Birthdays, Births and Blessings

One of the many ways that we should be using the web to engage constituents is for well wishing. As I phrase it that way, it is intentionally reminiscent of my own grandmother for one of the things that her generation (she is a card carrying member of Tom Brokaw's greatest generation) tried so hard to pass down to mine (gen xer) is the notion of handwritten notes, thank yous and how important the personal touch is. While that world has changed, hand written correspondence still works (in fact, a hand written carrier will out pull a typed carrier every single time - try it if you haven't already.) So send cards. Seems simple. Seems direct. Seems expensive? It can be - if you have even 25,000 constituents with a birthday (we know they celebrate it every year, when they stop I highly recommend a condolence card to their loved ones) and send them a simple card with a short handwritten note, two simple facts come to light right away. One is that this creates a lot of work, 68 cards a day on average, every day of the year. Two is that it gets expensive, even at just a quarter per card plus postage you are looking at $14,000 a year to do this. Add in weddings, births, deaths, promotions etc. and you quickly get why Starbucks only does a postcard. But in today's world, that handwritten card is not needed for everyone. Continue or start to do it for my grandmothers generation. For my generation an email is perfectly fine. For those in their 20s, skip the whole email thing and text them. I would add that the emails need to be personal to work for me. I don't want an email from "University ABC" wishing me a happy birthday. I want an email from the Director of Alumni Relations "James "super" Alumni" from his account personally wishing me a happy birthday and asking me about my plans etc. If I choose to reply, it actually goes to a monitored account and I get a message back. The initial message can be short and direct, personal and does not need to actually come from him but does need to be text, not HTML based. Just like what I get from other acquaintances for my birthday.

This same approach holds true for each life point - let me know you are proud, happy for or otherwise engaged with what is going on in my life that I have told you about and I will continue to feed you those points, growing and expanding our relationship even if I don't or can't give now.