Happy New Year and all that

Happy New Year to all! With two days left in the calendar year - for many of you likely only 1 (or for the really lucky, 0) working days left, you have probably completed what you are going to do for solicitations in the 2009 calendar year. If not completely sent (I have 1 last segment that goes out on the morning of the 31st to donors who have given on the 31st before) they are at least completed and ready to be sent.

I would suggest that after you enjoy a couple of days off (and I really do suggest enjoying them!) that you should start the new year by adding a task to your calendar - review your electronic communication.

There are two components to this task; what do people receive and what do people open? Click throughs are the third component to the "stool" of email analysis but trail the first two in importance in the nonprofit world as compared to the commercial sales world.

What do people receive is important as we tend to cluster our communications around points of interest to us - fiscal year end, calendar year end, graduation, matriculation and events. Are those what we want to read about as recipients though? Maybe, more likely not as often as they are.

What do your people open? I am looking at and talking about all electronic communications here. Which messages are getting through and what is viewed as priority by your constituents?That this is important can be demonstrated very simply by going back to your own email from the last week - you may need to open the deleted file to find the messages we are looking for - and see how many of them are from places that you have a legitimate relationship with but just did not resonate with you at this time.

Is there a connection between the two? Do folks who get more messages open more? Is there a point of saturation when folks stop paying attention to your messages? Starting to identify who opens and reads your online communications is the first step in expanding your online community.