instead, they report on what the organization has done with the support, in what specific ways have they been accomplishing their mission. There may be some people who give to nonprofits to feel good about themselves and say they support an organization. However, most want to know that their contribution housed the homeless, fed the hungry, established a church, rescued animals or in any other way demonstrate impact. The best way to do this is with storytelling–personal stories where the beneficiaries of the organization’s mission are front and center demonstrating positive change in their lives as a result of the organization doing what it says it does. Direct mail letters can include these stories in a letter, or in a newsletter or annual report. A giving envelope can be included without fanfare so donors can choose to give. But the purpose of such communications on a regular basis should be accountability.

In addition to this advice for organizations, I have advice for people like me who want to support nonprofits but get annoyed by the flood of direct mail funding appeals. People can go to DirectMail.com and fill out a form to be taken off mailing lists. But I would rather have people become strategic donors and reward organizations who do the above.

Essentially, I would encourage people to select a set number of organizations they want to support. Even do what I do and develop a spread sheet. Then indicate the annual amount (or monthly or what makes sense for you) to give to each organization. The total would be your annual charitable giving, which may equal the “tithe” percentage of income that Christians are encouraged to consider when giving. This helps to plan, stay committed to giving, report on taxes if you itemize, and mostly allows you to sort mail and discard organizations you have not pre-determined to support.

Criteria for giving are up to individuals but I suggest the following:

  • Obviously, select thoughtfully the types of causes you want to support. Religious, arts, environmental, political or anything else that means the most to you.
  • Investigate if the organization is responsible. One metric is the percentage of funding that goes to mission vs operations. A good standard is 80-20. Sometimes a donor can feel like they are merely paying for the next package to come in the mail to ask them for more. Guidestar is a good online resource of third-party data to vet nonprofits before committing to giving to them.
  • Do you actually know someone who works for the organization? This is not necessary, but it can help ensure you are entering into more of a relationship than a transaction.
  • Does the organization match what is recommended above in terms of the frequency and contents of direct mail communications?

If all of the above are practiced, I suggest it would lead to less frustrated donors and more effective nonprofits.

Does Advertising Adjacency Affect Corporate Reputation?

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(Note: I have been on a sort of hiatus from blogging as I was on a sabbatical during the fall of 2024 to write a book on public relations theory. Then, based on previous academic articles I have published, I was asked by a book editor to contribute a chapter on corporate reputation. With the book in production and the chapter awaiting my presentation at a conference for feedback, I hope to pick up the pace on the blog again. More about both books when their publication dates near).

Public relations professionals use all forms of tactics, including paid advertising. Public relations professionals also are strategically concerned with the reputations of the organizations they represent. So an article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required) about advertisers concerned with Meta’s allowing free speech being a threat to ‘brand safety’ caught my eye.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s president, gained lots of attention for recently saying Meta would back off on censorship and allow more free speech on Facebook and the company’s other platforms. There had been complaints that there was a noted bias against conservatives when some posts were given a lower push by an algorithm or accounts blocked entirely. There was even evidence that some of this was done in cooperation with federal government agencies. 

Of course, what is censorship to some is responsible monitoring of misinformation and hate speech. But there again, those are subjective judgements. A difference of opinions and values is not necessarily hate. And many comments labeled misinformation have borne out to be true, from Covid origins to the involvement of Russia in previous elections. 

I’ll leave that debate there.

But the WSJ article pointed out that advertisers are concerned that with the filters off, their digital ads could be adjacent to questionable content. I have wondered about this concept long before there was such a thing as digital advertising.

Brands have placed ads in newspapers and magazines for years, not exactly knowing what editorial or other ad content would appear on the same or adjacent page. If the ad is near content some reasonable people could see as objectionable, would those readers see it as associated with the brand?

Granted, in broadcast media, and magazines with a specific content and tone, ads are also considered sponsorship. There is a reputational factor to consider there.

But in print, and largely in social media advertising, I doubt that many viewers see an ad in their stream as an endorsement or sponsorship of other content in their stream. This is especially true because users can choose who to follow and select their own feeds (unless they just scroll “for you” posts). In other words, users have more agency over what they see than advertisers do.

