If anyone is there on Saturday--important question

Margaret Cohen

Patrick--

The east coast (read: Children's National constituency) is being blanketed by a blizzard. People are staying inside, stores and shopping malls are closed, online retailers are booming by offering free shipping and delivery by Xmas.

Any thoughts whether we should consider launching our stewardship email today? The 1st one we sent on Tuesday, and the second is scheduled for the 23rd. But since everyone around here will be at our computers today, I was thinking maybe we should send it.

I'm not going to do anything unless I hear from you. But, if you get this message, will you call me at home: 301-571-0855 and let me know what you think?

I realize it is a stab in the dark that you'd be on email today, but I thought I'd give it a chance...

Patrick Hansen

Hi Margaret,

I saw your post and wanted to provide a quick response before I hop a plane to Montana for Christmas.

Charities whose operations (and, potentially, the cost of "doing business") are effected by the storm should absolutely place a priority on communicating the impact and any related needs. This would represent communications that are above and beyond any planned campaign communications that are a part of the EOY Booster Shot.

Thinking specifically about the timing of your campaign and whether to send today or tomorrow instead of the 23rd ... I usually take the "do no harm" approach. You've spent a fair amount of time testing and working to get your messages and target audiences all configured the way you want them for your campaign. If there's an increased chance of sending the wrong message to the wrong audience because of a hasty last-minute change, then I would stick with my plan and not change things up.

If you're feeling very confident about what you would change and how, the next question to ask is whether you've ever sent email to your constituents on the weekend before. If you've never tested sending a message on a Saturday or Sunday, your end-of-year campaign probably isn't the time to try it. It might perform exceptionally well, but ... it also could bomb. Better to test the responsiveness of your file on a weekend during a less critical time.

If you do decide to move the 2nd message of your campaign up to today or tomorrow, I would be prepared to re-send to non-openers on Tuesday or Wednesday. That would allow you to re-target the message to individuals who were non-responsive to a weekend send.

Hope that helps!

-patrick