Welcome to my personal blog on Robin Hood Marketing—the concept of stealing corporate savvy to sell just causes—and my life as a marketer, from Washington DC to Madagascar to points in between.
8 ways to calm an angry constituent
Posted by katya on Wed, April 23, 2008
Someone is angry at you. Somewhere, out there, a donor is miffed at their volume of direct mail. Or a co-worker feels slighted. Or a volunteer feels unappreciated. Or your significant other is simmering.
What do you do when someone is upset with you? Deal with it!
1. Create ways to listen: The key to good donor relations, stellar customer service and strong human relations is to set up a dynamic where people can easily complain or raise concern BEFORE they are raving mad. Be sure you have a phone number (answered by a nice person) displayed on all your outreach, email contacts and blogs and other outreach that enable conversation.
2. Listen: If someone is venting, let them vent. Let them rant and rave until they stop for air.
3. Acknowledge: Say exactly what they said back to them - it’s called reflective listening. “It sounds like you’re really frustrated with us because of x, y and z.” This makes a person feel heard.
4. Thank: Thank them for telling you how they feel. Even crappy feedback is feedback. “We want to know when our donors are not happy with us, and I’m so glad you told me about this. Thank you.”
5. Say sorry: Now comes the hard part. Say you’re sorry. Not “I’m sorry if this was bad/if you feel that way.” Say “I’m sorry this was a bad experience. We never want anyone to feel that way about us, and so we’re sincerely sorry.”
6. Act: Say and do something to fix the problem the person is angry about. If you can’t do what they want, do the best you can. Do something.
7. Follow up to show you acted: Get back to them a day later and say again that you’re sorry and how you addressed the problem.
8. Follow up again to make sure things are okay now: Check back in a week or two later. You might just win someone back (or over).
In honor of Earth Day, here is exceptionally good messaging. Thanks to Mark Rovner for sending this to me.
What’s refreshingly good about this spot?
1. It makes me believe I can make a difference. Because EDF has made a difference before.
2. It makes me feel good. It’s a thank you, not an appeal, which is a refreshing Earth Day message.
3. It makes me want to support EDF because it’s about hope, optimism and action.
What can you learn from it?
1. Make people believe they can change something THROUGH YOU. Show what you can and have done.
2. Make people feel appreciated. Thank them for changing something. Thank them for even thinking about changing something.
3. Make people feel inspired. Show them there is hope.
And here’s what NOT to do. Today, in Network for Good’s Nonprofit 911 call, Kirt Manecke shared this horror story. He supported an organization, and in the mail he received:
1. A letter FIVE WEEKS LATER.
2. The letter didn’t even have his name or donation amount on it.
3. The letter was a photocopy of a photocopy. It was even crooked on the page.
That doesn’t make a donor feel that they are making a difference. It doesn’t make a donor feel appreciated. And it sure isn’t inspirational.
Inside Influence Report, one of my favorite newsletters from the great gang at ASU, reminds us once again why it pays to be personal.
Here’s the story, from Noah Goldstein:
I have a friend who is a medical doctor. Nicest guy in the world. Will do, and has done, anything for anybody. So I was totally perplexed — and as a social psychologist, very interested — when I learned he was having difficulty finding someone to cover his shift on the weekend of my wedding. I asked him if he had ever volunteered to take his colleagues’ shifts, and he replied that indeed he had. Considering all he had done in the past to help them, and all that we know about the power of the norm of reciprocation, it was puzzling that he could not get a single person to volunteer to help him out during his time of need. By the time he had answered my next question, however, the solution to the mystery was clear.
When I inquired how he went about asking for help, he said that he had sent out an e-mail. And it wasn’t just any of type of e-mail — it was a mass e-mail, in which all of the recipients could see all the other recipients.
The problem with this strategy is that it creates what is called diffusion of responsibility. By sending out the mass e-mail in a way that made visible the large number of coworkers being asked, no one single individual felt personally responsible for helping. Instead, each recipient likely assumed that someone else on that list would agree to help. In a classic demonstration of diffusion of responsibility, social psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latané staged a situation in which a student seemed to be having an epileptic seizure during a study. When a single bystander was present, that person helped approximately 85% of the time. But when five bystanders were present — all of whom were located in separate rooms, so no one could be certain if the victim was receiving help — only 31% of the bystanders helped.
