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ZPromo

By David Bonner at Dec 18, 2007

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I've alway liked Z's promotions. Like those ZCom e-mailings we received on Friday. According to my computer, the total wordcount of those letters is 4,604. Conventional wisdom says that nobody will read that much copy. But conventional wisdom, as Michael Albert notes in his memoir, is based on sellers "manipulating and deceiving audiences into desired outcomes while having zero faith in the actual worth of what they have to offer" (p.276). In contrast, M.A. and his colleagues know their audience, and that we want truth instead of manipulation and deception; and they obviously believe in the worth of what they have to offer, and that we do, too. As for me, I was sold by the time I finished the second paragraph of Letter #2, when he said that ignoring it "will be like a knife to our heart." (The letter is signed by the whole staff, but unless they really Pareconed it, I assume the words are M.A.'s.)

The first promo mailing I ever received from Z was the one shown in my ZSpace picture. It is actually a 12-page mini-magazine, which made it a far more interesting piece of direct mail than what I had been receiving from other political sources. True, it's design was a bit amateurish, with a typo in Editor's letter, but it's deficiencies were outweighed by excerpts from previous articles, and pictures of some of the writers. That said, I apparently didn't act on this offer, because the reply envelope remains stapled in the centerfold. But I did subscribe shortly thereafter. And even though my subscriptions to ZMag and ZNet have lapsed several times, they always get me back. In fact, until last Friday, I was a Sustainer "in name only" -- i.e. a former sustainer. Of course, former sustainers were given the privilege of Beta Testing the new site because former sustainers, like former subscribers to Z or anything else, are good prospects. Even, or perhaps especially, when solicited by very long letters. (But I still don't know what the "Beta" part of the testing means. What if I prefer to "Zeta" test it instead?)

In his memoir, M.A. tells of a particularly interesting Z-related promotion. During one of the periodic crises, he came up with the idea of unilaterally raising the donation levels of all ZNet Sustainers. (I must not have been Sustaining at that time, because I don't remember it.) Instead of asking them to raise it themselves, Sustainers were told that their donation levels would be automatically raised unless they specifically requested otherwise. In direct marketing lingo, this is called the "negative option," but I have never heard of the negative option being applied in such a daring fashion.

Comment On This Blog Post  See All Comments (1)

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By Krumm, John at Dec 19, 2007 15:26 PM

I remember it, and I remember just kind of laughing at the time, because it did seem audacious, and obviously if any commercial outfit did that people would scream.

What surprised me more was that no other left organizations tried to imitate the sustain/participate structure of Znet, since in the end it seemed to work pretty well. And I don\'t think I\'ve ever seen an article anywhere else about Znet, even though it\'s unique in left media organizations, especially when the sustainer list used to keep growing and the online school was going.

 

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