Are users not savvy enough to realize that advertisers are there to reach them, not to promote others? I would venture to say that they are. 

Also, if professionals are worried about brand safety, what reputation impact would there be if the brand is known to be  encouraging subjective censorship? 

This might be something for brands to do their own research on. Do their key publics—from employees, to customers, to investors and more—factor in they content near corporate branding when they form their own view of the company, ie it’s reputation in their minds? An academic study on this would also be fascinating. 

Or perhaps Meta could use its resources to find an answer to this question. It may be in their own interest to do so.

Gen Z and other new employees need to position between Imposter Syndrome and Dunning-Kruger Effect

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I have been a professor at my university for more than 20 years. My career is older than the very life of my current students. 

In that time I have seen a lot of changes in everything from student attitudes to terminology. While I always favor looking at individuals verses a group identity, there are some common threads in the Gen Z student and young professional. Among them are two ways of thinking: “Imposter Syndrome” and the Dunning-Kruger Effect. They are the extremes on a scale of one’s self-perception of ability in the workplace. 

I would advise Gen Z to adopt Aristotle’s ‘Golden Mean’ and position themselves between these two extremes. 

Imposter Syndrome is the phenomenon where one feels like a phony, that they are in a workplace but really don’t deserve to be there, that they lack skills and knowledge of those around them. 

To this I say to students they need to bolster their own sense of self-efficacy. Also, it is important to remind them that college does not teach them everything. A bachelor’s degree gives students a lot, but it is a baseline. College teaches students how to learn. They must continue this in the specific workplace and industry where they land. I speak regularly to chief communication officers (CCOs) who are describing the next thing they need to learn even after decades of experience. On certain topics I continue to read and listen and learn. So no recent graduate of young professional should feel like an imposter. College graduation is called a “commencement” because it is a beginning, not a final conclusion.

Last semester a good student finished presenting a project to a client and left the room and shouted in the hallway “I’m done with college!” It was a joyous and funny moment. No doubt the excitement and jubilation were well worth it after all the work done. But I said to her, congratulations. Now the learning begins. 

The other extreme is the Dunning-Kruger Effect, in which someone without a lot of knowledge or ability overestimates their competence and proficiency. This is the person who thinks they are too cool for school. It’s the person who thinks a three-month internship grants more knowledge and experience than a 30-year career. It’s the recent graduate who assumes a bachelor’s degree imparts more wisdom and understanding than a PhD. It’s the young person who listens to a seasoned veteran explaining past experience and says derisively “OK, Boomer.” 

As a former colleague of mine used to say about some—not all—students, “they don’t know what they don’t know.”

As I get older, it has been humorous to hear from millennials who used to walk around like they rent the place complain about their new Gen Z employees who seem resistant to feedback, instruction and mentorship. They are getting as little of their own attitude. In one case a mid-career professional told me about a new hire explaining with passion a concept they had just heard about but which was fundamental and already second nature to others in the room.

Perhaps they should have said “OK, Genzie.”

But I also note that the phenomena of Imposter Syndrome or the Dunning-Kruger Effect are not about age, they are simply about change. Individuals at any career stage can change jobs, industries or move to a new city or state. This was expressed in a recent AdAge article about entry level professionals finding a tough job market and seeing their mentors laid off. 

No matter the age or experience, the job market and change makes one “new” in the new context and can generate feelings and manifest behaviors ranging from self-doubt to overconfidence.

In either case, time can “heal” these maladies at either extreme end of a self-perception scale. The one with Imposter Syndrome will soon gain confidence if given good instruction, feedback and support from an employer. Success defeats perception. The individual with the Dunning-Kruger Effect may soon find out they are “not all that” in a performance review, a creative team meeting that doesn’t not rubber stamp an idea, or from some negative client feedback. 

The best attitude for a recent grad and young professional is one of humble confidence, between the extremes. Absolutely they should be willing to speak up and contribute what they know and offer the skills they have. But they also should be open-minded to continual learning and feedback, be respectful of the people who went before them, take advantage of opportunity to try and fail, and expect to be corrected. 

