Fighting the Formula

 creativity  3 Responses »
Jan 122012
 

The other day, one of my Twitter pals — Kevin Monroe from X Factor Consulting – asked me what copywriting tips I like to share with fellow consultants. It wasn’t something I’d actually considered much before he asked, since a) I work in my kitchen and b) I’m usually on the receiving end of writing advice.

But his question did touch on something that I have been thinking about off and on over the last couple of years. During the course of my 14-year copywriting career, I’ve dabbled in other kinds of writing, including publishing several feature articles and neighborhood profiles in The Oregonian and having a short story appear in VoiceCatcher.

During times when multiple deadlines were looming, I wondered if that moonlighting was hurting my main money-making endeavor, and I have downplayed my extracurricular writing in my professional life.  But I now think all that second-guessing was a mistake.

In fact, I think one of the reasons I have been so successful in my copywriting is because I have a richer web of writing experience to pull from.

Fight the formula

I have written hundreds of direct mail letters, and there is definitely a formula for the successful ones. But in following a formula you should never become formulaic. The minute you do, the letters you pen become stale, lacking the passion and verve that are absolutely necessary to convince people to give their money to your cause.

When I feel myself treading an all-too-familiar path in my copywriting, I know it’s time to fight the formula. So I take another look with my fiction-writer’s glasses on. Are there themes I can weave through this letter more effectively? Is there a character begging to leap off the page?

Then I put on my features-writer glasses. How can I make my descriptions more vivid? Are there sights, sounds, tastes and smells that would make the issues in this letter come alive for the reader? Perhaps I’m rambling and need to tighten everything up with a journalist’s editing eye.

Let’s face it, there is a LOT of writing advice out there, and good writing is good writing, whether you’re penning a direct mail letter, a slick advertisement, or the Great American Novel. Sure, there are degrees, but the rules are the same: use action verbs, aim for clarity, be as specific as you can, tickle all the senses…

But knowing the rules and using them well are two different things.

Tap into a different part of your brain!

Try writing poetry to hone your ability to use imagery to make a point. Write a short story to put yourself in a different person’s shoes and sharpen your storytelling. Become a blogger to learn how to encapsulate big ideas and personal feelings in 500 words. Try your hand at literary criticism or movie reviews to learn how to identify weak spots in your writing and in others’.

Above all, love writing, all writing. Play with language, revel in how words get put together, rejoice in how they can connect, inspire, educate, and move.

And don’t just write. Read! Starting with this article about the business benefits — it’s scientific, people! — of reading fiction.

 Posted by Richelle at 5:24 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,

Testing in a Tight Market

 Direct Mail, Nonprofit  No Responses »
Jan 032012
 

One of the joys of working with a large nonprofit is the ability to test — from how you visually present your message, to who you choose to mail to, and what special offers you make, when you’re mailing for the big guys, you have the chance to really hone in on what works best for your audience.

But what if you’re a small shop with a small list and a smaller pool of resources to devote to direct mail? How can you test and refine your mailings until you know you’re getting the most bang for your buck?

You may not be able to do a split test on any one mailing, but if you’re clever and creative, there are still ways you can tell what’s working and what’s not in your direct mail.

Use Your Swipes

Those of us who work in direct mail are obsessive about checking our own mailboxes because that is one of the best places you can go to get ideas about what’s working in today’s direct mail.

And I’m not just talking about keeping an eye on the nonprofit organizations you give to. For profit companies — from banks and financial institutions, to magazines and catalogs — mail millions of pieces of direct mail each year and have budgets for testing that most nonprofits only dream about. And sure, you might not be able to include a handful of inserts, but can you crib a few ideas about what works from them and apply them to your own packages?

Bonus tip: if you’re not on the lists of other organizations in your sector, sign up! A small donation gets you a fine sample of renewals, special appeals and cultivation mailings that can give you a really great picture of what’s hot in your niche.

Cheap and Easy Tests

If you can divide your list but don’t have a lot of money to spend, there are a few things you can test with little-to-no up front investment.

  • Try a lasered upgrade message test on the reply form. You’re already lasering donors’ names and addresses (and if you’re a very small shop, you might be printing everything on your desktop printer!) so it shouldn’t cost you much, if anything, to test two different lasered messages.
  • Play with color. Too many organizations get stuck in a color rut, which can be great for sending a strong branding message…but might get you ignored in direct mail. Try substituting a different color for black — dark blue or dark green, maybe. If you absolutely have to limit yourself to approved logo colors, try using them in unique ways — a graphic band at the top of a page, highlight specific words in the text with color, or use screens to create a layered look.
  • Along those same lines, use graphic elements to call attention to your pieces. Give your designer freer reign within the same cost parameters. Bands of color (or black), reversed out headlines, handwriting and other specialty fonts, and color screens don’t generally cost any more than more straightforward design, as long as you’re not bleeding off the edges or adding colors.

The Long Haul

If you’ve got a small list but a little money for testing, try testing the same thing over several mailings. That way you can get a more statistically significant pool of results than you can on one small mailing that might include a surprisingly large gift, or have its results impacted by things outside your control.

Bonus tip: if you’re testing something on a component that doesn’t need to change from one mailing to the next — say, a colored stock reply envelope — you can print ahead for the second mailing, which will save you money due to economies of scale.

Bottom line: money’s tight for everyone. Even the big organizations are cutting back. But you can still find ways to be innovative and creative and continue testing, even on the most constrained budget.

 Posted by Richelle at 10:36 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Tips & Tricks: Letter Length

 Nonprofit, Tips and Tricks  Comments Off
Aug 102011
 

The other day, I sent an acquisition letter to the new development director at an organization I’ve worked with for several years. The letter had gone through the rounds with her predecessor, but we wanted him to make sure he was comfortable with the language, the tone, and most importantly, the facts as laid out in the piece.

His #1 comment? This letter is too long! Nobody’s going to read all that.

How long is too long?

The only good answer, of course, is as long as it needs to be. But there are a few general guidelines you can follow.

There was a time when 6-page letters were not unusual, but these days, most direct mail is 2 pages or 4 pages. Why not 3? Paper costs — there’s simply no good reason to have a blank page (the back of page 3) in your package. That’s space that could be better used to sell your cause or make your case. If you’re running 3 pages and can’t cut, make sure your margins are nice and big, your paragraphs short. Try adding one more testimonial, or a personal story from the signer. But don’t waste that last page!

A 2-pager

I like 2-page letters for simpler, more straightforward campaigns. Those that have easy-to-understand asks with no need for a lot of explanation or history work well in shorter letters. Urgent actions — we have 14 days to save this animal’s life!, for example — are perfect for 2-page letters.

Sometimes financial constraints can dictate a shorter letter. If you need to save money, getting rid of that second piece of paper is an easy way to do it. But make sure you can still make your case in those two pages.

A 4-pager

There’s a reason this has been the standard for so long: it works. No, people may not read every word, but they do skim through, and if they can see that you’ve used those four pages well — with testimonials, facts, a story or two, and urgency — they’ll feel good about giving to you, knowing that you are knowledgeable and passionate about your issue.

Especially when you’re introducing someone to your organization or asking them to take a specific action, it’s nice to have that extra space to tell them why their support is so important right now.

Test, test, test!

Letter length is a fantastic test. You may think your donors like the short-and-sweet letters you’ve been sending out, only to find out they really do respond better when you tell them more. Often, organizations “cheat” on letter length by narrowing the margins and running paragraphs together. Test and see if more air in your letter — even if it runs to 4 pages — bumps up response.

Conversely, if you’ve been sending out 4-page letters for years, you might save a bundle by switching it up to 2-pagers.

Many of my clients like to switch it up depending on a number of factors: how many people are getting the mailing (the smaller mailings often get 2-pagers to save on up front costs), the subject, the action required, the signer, the printing turnaround (there are some 2-page formats that can be turned around in 48 hours at the printer), etc.

The message

Above all, the message you’re communicating should drive the letter length. Donors don’t like it when you pad your letter with boring repetition, just so you can fill out 4 pages. And they don’t like feeling like you left out important details just to keep your page count down.

 Posted by Richelle at 4:17 pm  Tagged with: , , , , ,

It IS Personal

 Nonprofit  Comments Off
Jul 282011
 

Direct mailer writers always talk about making our mail ”personal”. For us that means lots of “I, you, we”, using a conversational tone, and, quite often, fudging the rules of grammar a bit.

