In March of 1977, my father-in-law, who ran a mail-order company selling sewing machines, opened the Wall Street Journal and read an article that said the Singer Sewing Machine Company would cease all advertising.
To put that announcement in perspective, it would be as if Hoover said they were going to quit advertising vacuum cleaners.
The Singer Corporation was already a conglomerate of many companies selling all kinds of products including aerospace, if you can imagine. But the brand Singer meant sewing machines to generations . . .and to stop advertising was an admission that home sewing was in severe decline.
So what to make of the American Cancer Society’s admission that in 2013 they are stopping all acquisition direct mail… reportedly 41 million pieces mailed in 2012?
Frankly, it is the shoe that a lot of us were waiting to drop. It is the admission by a large and sophisticated fundraising organization of what we all already knew: that direct mail is in a long-term decline. To quote a good friend of mine who has been a very successful direct mail fundraiser, “Direct mail’s best days are in the past.”
It’s not just your organization.
Notice as you read the article that the American Cancer Society uses the word “transform” over and over. That is where fundraising is at today…you must transform.
Join us.
-Mike
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