Fortunately for this friend, Noah Goldstein knew what to do. He told the doctor to send personal emails asking individual people specifically. It worked. The doctor attended the wedding.
The more your “asks” appear to be made from you, personally and directly, to an individual, the more likely people will support you. So segment your audience. Show you know them. Speak to them like individuals. Try some one-on-one contact with your biggest supporters. Mass, impersonal, Dear Friend emails just won’t do the same job. Just ask the doctor.
My favorite pink paper, the Financial Times, had an editorial this weekend by v3’s Robert Egger. Check it out if you missed it.
The gist (and I quote):
In you were savvy enough to have invested $1,000 in Microsoft when it went public in 1986, the value of your stock today would be close to $½m.
But what if you had invested the same amount in a high-performing non-profit group; one that could show measurable, financial impact in your community? All you would have been eligible for is a one-off tax deduction.
Think boldly for a moment. Imagine if there was a way to measure and then reward strategic investments in non-profits in the form of an annual and potentially growing tax deduction based on the same rate of return principle as the dividend. Imagine how that would revolutionise the productivity of non-profits, as well as create an incentive for individuals to seek out and support some of the most dynamic social and economic stimulators in their communities.
More importantly, since Americans donated $295bn to non-profits in 2006, while businesses spent $1.2bn on cause-related marketing to trumpet their philanthropy, a shift like this might also lead to coverage of the sector with the same level of critical analysis that is afforded traditional businesses.
Imagine how this might challenge the entire notion of “charity” in the US and usher in a bold new era of social and economic innovation.
What I like about this kind of idea is it fundamentally shifts the way we think about ourselves. Are we charities seeking handouts or are we the best damn investment anyone could make in their community? Try to put on this kind of mental strut (work it!) next time you compose an “ask” of any kind. Your results are worth bragging about, and they are worth a reward for your donors investors.
Don’t beg. Strut your ROI till the policymakers listen.
On my way to my daughter’s school, every morning, I pass a house that has a creche in its front yard. It’s been there since early December. Baby Jesus has been lingering there for the entire winter and Spring, and at this rate he may be slumbering into the summer.
He is covered with pollen these days.
Every morning, my daughter takes note of his long, post-seasonal stay in the manger.
“It’s STILL there!” she notes.
Then she asks why.
You could attribute all kinds of interesting reasons for this never-ending nativity scene. Maybe it’s a family that practices a particular kind of christianity. Maybe they like the way the creche looks amid the Spring flowers and overgrown grass. Maybe they have the Christmas spirit all year long.
Or maybe they are just lazy. Maybe they still have their tree up inside too, because they haven’t summoned the energy to pack it up either.
My fave marketer, Seth Godin, says you can be sure of two things about all people: they are lazy, and they are in a hurry.
We marketers like to spend a lot of time analyzing why people do some things or don’t do some things. We think of religion, attitudes, mindsets. But we should also be thinking of lazy. And in a hurry.
Maybe we’re just making it too darn hard for people to take action.
Maybe if taking action was really easy, more people would do it.
Never underestimate the importance of ease and convenience.
Try vastly simplifying your call to action and the level of effort it requires. See what happens. You might get Christmas in April.
Want to surprise your audience into paying attention? Here is a great example.
Suppose you’re trying to sell milk in a way that is cooler than those mustaches, which are getting old. How about irony? How about shades of Spinal Tap and a retro young ironic hip cool vibe?
How about… putting milk inside a guitar? In the hands of a musical phenom by the name of White Gold?
Talk about zigging instead of zagging… You’ve got to love this Got Milk? campaign for California.
It’s late, I’m tired and I’m philosophical after a death in the family. When you think about death, you inevitably think about your life. And that got me thinking. There are many things I have struggled to master in life, but let me share just three from a very long list of things I haven’t fully mastered but know to be worthy of the attempt. Before I die, I want to do them as perfectly as I can.
Why? I think the very things that seem most difficult are often the best possible things we can do. The things that we fear will bring us catastrophic loss are often those that have the greatest returns. It is the way marketing - and life - mocks our silly sensibilities.
So in that spirit, here are three things that seem risky but actually yield great ROI. And happiness. And marketing success.
1. Admitting you are wrong. This has been a hard one for me. Fortunately, I have ample opportunity to practice! Too bad 98% of politicians, 85% of corporations and a healthy majority of nonprofits are still finding this hard too. If you make a mistake, just take responsibility and say you were wrong. Don’t do this halfway. “I’m sorry if you were inconvenienced” is NOT the same thing as “I’m sorry I inconvenienced you.” True apologies don’t include the word “if.” While you may fear admitting fault will be the end of the world, usually people are so happy you did it - and quite forgiving. Remember this if you ever have to do “crisis communications.”
2. Doing what you fear. No one ever achieved anything extraordinary by doing what was safe or predictable or copycat. As hard as it is, I’m still trying to lean into fear the way my friend Jocelyn does. Marc Pitman talks about asking for money without fear. Seth Godin talks about being as truly different as a purple cow - which is hard when it’s easier to follow the conforming herd. Andy Goodman talks about zigging when others are zagging. It’s scary, but frankly, it’s far more frightening to blend into a sea of mediocrity than to stand up, do the scary, and stand out.
3. Being lavish with praise. I used to view praise as a zero sum game—if someone else was great, I was less. But being generous is being bigger. Praise great work, credit everyone around you and share the spotlight. Show extraordinary gratitude to your donors, your colleagues, everyone. Share information freely with other organizations. Being stingy with what you give out will diminish all that comes back to you.
What do you have trouble doing? I am sure it is on my list too…
Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about declining results for direct mail and flagging email open rates. Our outreach apparently is not sparking the passionate responses we want.
Don’t our donors and prospects love us anymore? Why don’t they take our calls?
If this is starting to sound like an “advice for the lovelorn” column, then that’s appropriate. As fundraisers, we’ve got a lot of the same problems as the people writing Abby. And I think our response-rate heartache is based in root causes that columnists like Abby or Amy or Carolyn so often cite. Really. The relationship we have with our donors and prospects is not transactional; it’s deeply human. When it goes wrong, it’s for the same fundamental reasons we may find strain in our other relationships, like taking someone for granted, not listening to their perspective, and neglecting to show them our feelings.
I’m going to prove it right in this column.
Dear Marketing Maven,
My email list isn’t what it used to be. People aren’t listening to me anymore, and each time I ask for their help, they are less responsive. Why doesn’t my list love me anymore?
--Despairing in Development
Dear Despairing,
I suspect you’re getting the silent treatment for three reasons. First, you could be a stalker. Do you have permission to email your list? Are these people who’ve said they want to hear from you? If not, don’t expect them to greet your spammy self with open arms. Second, I suspect you’ve probably been taking some of your list for granted. Just because some people were once generous doesn’t mean you can keep asking for more and more. You need to be giving back – thanking that list and showing it a great time with fabulous stories about the great things it has accomplished. Make it feel loved. Third, are you really connecting with your list and its feelings, or are you just talking about yourself all the time? Nothing turns off a list like narcissism, and nothing turns it on like showing your emotional side and appealing to its perspective. My advice? Only reach out to your list when you have permission. Treat your list with great care and gratitude. Start a true conversation with your list and be responsive to its feelings. Chocolates and flowers may help too.
--Maven
Dear Marketing Maven,
My teenage daughter has a pierced nose and I hate it! But she won’t listen to me when I tell her to remove it, or when I tell her what to wear. How do I get her to listen to me? Oh, and please tell me how to get all those young people on social networks to listen to me, too.
--Floundering on Facebook
Dear Floundering,
A family friend (let’s call him Dan) recently told me his daughter called from college to say she’d pierced her nose. She conveyed this news with defiant glee. Dan said that sounded nice, to which his daughter sounded disappointed. When she came home for winter break, he picked her up at the airport—wearing a big fake hoop through his nose. She removed her nose stud that night. My point? You’ve got the wrong message. If you have a rebellion on your hands, stop being the autocrat everyone is longing to overthrow.
