Friday 4 February 2011

When cracks begin to show

A little pet hate of mine both personally and professionally is when communications pretending to be personal are obviously mass produced because you can quite literally see the joins!

What I mean by that is that the personalisation i.e. name and address etc is in another font to the main bulk of the email or that the pre
-printed backs of letters do not match the lasered fronts - to me it's sloppy and it can be undermining. Particularly if you have spent time and energy ensuring that the copy and messaging is right.

Now the question is do supporters notice? I can only speak for myself here.. but I do. Does it make me want to cancel my support.. No..(well not immediately) that would be an extreme reaction - but it does make me think about how much care has gone into the letter and thus how much they care about my support.

However, I have realised recently that I am more forgiving of smaller, lesser known organisations than the bigger ones and also on whether the communication is an ask or in fact a thank you.

However, my point is, there is no excuse for such lack of care in supporter communications. Most supporters know deep down that the same letter is going to many people not just them... but we can still make the effort to ensure that the chances of them being reminded of this is reduced.

Such examples as mentioned above are easily ironed out: during the test phase for emails and the laser and proof stage for letters. We just need to care enough to ensure that such things don't go out with such silly errors.

After all we want to inspire and engage our supporters. Not make them question whether we care or not.

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