“Anti-woke” messaging on the rise as brands position by ideology

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If I ask a group of students whether or not a company or organization should take a stand on a social issue, there is universal agreement. If I ask them which stand an organization should take, there is little more than blank stares.

The same phenomenon is likely true of adults at large. Everyone makes the self-righteous  assumption that organizations need to take a stand that is consistent with their personal opinion, beliefs and values. But what if a an organization proclaims position A when you are strongly aligned with position B? 

Perhaps this is why a recent Gallup poll notes that “fewer Americans want businesses wading into current events.“

However, if you read that poll commentary you see that democrats are most likely to encourage organizations take a public stance. Relating to my initial point, that is because the stance organizations take is usually left leaning. The left has dominated issue advocacy in terms of which stances organizations take because the left dominates social institutions including government, entertainment, news media, education and now corporations.

Given that left-wing dominance, the stances are often aligned with what is culturally called “woke” perspective. This general term correlates specifically to the alphabet soup of DEI (Diversity, Equity Inclusion), ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance), CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and of late advocacy for a particular perspective on matters of sex and gender.

Stances in accord with so-called woke philosophy are no longer seen as a potential, they are stressed as inevitable. This may be a good time for a conservative turn on a woke-ish neo-Marxist statement: we need to dismantle the hegemonic structures of institutional, systemic left power. 

I have noticed the beginning of a dismantling, or at least the emergence of alternative stances on social issues. This of course causes rage among the very people who used to say “speak your truth,” “marketplace of ideas,” or even “silence is violence.” 

So if the dominant left is demanding a stance be taken, the unwavering right is responding in kind.

The first company I noticed doing this is Jeremy’s Razors.  When Harry’s, a decidedly leftist company, stopped advertising on the Daily Wire due to “values misalignment,” co-founder Jeremy Boreing started Jeremy’s Razors to embrace that difference. The advertising copy has been boldly touting its products specifically as anti-woke. Recently the company has taken on and called out companys from Hershey’s to Braun for their extreme wokism and offered alternative products with that selling point.

In the career recruitment space, the company Red Balloon offers what it calls the “#1 woke-free job board in America.” It has an ad titled “It’s time to grow up and get back to work” that features children sarcastically saying what they look forward to in a workplace and career that mocks the woke culture pervading workplaces. 

Patriot Mobile advertises itself as the only “Christian conservative wireless provider.” They call out the corporate philanthropy of other wireless carriers that support causes in conflict with conservative and Christian values.

Another example is Public Square, a shopping site to rival Amazon that expresses its values as “Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Freedom.” Businesses that share those values can add themselves to the site, and consumers who share those values can shop knowing they are patronizing like-minded business owners. Don’t overlook the meaning of the name Public Square, which refers to a democratic philosophy that all ideas should be able to be expressed, not censored.

These are just a handful of examples of companies that are speaking out on social issues with an anti-woke set of values. There are others and will likely be more. It is hard to say if ideology forward positioning is a trend or a permanent feature of public relations, advertising, marketing and business plans from now on. 

For now though, the messaging is beyond the basics of features and benefits and price point. The target publics are defined more by ideology and social opinion than need for a product or service. The question is moving from whether or not a company should take a stand on a social issue, to determining which stand to take. 

Sales and stock prices were down for Target and Bud Light after famous social values marketing earlier this year. However, some other brands have continued such overt messaging.

I personally think this segmenting of businesses and publics, making social values the primary message and brand distinction, will lead to more divisiveness writ large. It’s why I have previously advocated for companies to have the courage to remain neutral. 

But if one “side” in the market keeps pushing a woke message, the other sides will understandably set themselves apart and offer their own deeply held perspectives. In the marketplace of ideas there are many ideas, ideologies, values and beliefs. They are all being expressed. It’s called diversity. 

The Story Behind the Super Bowl Ads About Jesus

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Bill McKendry remembers the exact time and place when he received “the call.” It wasn’t exactly a call from God. But then again, maybe it was.

It was March 4, at 5 p.m. in 2021 when McKendry took the call. Because of Covid, he was all alone in the office of Haven, the ad agency he runs from a second floor space on Harbor Drive in Grand Haven, across the street from the channel where the Grand River runs into Lake Michigan.

