Thursday, September 2, 2010

To a social networker in Grand Rapids, MI. What does one percent mean to me? The Hell's Angels, of course.

Sorry, yet there's part of me that knows you likes exploring the power
of language. The Hell's Angels are known as a 1 % club. Here's a
little background on the jargon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw_motorcycle_club
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollister_riot

I read through your email appeal, and I didn't see a clear call to
action with a specific tool for taking action. That's buried a little
bit deeply, and I found it by using your web page links:
https://www.geekaid.org/donate. And I used it. Call me the One
Percenter from Muskegon. Indeed, in all of your materials I muttered
mentally as I read them, "A dollar is requested. I've gotta dollar.
How do I get said to dollar to whom? I don't have this confusion at
Lady Godiva's".

Direct Mail is doing really well if one person out of one hundred
responds. So you are meeting a standard but you want amazing and ever
increasing results. So where did your appeal suffer a loss of power?
Perhaps we've looked at one point of failure. Could there be more?
What "human technology" can you leverage to make your message get
through? The field has gone beyond Aristotelian persuasion, right? In
fact, this line sounds like Neurolinguistic Programming: "....But, I'm
certainly not going to beg group members to get involved, and I don't
want to keep bugging the group about the scholarship." It is the
pattern, "I don't have to tell you ..." by Jamie Smart:
http://www.saladltd.co.uk/

And if one percent out of 5000 gave, well, what is available to you if
you grew your base? 5000 is one percent of a metropolitan area of a
half million, and the 1.3 million people live in Grand Rapids -
Holland - Muskegon combined statistical area. So what' s keeping you
back from 8,000? Well, it's probably wise to increase your funnel, and
technology people must join LinkedIn before they can connect to
LinkedUp Grand Rapids. So how do you push LinkedIn membership?

Happily, we are about to re-embark on that remarkable social
networking game, @ArtPrize, so Grand Rapids will be swarming with
technology savvy people seeking to make connections from their
iPhones, Android Phones, Laptops and Kindles. What role will LinkedIn
Grand Rapids play in drawing more and more people into that connection
cloud? After all, Michigan has a population of 20 million, and if you
can assist Grand Rapids in bringing one percent of them for a visit,
you'll have a statue on Rosa Parks Circle. That's 200,000. Think of
yourself as Rob Bliss with an Android phone and programming skills and
you'll do fine.

Wilbo

No comments: