I write a blog!
Goodness gracious, I’d completely forgotten. And all those avid followers I’d built up have doubtless deserted me. Reluctantly relocated to read some other rude boy’s rabid ramblings. Even though my alliteration is better.
So I shall write this to me, myself and I. So… me, what have I been up to?
Well, I was invited to a couple of fundraising focus groups last week. Not to take part, I was on the other side of the one-way glass, looking in. Munching through a lovely buffet.
The focus groups were for a very big charity, and the purpose was to discover which proposition (out of eight, all creatively dramatised) would be most likely to get the people in the group (all regular givers to the charity) to increase their monthly gift.
Anyway, I was very glad to be invited along. Not because I believe in the power of qual research of this kind: I don’t. I think focus groups are a load of drivel.
However, while I think those things are useless at giving you a useful answer to the question you ask, they’re nearly always great at giving you an insight you can do something with.
And I’m sure you agree with me that focus groups are generally rubbish, but in case you know someone who doesn’t agree, here are five reasons why I think they’re (usually) fatally flawed:
1. Last week we asked supporters which of eight propositions they preferred. EIGHT? I can barely hold three ideas in my head, let alone one for every finger of both hands.
2. Supporters don’t spend 10 minutes analyzing an envelope before deciding whether or not to open it. So why do we get focus groups to do exactly that?
3. Nor do real people decide whether or not to read your words on the basis of whether they consider your missive to be ‘on brand’ or not.
4. We all know that emotional reasons to respond outpull rational ones. So why do we ask people in focus groups to rationalise their response, artificially reducing the importance of the emotive element?
5. And besides, what people say and what they do are often wildly different. The number of times I’ve heard people in focus groups say “Oh, don’t send me those expensive mailings with gifts in and the like, they are so wasteful, I’d never respond to that. Just tell me you need the money, and I’ll give it.”
If it was as easy as that, we’d all be getting 100% response rates. Which we’re not. And a relevant gift wouldn’t ever uplift response. Which it can.
And the number of times I’ve heard someone say something like ‘Oh, the research has shown that people really like pictures of bananas’ and what they mean is ‘One person, in one focus group, vaguely mentioned they like the picture that had a banana in it. But that’s probably because they’re a greengrocer’. But that kind of Chinese whispers you get from focus group exponents becomes a new ‘rule’ for the client: we must show pictures of bananas.
But, as I said 200 words of rant ago, you do often get fantastic insights that would never have occurred to you otherwise. At these focus groups, for example, someone said that they had downgraded their gift when they’d lost their job. Not cancelled their direct debit, just reduced it.
They said if they’d got a pay-rise, then maybe they’d have increased it.
Which was a bit of a eureka moment for me, despite it being blindingly obvious.
Because something else we all know is that timing is much more important than the creative execution. As is personal relevance.
So with an upgrade mailing, maybe rather than worrying about the colour of the donation form, perhaps it’s more important to work out when your audience is most likely to be feeling flush. Maybe, if it’s the pay-rise time of year, we could reference that if they’ve been lucky enough to have a pay-rise, they might want to give £2 a month of that increase to the charity, in addition to their current gift?
Oh me, what am I saying? I’m a creative director: I should stick to what I know. The vital importance of the colour of the donation form!
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