Staying in the loop

Happy New Year and thank you for continuing to follow our blog in 2010! I hope all of you had a relaxing and happy holiday.

With the start of 2010, MainSpring celebrated its 5th birthday, and so I sat down to reflect on what we have learned. If I can pick only one thing from all of our work, it would be this: frequent touches, reaching out to constituents frequently, leads to success. I think Scott mentioned it in a previous post, but it warrants a little more discussion in my opinion. As I look at all the results we've generated for clients, the best results are linked to clients with whom we've worked for many years building an online strategy based on constituent behavior data and adapted to new technologies. While the combination of tools and messaging may change, one thing stays the same - the frequency of communication. In all of these cases, I can see that we reach out to constituents - donors and non-donors - monthly and in some cases twice a month throughout the year with news and event information, solicitations, and pure stewardship messages. How or why are frequent touches important? I think one reason is that people want to be in the "know," they want to feel like they are a part of something. And when people feel connected, they are more likely to participate by sharing their thoughts, their time and their dollars. Of course the message needs to be relevant and engaging too...

So as you consider your plan for the rest of the fiscal year and look to the new fiscal year, I think it would be worth your time to consider how you are keeping constituents in the loop. A consistent stream of online communications through email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and your website will help bring constituents in the door and will keep them connected.