Connection Café: Remembering to Say Thank You

	Remembering to Say Thank You
	Posted by Brandy Reppy at Nov 07, 2008 02:59 PM CST Categories: Email Marketing, Fundraising, Social Media

I'm not sure about everyone, but Tuesday, November 4th was a great day for me. My softball team won our last game of the season, my brother had a birthday, the weather in Austin was beautiful, oh and the nation elected a new President that I really believe in.

It's no secret that I think there are lots of lessons that organizations can learn from Barack Obama's use of the internet. He's essentially become a media darling in how he's capitalized on social media outlets and grassroots campaigning. Between the twitter feeds and the text message updates, I've never felt more connected to a candidate. But here's the one piece that I think has been my personal favorite. The following is an email that Obama supporters received the night of the election:

Dear Brandy,

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,
Barack

This went out to all of the supporters as a very simple form-letter "thank you". So why is the impact so great? Because it's rare.

So often, organizations and companies will focus six weeks of time on getting the form layout just right, and one hour developing the content for the autoresponder after the transaction is complete. Every detail of the design is scrutinized, but there is never follow up with purchasers, advocates or donors to let them know the success of the campaign or measure they have supported.

Obviously the time and resources available to someone like Barack Obama often far exceed those available to the average organization, so running a presence on every social network on the planet isn't always practical. But paying just a little bit more attention to small details like this is something that every organization is capable of, and is something that has the potential to make a big difference to supporters.