Which brings me to a larger point: In addition to having the wrong message, you’re the wrong messenger. Social networks are no place for an autocrat – they are messy democracies and even anarchies. They are not places where you post your mission statement and expect everyone to flock to your page to await your orders. They are places where people congregate to be seen and heard themselves and to connect to each other. You need to listen to these folks, not talk at them. And you need to recognize that you’re not the primary messenger; all those other people are. Some of these people might already be talking about your cause or be willing to champion it within their own circles of influence. These are the messengers you want. You need to find them (easy with Technorati.com or Google.com/alerts tools), support them, and let them speak for you – in their own words, in their own way. Even if they have multiple piercings.
--Maven
Dear Marketing Maven,
I feel like I’m always playing catch-up with the cool crowd. First, it was those wrist bands. So I got one for my cause, but no one is wearing mine. And then it was blogging. Once I figured out what it was, I had my ED start a blog because this other ED had one, but no one is really reading ours. How does a poor org like mine get ahead of the style curve and stop feeling left behind?
--Can’t Catch Up
Dear Can’t,
You are falling into the most common trap in our sector: playing copycat. Stop it! You don’t get ahead by being like other orgs – you get ahead by 1.) focusing on your audience and what they want (instead of what other organizations are doing) and 2.) being your unique self in front of that audience. Don’t throw wristbands and blogs at your audiences unless that’s what they want AND unless those things are completely aligned with what makes you special in your audiences’ minds. We don’t win popularity contests by reacting to our competitors but rather by outperforming them in meeting our audience’s needs and wants. Focus on being cool in your audience’s minds, not in the marketplace. You do that by focusing on what’s important to your audience, what are your strengths, and what makes you – not the organization next door – truly special.
In honor of my fave colleague Mark Rovner’s call for posts on “how do you inspire people?” I post this wee excerpt from an upcoming column of mine coming out in a few days.
Dear Marketing Maven,
My email list isn’t what it used to be. People aren’t listening to me anymore, and each time I ask for their help, they are less responsive. Why doesn’t my list love me anymore?
--Despairing in Development
Dear Despairing,
I suspect you’re getting the silent treatment for three reasons. First, you could be a stalker. Do you have permission to email your list? Are these people who’ve said they want to hear from you? If not, don’t expect them to greet your spammy self with open arms. Second, I suspect you’ve probably been taking some of your list for granted. Just because some people were once generous doesn’t mean you can keep asking for more and more. You need to be giving back – thanking that list and showing it a great time with fabulous stories about the great things it has accomplished. Make it feel loved. Third, are you really connecting with your list and its feelings, or are you just talking about yourself all the time? Nothing turns off a list like narcissism, and nothing turns it on like showing your emotional side and appealing to its perspective. My advice? Only reach out to your list when you have permission. Treat your list with great care and gratitude. Start a true conversation with your list and be responsive to its feelings. Chocolates and flowers may help too.
One of the most common questions that I receive from nonprofits is this:
“Your marketing advice sounds very nice if you’re an organization that does exciting things, like saving children or planting trees or rescuing puppies. But how do you tell a story about a process-heavy organization? What if we’re about coalition building? Or legal processes? How can that be emotional or engaging?!”
Or put more simply: “Help! People think my organization is boring!”
I usually respond by applying the four questions or CRAM to reposition their cause in a new and interesting way to show it CAN be done—but this time, the Case Foundation has done the work for me very well. They took an extremely important but potentially dry topic - citizen engagement and civic participation (people meeting and talking) - and made it engaging and exciting. They did it with their Make It Your Own campaign, drawing on:
1. Good story telling
2. Dynamic messengers that make it feel personal
3. A sense of urgency via competition
4. Giving it some stakes - namely, potential money for their audiences’ causes
5. Giving it marketing juice
As for the marketing juice - in addition to doing their own work to promote the campaign, the foundation developed mini marketing kits for the cause advocates involved, so they could learn how to amplify their voices.
I can hear you say, I don’t have a video budget or the Case Foundation behind me. But you don’t need big bucks to tell your story better on your home page or in an email. A simple photo of a person holding a sign with their dreams written upon it is not expensive, but it’s powerful - because it’s personal, it’s real, and it tells a story your mission statement can’t.
What have you done to make process come alive? I’d love to hear.
(Full disclosure: I know, like, and work with many folks at the Case Foundation, and they have funded Network for Good before. But I wouldn’t plug this campaign if I didn’t like it.)
