What we can learn from soft drinks

Reusing a prior solicitation is a terrific idea, and it brings to light one of my common critiques - all that is new does not need to be new each and every time. We see our pieces so often and so much that they are often months old to us before they even see the light of day. This frequently leads to our rushing to get the next "new" best thing created before we have any idea how the last piece(s) produced. The result is that we keep changing the look and feel of our efforts without ever learning from the results and feedback provided.

To be clear, by no means am I advocating for standing still, rather that you are best served by creating a plan that establishes consistency of look and feel and then testing that look and feel against pieces created using informed feedback from the "standard."

The Coca-Cola company demonstrated this for us in the 80s. We all remember new Coke but if you look at the can you could be drinking from right now it clearly says classic coke. In focus groups Coke was losing to Pepsi (remember the Pepsi challenge?) so they changed their formula to compete better. Unfortunately for them, their customers (your donors) liked Coke as it was and rejected the new version. Testing in the real marketplace would show that customers overwhelmingly preferred the taste they already knew.

Your donors are like those customers - familiar is often good. Change can be made but do it informed and with data to support or refute the decision.