But the other day, a couple of things happened that reminded me that there is another way to keep things personal — something it’s all too easy to forget in this day and age of social media connections and conducting business by e-mail.

First, I ran into an acquaintance who runs an arts organization. She was thrilled because her group had just been notified that they were the recipients of a big grant. I congratulated her, and she told me this story:

“You know, we thought for sure we were out of the running this year. The group giving the grant just announced they were eliminating arts funding! So when I got word, I immediately called them up to say ‘thank you’. The man in charge of granting the awards told me that he had gone against the new policy specifically for us because he remembered meeting our Executive Director and having a great conversation with her at an unrelated event. Personal connections really do count!”

Do they ever.

A similar thing happened to me a couple of months ago. A client I’d been working with for a couple of years went through some restructuring. They completely reevaluated all of their old contracts with an eye on reinventing their program from the ground up. I fully expected to lose the business.

But the Development Director called me up and asked that I stay on, one of the few contractors asked to do so. Now, I’m sure my strong work ethic and quality product played a part in that decision. But the tipping point?

I took the time while on a vacation in their city to stop by and meet the gang at their office.

This wasn’t actually a calculated move on my part. At the time, I had no idea that they were planning on restructuring. I just wanted to be able to put faces to the e-mail addresses and conference call voices. But those couple of hours out of my vacation paid off.

Those face-to-face connections are important — maybe even more so now that so many of us do business with people across the country…or across the globe. It might take a little extra time and effort, but the payoff could make it all worth it.

 Posted by Richelle at 1:06 pm  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Angling for donors

 Nonprofit  Comments Off
Jul 182011
 

It's hard work reeling in donors. Don't leave the fishing to amateurs.

The other day, I overheard a development professional I know telling a potential client, “I like to let board members have input into all direct mail copy.”

My alarm bells went off, and I wanted to jump in and offer all sorts of unsolicited opinions about that. But instead, I decided I’d just save them for you.

Now, he went on to explain that he likes to involve board members so they have buy-in to the direct mail program — a sort of “We’re all in this together, folks!” idea. I am all for inclusion and board buy-in.

In fact, I believe wholeheartedly that everyone involved in your organization, from the board president to the once-a-month volunteer, should know what’s going on in the organization and be able to communicate that.

But.

A few years ago, I wrote a letter for an organization run by a very respected, very intelligent scientist. He was widely published in prominent scientific journals and national newspapers and magazines. He was a great writer, and he hated the letter I wrote for them. Ripped it to shreds. He deplored the overly emotional tone and the use of 2nd person point-of-view. He was adamant that his donors would see through such a hackneyed ask and leave the organization in droves.

Naturally, I was upset. I had worked extremely hard getting the complex technical details in the appeal right and melding those with the kind of impassioned, personal plea I know works in direct mail.

The development staff and I sat down and discussed how to proceed, and eventually, we convinced the executive director to test his approach vs. my approach. The results were definitive in my favor.

Now, this guy was a Ph.D. He had a couple of decades of experience in writing about his subject on me. But he didn’t — at that time — know direct mail at all.

Unless your board members — or other people you’re asking to read your direct mail copy — are or have been involved with direct mail before, it is likely that they’ll look at a good appeal letter and see all the same things my scientist client saw: hyperbole, simplified language, lots of “you”, too much bold and underlines — things that academic writers are trained to avoid like the plague.

There’s a reason hopeful anglers like to hire guides when they go on a big fishing expedition: they want an expert to show them where the fish are and what they’re biting on. Rather than tossing their lines out and seeing what happens, they’re taking the expert’s advice and adapting it to their equipment.

Your direct mail program needs that same care. If you take bits of advice from every angler on the river, you’re not going to catch as many donors as you want.

Buy-in is great. But educated buy-in is better. So make sure anyone reviewing your direct mail letters has a good Direct Mail 101 course — or at least read an article like this one from Fundraising Success — before they toss in their line. And happy fishing!

 Posted by Richelle at 10:59 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

The Passion Behind the Ask

 Nonprofit  Comments Off
Jul 112011
 

“Passionate people are the only advocates which always persuade. The simplest man with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.”

~Francois de La Rochefoucauld

You are the best advocate for your organization.