The person on the call was someone he had worked for before who was now part of a large group of donors with a really big idea. They wanted to advertise Jesus. Specifically, they said Jesus was not well understood in our culture. Some of this was due to anti-Christian bias. But this group of anonymous donors also said Christians themselves bear some blame for not being more like Jesus.

McKendry remembers doing what ad pros do. Alone in his office talking to the caller, he grabbed a marker, went to a white board, and asked him for a problem statement. This is what advertisers determine so they can craft a message that addresses the problem specifically and strategically.

The caller said the problem directly: “how did the world’s greatest love story get to be known as a hate group.” McKendry had to put down his marker and even sit down. He told me that in all his years of advertising, it was the best problem statement he had ever heard. 

“I realized how true it is, and as a Christian, it hurt,” he said. “The knowledge of Jesus is a mile wide and an inch deep.”

This is how He Gets Us was born. It is a movement to reintroduce people to the Jesus of the Bible. As such it is an organization and an advertising campaign.

It is not unusual work for McKendry. Years ago he started a firm in Grand Rapids with partner Jim Hanon, called Hanon-McKendry, with a goal to have 50 percent of their clients be nonprofits. They wanted to do more than sell cars and tacos. It turned out to be far more than 50 percent. Now on his own with Haven, McKendry has worked with major national consumer brands, but also significant Christian organizations. He is also behind the promotion of Chosen, the television series now in season three, about the life of Jesus.

McKendry approached the campaign with his usual professionalism. They engaged the Barna Group, which specializes in research about faith and culture, to do six months of research. This yielded four target groups: engaged Christians, cultural Christians, spiritually open skeptics, and non-believers. It’s not lost on McKendry that these four groups are similar to those of the “parable of the sower” in the Bible. They are focused on the middle two groups, which together represent 54 percent of Americans.

Ads have already been running, first in test markets, and then more regular placement. With a  total $100 million budget from anonymous donors, ads have run on billboards, digital and social platforms. But half the budget has been television. They have already exceeded goals. McKendry originally hoped to see 4.5 million views, clicks and shares in the first year. They reached 4.5 million engagements in the first three weeks. Now the goal is 500 million views of the series of ads about Jesus on YouTube. They are also already seeing movement in groups who see the ads to meet four KPIs—advertising lingo for key performance indicators or responses to the ads. Specifically, after seeing the ads they ask people 1. Do you see Jesus as a worthy example to follow? 2 Do you think Jesus gets YOU? 3. Do you understand that Jesus wants a relationship? 4. Do you have more interest in learning who Jesus really is by reading the Bible?

There will be two He Gets Us ads during the Super Bowl. The ad content is embargoed til they run. But I can tell you one will be a 30-second spot between the first and second quarters featuring children doing cute things, and then a 60-second spot at the beginning of the fourth quarter featuring angry adults. 

McKendry said that Christian journalist David French, known for his criticism of some organized Christian denominations, said the series of videos follow a biblical storytelling pattern, going from biography, to theology and then to morality. Well-known pastor Rick Warren, with whom McKendry has also worked, also praised the ads. He said, “Jesus is the only way to God, but there are so many ways to Jesus.” The advertising industry has taken note of the He Gets Us campaign as well, including an article in Advertising Age. 

McKendry said the ads actually are a breakthrough in another way: the NFL had a ban on religious ads. But the door opened when NFL owners in test markets saw and liked the ads that ran on local affiliate stations not controlled by the NFL They showed them to others at an NFL meeting. A decision was made to allow them because of their quality, and also to change the NFL policy to allow religious ads on a case-by-case basis.

McKendry is known for hosting a Super Bowl party at his office every year where professionals and students rate each ad. This year he will not have the party because he will be at the SuperBowl. Athletes in Action is honoring Kirk Cousins, the Christian quarterback hailing from West Michigan, at the game. He Gets Us is a sponsor of the Athletes in Action award.

McKendry is excited that after years of advertising work and rating Super Bowl ads, he finally has two ads in the annual event this year. But as a professional, and a Christian, he is more interested in the results of the ads.

“We want to raise the respect and relevance for Jesus in our culture,” he said. “And we want to call on Christians to reflect Jesus better.”