CBA: Are Your Customers Your Best Prospects?

Are your customers your best prospects?

By Carl Bloom

It’s reasonable to believe that retail customers, single ticket buyers, library users or museum visitors will be an organization’s best prospects for cross-over sales, memberships or contributions through other media, such as direct mail or telemarketing. It’s very surprising, but enlightening, however, to learn that someone else’s list of customers or donors may work better for an organization than its own customers, concert or theater goers and museum visitors.

So, isn’t it logical to expect single ticket buyers of concerts at places like Carnegie Hall to be good contributors and responders to the Hall’s fundraising appeals and membership invitations?

Shouldn’t the single concert goer want to support the place that gave them a great musical experience and help to ensure a repeat performance?

Not the case! More often, lists of donors or subscribers to other organizations like libraries, opera or dance companies work better than single concert goers, even after they have experienced the beautiful music and magnificent acoustics of the Hall.

Visitors go to museums for the cultural experience and shared family activity. They pay the price of admission or suggested contribution upon entering. They may spend more money in the gift shop or enjoy a nice lunch — some institutions offer fine cuisine on their premises. Add the cost of parking and babysitters and they’ve made a hefty investment in their visit to the museum.

So, if you ask visitors to join the Museum or to contribute to its upkeep and help pay for new exhibits, wouldn’t you expect a good response from people who’ve already made a substantial investment in a day’s visit to the institution?

Not so! Some of the worst performing lists for museum prospecting are names the institution considers its primary customers — their loyal attendees.

Libraries have large files of cardholders (library users) of all ages. On the pyramid of productive lists, cardholders are at the bottom. Many other organizations’ lists work better for public libraries than the libraries’ own users.

Libraries are free and most citizens expect them to be there for them and most don’t expect to have to support them.

CBA is working with a very popular Midwest children’s museum that has over 12,000 annual attendees who are called Members; they pay an annual family attendance fee of $65. The families take advantage of the many wonderful children’s educational programs available to them. The museum has asked the parents to contribute to the organization above and beyond the $65 dues for support of the excellent programs, facilities and specialists that benefit their kids.

So far they haven’t responded well to these appeals.

Again, why don’t primary users step up to the plate?

It’s a matter of commitment and involvement (or lack of) with the institution. It’s also a question of media — the media that brought them to the organization in the first place.

Commitment and Involvement

If a music lover buys a subscription to a concert series, he or she is making a longer-term commitment to the music company and concert hall than one who attends a single concert. The same is true for other performing arts groups (theatre clubs, dance companies and so on). Subscription series buyers make a greater outlay of money than single ticket buyers, so the commitment to the institution is deeper.

Subscribers have a greater involvement in the organization because they attend more performances and devote more of their leisure time to this activity. A subscriber is more likely to extend his involvement on different levels of participation (membership, repeat purchases, etc.).

Involvement in the children’s museum activities and programs is extensive, however, parents may consider the $65 annual attendance a big enough financial commitment, which is considerable for young families who are not in a spending mode.

One possible way to deal with high commitment and involvement, but financial resistance, is to give parents the opportunity to contribute via the installment plan; a modest monthly gift that they won’t miss as much as a single larger gift. Many organizations have built large databases of monthly giving constituencies called Sustainers. Sustainers are happy not to have to renew their gifts or memberships annually, and the total accumulated financial commitment to the organization is higher than a one time gift.

Public libraries are perceived as public property, and it is believed, are supported by the government. In most cases this is not the case; in many places government involvement in funding libraries is limited. Ben Franklin started the American Library system as a Free Library system and that’s what people believe them to be. The fact that they need public support is a relatively new concept to a large number of people. Library fundraising has a long road ahead, but direct mail is making it easier.

Media

Consumers have preferences or predispositions for the media through which they respond to a mail order offer, an invitation to attend an event, subscribe to a series or make a contribution.

Different media (mail, phone, print, internet, etc.) draw different types of individuals out of the marketplace; some are willing to make short term commitments, others will make long term or additional commitments above and beyond the original transaction that brought them to an organization. Most prefer to reply via the medium through which they responded to originally.

Single ticket buyers or museum attendees often respond to print ads in newspapers or magazines which sell a single event — again not the type of people who respond to direct mail. The same is true of people who have responded via phone — many like it. Perhaps direct mail people are more shy than phone responders. People who reply positively to a phone solicitation may enjoy the human contact; direct mail prospects may prefer to be anonymous.

Historically, retail buyers, museum and events attendees, are not good prospects for direct mail offers. They don’t have the experience of buying or contributing through mail; they may not trust direct mail or can’t anticipate the benefits and convenience it offers. Good mail responders are people who have previously responded by mail to a similar offer or have a psychographical predisposition to reply by mail.

Are there ways to make retail customers respond better to direct mail? Yes, but it depends on what you consider an acceptable return on investment. There are special overlays that identify potential direct mail and fundraising prospects from lists of attendees, warranty card holders, etc., which enable marketers to target people with direct mail potential.

Check out more articles and insights on our blog, CBA Talk.

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