Phillip Smith commented on stop_building_lists
Hey there Hilary,
Great to read this post and here about the research you’ve done in this area. It’s funny, after we met in Chicago a few weeks ago, I published a post-event follow-up to the tune of “Build Big Lists (but using e-mail)!” here: http://phillipadsmith.com/2014/03/email-is-alive-and-well.html
I think the difficulty I have with the idea of organizations building relationships — though it’s a noble peak to aim for — is that research has told us that it’s not, in fact, really possible, given the cognitive load that an individual can carry, i.e., most individual people can’t maintain relationships with more than something like 100 other people. I’ll try to dig up the link to that, but I’m sure you’ve heard similar.
If that’s the case, how does an organizations — maybe with a communications staff of one, two, or three people — maintain “relationships” with 1,000s or 10s of 1000s, or even more supporters?
Having great tools like NationBuilder is certainly one way of helpful to make it feel like there’s a real relationship there, but — let’s face it — it’s not a real-life relationship most of the time. More than that, I wonder if people really DO want a relationship with the organizations that they support? I mean, I know they want to feel like part of the movement and maybe have their voices heard on occasion … but do they really want to be on a first name basis with the Development Director if they can only afford to give $5/month?
As you know, I’m a bit obsessed with e-mail and — in almost two decades of doing sender and subject line testing — I’ve not seen consistent or significant data to suggest that an e-mail from names like “Barack Obama” consistently outperform “Obama for America.” I think it’s a nice touch, and I believe that it’s good to mix things up a bit, but I haven’t personally seen data that ties the sender name exclusively to consistently better engagement. I think most have settled on something like Person Name – Organization Name as a good middle ground, as most recipients are likely going to understand that it’s not a personal message at the end of the day.
All that to say: Yes, you’re absolutely right-on re: the ladder of engagement and getting connecting people with a range of ways to become part of the community in question, but I believe that most people already have their personal relationships in place (perhaps 1000s on social media!) and are probably not looking for a real-life, deep-rooted personal relationship with the political or non-profit organizations they connect to. I believe that giving them a sense of community is great, but trying to fake a relationship will come across as just that — not quite sincere.
Three cents!
Phillip.
posted 2014-03-20 07:32:26 -0700
Great to read this post and here about the research you’ve done in this area. It’s funny, after we met in Chicago a few weeks ago, I published a post-event follow-up to the tune of “Build Big Lists (but using e-mail)!” here: http://phillipadsmith.com/2014/03/email-is-alive-and-well.html
I think the difficulty I have with the idea of organizations building relationships — though it’s a noble peak to aim for — is that research has told us that it’s not, in fact, really possible, given the cognitive load that an individual can carry, i.e., most individual people can’t maintain relationships with more than something like 100 other people. I’ll try to dig up the link to that, but I’m sure you’ve heard similar.
If that’s the case, how does an organizations — maybe with a communications staff of one, two, or three people — maintain “relationships” with 1,000s or 10s of 1000s, or even more supporters?
Having great tools like NationBuilder is certainly one way of helpful to make it feel like there’s a real relationship there, but — let’s face it — it’s not a real-life relationship most of the time. More than that, I wonder if people really DO want a relationship with the organizations that they support? I mean, I know they want to feel like part of the movement and maybe have their voices heard on occasion … but do they really want to be on a first name basis with the Development Director if they can only afford to give $5/month?
As you know, I’m a bit obsessed with e-mail and — in almost two decades of doing sender and subject line testing — I’ve not seen consistent or significant data to suggest that an e-mail from names like “Barack Obama” consistently outperform “Obama for America.” I think it’s a nice touch, and I believe that it’s good to mix things up a bit, but I haven’t personally seen data that ties the sender name exclusively to consistently better engagement. I think most have settled on something like Person Name – Organization Name as a good middle ground, as most recipients are likely going to understand that it’s not a personal message at the end of the day.
All that to say: Yes, you’re absolutely right-on re: the ladder of engagement and getting connecting people with a range of ways to become part of the community in question, but I believe that most people already have their personal relationships in place (perhaps 1000s on social media!) and are probably not looking for a real-life, deep-rooted personal relationship with the political or non-profit organizations they connect to. I believe that giving them a sense of community is great, but trying to fake a relationship will come across as just that — not quite sincere.
Three cents!
Phillip.