Intrigued to read in one of PrintWeek's sister titles that the RSPB is switching its fundraising efforts from direct mail to online appeals using email and, I imagine, other digital media.

Apart from the obvious print impact one of the reasons this particularly piqued my interest is because I'm one of the RSPB's million-plus members, so am quite familiar with the charity's communications.

Having learned from the story that the first appeal email had already been sent out I had a dig around in my inbox. Sure enough, there was a message from the RSPB lurking there. I hadn't opened it. Too busy that day? Not an interesting enough subject line? General disorganisation on my part? Possibly all of the above, but like a lot of emails I receive it simply hadn't registered.

Now I've had a good look at it another observation springs immediately to mind. The RSPB's photo library must be among the best in the world and they own some truly stupendous nature imagery. Often a printed mailing would include some sort of fold-out map of the reserve (or planned reserve), with lots of lovely pictures of the types of birds and wildlife that live there. Conversely, the charity would also deploy some distressing and hard-hitting images of bad stuff when it wanted to get its message across over issues such as long-line fishing decimating albatross populations.

While the Titchwell appeal email includes a header image that looks as if it's the beach at the end of the reserve, that's it. I imagined there might be some sort of link to some rich media on the RSPB website, perhaps, a video or a soundtrack of curlews or somesuch, something print can't do basically. But no. The text is evocative enough, but with so little in the way of accompanying imagery I just didn't really connect with it.

Apparently the RSPB says the move is a result of requests from supporters for e-communications. How that squares with the more elderly end of its membership spectrum I don't know. Even for this not-quite-so-elderly member this email approach didn't resonate in the same way, and this change of marketing tactics should certainly merit a follow-up story in a few months on the comparative success of digital comms versus traditional media.