The economic news is sobering. Foundations are cutting back on grants as their endowments shrink. Corporations are reducing philanthrophic programs.
What’s a fundraiser to do?
One of my all-too-predictable answers, of course, is to look for new audiences online. That won’t surprise you - urging nonprofits to get online is part of my job and my belief system. There are younger, generous people online that you probably aren’t reaching in your other outreach. A typical online gift is over $100.
But wait, there’s more: A growing number of people are giving even bigger bucks online. A new study, “The Wired Wealthy” by Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research, looks at these major online donors in depth. Read the study here, or just check out these key points from the study:
Major and moderate donors are generous and online
o The e-mail files surveyed represent one percent of the membership but 32 percent of the revenue for this sector
o 80 percent of the wired wealthy made donations both online and offline
o 72 percent say donating online is more efficient and helps charities reduce administrative costs
o 51 percent said they prefer giving online and 46 percent said that five years from now they will be making a greater portion of their charitable gifts online
·
Most charity Web sites are missing opportunities to fully engage wealthy wired with their organization
o Only 40 percent said that most charity Web sites made them feel personally connected to their cause or mission
o Only 40 percent said that most charity Web sites are inspiring
o 48 percent felt most charity Web sites are well-designed
Email shows signs of lost opportunities to connect with various donors
o 74 percent said it was appropriate for the charity to send an email reminding them to renew an annual gift
o 74 percent said that an email from the charity about how their donation was spent, and what happened as a result would make them more likely to give again
o 65 percent said they always open and glance at emails from causes they support
Three distinct groups of donors emerged based on the extent to which the donor sees the Internet as a source of connection between themselves and the causes
o Relationship seekers (29%) – the group most likely to connect emotionally with organizations online
o All business (30%) – not looking for a relationship or emotional connection, but a smooth and simple donation process
o Casual connectors (41%) occupy the middle ground, showing some interest in sustaining an online relationship, but also wanting a smooth and simple process
Nonprofits should create and provide options that let the wired wealthy customize their online experience with the cause, says the study.
Last Friday, Mark Rovner and I presented at the Nonprofit Technology Conference on the 7 Things Everyone Wants and how to tap into these human and spiritual needs to do a better job marketing and communicating.
If you missed it, Britt Bravo has a nice summary here.
When I was presenting yesterday, I met Sherri Sager, a savvy and inspiring government relations officer at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. She turned me on to the hospital’s website for kids in response to my talk about the importance of an audience-centric approach online.
It is a beautiful illustration of everything a website should do:
1.) Engage with an audience from their perspective (this feels like Club Penguin, and that’s a good thing)
2.) Establish trust and authenticity - check out the great videos of kids talking to kids: the right messages and the right messengers.
3.) Provide something of value so it’s “sticky” - kids and parents will come back to this site over and over
4.) Organize navigation according to the audience’s mindframe and interests - you can find all you need
5.) Provide interactive components - kids can make their own avatars and participate
6.) Show, don’t tell: use story and compelling messengers to get your point across
I could go on and on. Bravo to the Children’s Hospital. Once again proving, it’s all about the audience, my friend.
I was in Miami speaking about social media yesterday at a conference of Children’s Hospitals, and today I’m in New Orleans for the Nonprofit Technology Conference. Tomorrow Mark Rovner and I are giving a session here called, “The Seven Things Everyone Wants: What Freud and Buddha Understood (and We’re Forgetting) about Online Outreach.” The gist is that all the technology tools on display here at NTC and all over the web are shiny and sexy, but they only work when harnessed to basic human needs, interests and desires. In other words, it’s human psychology - not the tools - are what ultimately leads to your success or failure online.
Or, as my colleague Jono quotes his friend Nicole, “Don’t be a fool with a tool.” I like that.
You must tap into what people want: they want to be seen, heard, loved, belong, find meaning. They don’t blog to blog - they blog to be heard. They don’t join groups because they like Yahoo! groups, they join groups out of a fundamental need to connect to others.
I have a new, simplified explanation for what constitutes web 2.0 or the world of social media. It’s about three human needs:
1. The desire to be heard
2. The desire to be seen
3. The desire to connect to others
That’s what drives everything from Facebook to Dopplr to Digg.
Posted by katya on Wed, April 23, 2008
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