ARE YOU BEING A GOOD STEWARD OF YOUR NONPROFIT’S MONEY?
Continued #2...

Last week I mentioned that the cost of a direct mail ad is paid for by those who read your ad and liked it so much—they sent money and gave you their name and address.

I sometimes hear nonprofit executives question the high costs of direct mail, and whether they are being a good steward of their organization’s money when they send acquisition direct mail advertising letters and receive 60-70% of the cost back from those who receive the ad, as well as their contact information, including sometimes a phone number and email address.

By proper treatment of your new supporters, they will send you more money (often again and again), and soon the money you lost on the acquisition/prospect direct mail ad will be totally paid for, which means you conducted a free advertising campaign.  You can’t do that with TV, radio, billboards, yard signs, bumper stickers, etc.

Many nonprofit executives may never question whether they are being good stewards of their organizations’ money when they spend money on a TV, radio, or billboard campaign to promote their cause or a project and receive no money back and no names and addresses of new supporters. 

Most GOP Political Consultants Misuse Direct Mail

But of all conservative/Republicans who misuse direct mail, none are more guilty than political candidates, their campaign team, and especially their high-priced campaign consultants.

Political campaign consulting is a big business.  Unfortunately, too many campaign consultants are not professional.  Most learn by trial and error while working as a junior aid in a campaign right out of college.  Few have spent much time reading and studying about their profession.  Most have probably never read a marketing book, which means they have no real understanding of building a BRAND for their candidate.

You become a campaign consultant by getting a job right out of college in a political campaign, learning from a high-priced consultant who’s also seldom professionally trained.  This falls into the category of the blind leading the blind.

Also, Republican campaign consultants are well-known for not having strong ideological beliefs.  As Morton Blackwell says, “most are content-free”—going with whomever pays the most.  With few exceptions, they resist using principled conservative issues in the campaign.  Campaigning as a full out-and-out conservative makes most Republican political consultants nervous.

The national Republican committees, including the Republican National Committee, the Senatorial and House of Representative Committees, the Republican Governors Association, etc. are all well-known to be under the control of big government, establishment Republicans—many are anti-conservative.

The more ads the campaign runs, means more money the consultants make, even if that’s not the best way to use the money.

I’ll explain this more next week.