The Service Center today sent out two narrowly targeted mailings to support LSR meetings in Morgantown WV and Rochester MN.
The mailings differed from previous such efforts in that the local convenors assembled their own mailing lists based on their personal knowledge and their contacts with local referral sources. Previous mailings were sent to addresses culled from a government database; see "Using the online National Treatment Database to reach local treatment providers," The LifeRing, March 2000. Using the local convenors' own address list is a step forward in that the convenors' information is usually more up to date and more narrowly tailored to our target than the government's somewhat dated online database.
The mailing to Rochester was exceptional in that we mailed out the full Workbook to eleven treatment providers that Rochester LSR convenor Roger L. had identified as likely prospects. Neither the Service Center nor the local meetings can afford to mail out a $20 item like the workbook free of charge on a regular basis. We thought it was worth trying in this instance, as an experiment, because Minnesota is the citadel of 12-step treatment and it will take extraordinary effort to gain a foothold there. A PDF specimen of the cover letter is attached; click.
The mailing to Morgantown and vicinity (eight providers identified by Morgantown LSR convenor Robert "Itchy" B.) consisted of the more modest "Presenting LifeRing Secular Recovery" volume with a cover letter (similar to the one used for Rochester) plus copies of the LifeRing brochures. The slim Presenting booklet is designed for exactly this kind of distribution and the Service Center can economically send out this type of mailing in reasonable quantities in support of any meeting that requests it. We will work with the meeting to cover the costs.
The SC uses computer mailmerge methods to put these mailings together, and although we try our best, we sometimes fall short of convenor's expectations when it comes to customizing the mailings for individual cases. Thus, Rochester's request to mail two copies to one of the providers fell through the cracks (because a shipment of two workbooks requires completely different packaging and a different cover letter than a single copy), and Morgantown's request for a special "hello" note to one of the providers met a similar fate for similar reasons. This type of special handling is best done at the local level.
Recently, new convenor Mark C. sent out a flyer on his own initiative and with his own resources to more than 75 treatment providers in San Francisco to publicize the new Tuesday noon LSR meeting there. Either way, through local mailings or through the Service Center, we're getting the word out to potential referral sources that we're here and we're for real.
-- Marty N. 3/12/01