The Importance of Donor Empowerment

Check out this interesting article from Alan Mitchell at Marketing magazine on why customer empowerment will be the next key marketing tool.

It raises some important points that I think are particularly relevant for fundraising.

First of all it quotes a number of studies that show the importance of giving people choices and making them feel listened to.

Secondly, it lists four levels in which customer empowerment manifests itself in reality.

These are:

1. Choice: Consumers have gained much greater choice over the sources of information they pay attention to.
2. Voice: It is much easier to voice an opinion, make a critical comment and express upset with an interaction these days. Voice also gives consumers the ability to volunteer info about themselves that would not normally be available.
3. Control: Increasingly consumers have/want the ability to specify what they want and when. This has profound implications on your fundraising direct marketing.
4. 'Choice architectures': The ways you give consumers control in the process in which choices are constructed, framed and presented in the first place.

Mitchell's conclusion is particularly important for fundraisers who want to differentiate from the competition:

"Choice as an instrument of empowerment is a great thing. What's significant about emerging levels of consumer empowerment is that they transform the nature and the dynamics of the marketer-consumer relationship and open up opportunities for marketers to add value along the way.

Far from being a threat, 'consumer empowerment' presents innovative marketers with a real chance to upset the applecart and gain genuine competitive advantage."

I couldn't have put it better myself...