Abundance and impact
I'm attending the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Organization Management program this week (for the first time as a volunteer rather than a student--a very different experience). I'll be posting some of the interesting things that I pick up this week on Acronym.
To start with, I wanted to share a quote with you that I heard from Amy Showalter of The Showalter Group:
"Abundance dilutes impact."
Amy was referring to the overuse of e-mail as a grassroots advocacy tool--if your senator/state representative/whoever sees 10,000 e-mails a day but rarely sees an in-person visitor arguing for your position, the in-person visitor will have more impact than the 10,000 daily e-mails. But the same holds true for so many kinds of communication. Are you overusing e-mail marketing? (Are there are any associations that aren't in danger of overusing e-mail marketing?) Direct mail? Ads in your association magazine? If you're abundantly using any one communication method, consider the impact a different method might have.
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Comments
It's a great point: definitely the tactics used in direct congressional and other government relations contact lead to a saturation/clutter of inbound messages we can only imagine in our own offices. And we often have a double standard in our offices regarding marketing--for example to membership prospects, and marketing to government officials. Just like our members, congressional and statehouse officials and staff know that email is free and they see a lot of it, and often they don't confuse volume with passion or see it and automatically link it to a true, commonly-held grassroots position.
Often grassroots programs are just like our member get a member efforts--activities that only a (small) minority of our members will embrace but tend to be very effective despite (or perhaps because of) the small number of enthusiastic, like-minded individuals doing the work. When we do commit themselves to using traditional methods of contact that actually stick in someone's mind--personal visits and phone calls with a real story to tell--we're often able to get much further than we can with volume, even if there is so much clutter out there to begin with.
Kevin
Posted by: Kevin Whorton, WM&R | July 30, 2008 5:14 AM
I totally agree. I usually phrase it as "volume does not equal effectiveness."
Posted by: Stephanie Vance | July 30, 2008 11:20 AM
Stephanie, you're absolutely right--and in some cases, I think volume can reduce effectiveness. If there's too much noise, your audience can start to tune you out and miss the actual signal. (As Kevin says in his comment, there's so much clutter out there to begin with!)
Posted by: Lisa Junker | July 31, 2008 12:16 PM