From Our Brains to Yours
Online is not IT
The building blocks of direct mail are paper, printing, and postage. But would you put responsibility for your organization’s direct mail program in the hands of the folks who buy your office supplies, or the person responsible for buying stamps for the office? Of course not. You know that the success of a direct mail program depends on the message, ask, timing, audience, response mechanism, etc. – a whole slew of things that have very little to do with the mechanics of paper, printing, and postage and much more to do with communications.
Now consider your organization’s online approach – where does it fit in the org chart? Are your online programs a function of IT, or part of (better yet, co-equal with) your communications, marketing, member services, or fundraising folks? If your organization is like many, your online programs are a function of IT, and driven by the technology that enables online programs, rather than communications, fundraising, membership or other strategic considerations. Too many online programs are run as if what matters most are the wires and circuit boards the make online possible; if online was direct mail, it would be as if the most important considerations were paper, printing and postage.
Going online has the potential to be a multiplier – it can be a nexus of marketing, advertising, branding, communications, fundraising, and member services, and make all of those efforts more effective and efficient – if done right. But it’ll never be done right until it’s properly integrated.
Reworking how the online function integrates into the rest of your organization’s communications is a big undertaking. If it’s something you think your organization should do but you’re not sure how to start, consider starting small. Try this:
- Pick an upcoming project as a test case. Maybe you have a conference, advocacy campaign, membership drive, or other discrete project coming up. Pick something that you’ve done before, and decide to do it a bit differently this time – not as a permanent change, but as a test to see how an integrated online approach tests your internal processes and improves the outcomes.
- Identify one or two goals you’ll focus on. Maybe you want more online registrations for your conference, more calls placed to legislators, more money raised or more donors. Pick a couple of things you want to improve, and focus your new integrated efforts on those few things.
- Invest in planning and learning. Odds are, your organization hasn’t integrated online functions into communications before because there are gaps in knowledge, experience, or capacity. The only way to be sure is to put together a strategic plan, working relentlessly toward integration and the one or two goals you identified as your focus, which will surface your weaknesses and help you identify how to shore them up.
Don’t wait until you have the time to take on a full re-imagining of how your organization utilizes the opportunities of intelligently integrating online approaches — you’ll never have that much time. Start small, and start today (and of course, call us if we can help!)
-Shayna