What not to do - lessons from the inbox

Short story today. Earlier this week it was announced that St. John's would be in the NCAA tournament for the first time since a vacated appearance in 2002-2003. This is a huge deal at the NYC school that has one of the oldest and richest round ball histories in intercollegiate athletics and has suffered through the worst decade in the schools 100 years of basketball since the 19 rolled to a 20.

The suggestion was made to the athletic development folks that an email should be sent to alumni asking them to support basketball at this time. They created an email that was simple and direct and then sent it from the annual giving account.

The results? 56,000 emails sent, 17 unsubscribes, 6 complaints, 57 clicks on the make a gift link - 2 gifts.

In case you missed that, I said 2 gifts. That works out to a response rate of 0.00357% - and yes that is % - already multiplied by 100. Incidentaly my complaint rate was 0.01% sounds great until you realize that it is 3 times the rate of response I am looking for.

What went wrong? The message is clear. Just off target. It needed to say thank you. Thank you for staying with us. Thank you for believing in us. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you to all of our donors over the last decade. Thank you to all of our donors over the next decade - is that you?

The men's team lost to an outstanding performance by a Gonzaga team last night that had more of everything than they did. Every fan of St. John's will tell you (maybe in a day or two) that the season exceeded expectations. If you told them in August that this is how the season would end, they would have been thrilled. Once the women's team looses, I will send out an email congratulating both teams on seasons that ended in the NCAAs. It will contain an ask, a case for support and a thank you. It will generate more than 2 donors. More importantly it will be inclusive of all and will keep in mind who it is going to not just what we want from it.