Which means that everyone at the organization – from the receptionist, to the IT person, to the program staff, to the Executive Director – is a fundraiser.

Daunted? Don’t be.

I’ve been writing direct mail fundraising letters for fourteen years. And as I’ve talked to countless staff members, trying to gather the information needed to produce a blockbuster piece, there’s one question I’ve learned to ask first:

Why are YOU so passionate about this issue/problem/organization?

Because when you’re trying to raise support – whether it’s time, money or energy – for your organization, you’re talking to people. And people want to hear the good stuff before putting that all-important signature on the check.

They want to be moved. They want to feel they can make a difference. They want to connect with their tribe and feel they’re part of something greater than themselves.

And if you’re trying to get their money (or time, or referrals, or anything else), you’ve got to convince them that you can give them what they want. The best way I’ve found to do that is to convey your passion.

That’s one of the things I love about direct mail. It’s personal, it’s impassioned, and it conveys key things about your organization, its mission and its issues in a concise and friendly way. While asking for money!

But that ask starts with your passion. After all, a direct mail letter is a personal letter from one person at your organization to one donor. That one donor — multiplied by the thousands of letters you send out — needs to sense your excitement about the cause, your commitment to working on it. They need to feel that YOU are absolutely convinced that your organization is the best for the job.

When they can feel every ounce of your passion in that ask, that’s when they are most moved to give.

So, what do you love about your work? And why should it matter to the rest of us?

 Posted by Richelle at 10:15 am  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

The Benefits of Giving Up

 creativity  Comments Off
Jul 062011
 

Get a new perspective when you walk away from work.

Why yes, I did recently write quite a nice post about perseverance and finding that one-legged-biker inspiration to keep you going in dark and frustrating times. But today, I want to write about giving up.

We’re taught to never give up. A host of voices from our childhood, our adolescence, and right on up into adulthood all exhort us to keep climbing that mountain, keep reaching for those stars, don’t give up. You can do it.

But sometimes, giving up is good. Especially when you’re writing.

In most projects, there comes a point at which you can’t figure out what’s not working. You might know what’s wrong or you might not. But clearly, something needs to change.

You can spend hours beating your head against the keyboard, forcing word after word onto the page. Or, you can try these four “I give up!” techniques:

Take a Walk

There’s a reason this is a tried-and-true suggestion for dealing with writer’s block — or any other kind of block, for that matter. A ten minute walk around the block can clear your head and get blood flowing to those parts of your body that can go a little numb after hours and hours hunched over the screen of your laptop.

Try a Change of Scenery

Speaking of laptops, if you don’t have one, get one! Then you can take it on the road — coffee shop, bar, extra desk at your buddy’s office…giving yourself the gift of unfamiliar surroundings can boost creativity and help you solve problems that seemed insurmountable when you’re staring at your same old scene.

Bake Something

Or learn to knit or build a birdhouse or play the piano. Doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as you funnel that creative energy into something totally different. Open new pathways, and you’ll be surprised where those new roads will take you in your writing.

Take a Nap

If it’s good enough for Einstein, it’s good enough for you! (Seriously, Google “famous nappers” — lots of powerful, creative people liked a good nap!) A ten minute power-nap can do wonders for recharging your mid-day batteries. Plus, I often find that while I’m sleeping, my brain keeps on working on those stubborn problems. And when I open my eyes, the solution is right in front of me.

Alright, I admit it. This post isn’t actually about giving up. At least not permanently. But it is about knowing when to walk away from a creative project and let it simmer for a while. Get some distance, find a new perspective, and enjoy the view for a while. Work will still be there when you get back.

 

 Posted by Richelle at 3:36 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,

Tip: Photos in Direct Mail

 Nonprofit, Tips and Tricks  Comments Off
Jul 052011
 

The other day, a client asked what I thought about using photos in direct mail. I sat down to shoot off a couple-sentence answer and ended up writing several paragraphs about my experience with photos — the good, the bad and the complicated.

The next day, I stumbled across this article from Jeff Brooks at Future Fundraising Now, which could have saved me a lot of trouble if I’d found it earlier! I agree with his advice to test, test, test…but here are some other thoughts I shared with my client about photos.

The Good

When you find a photo that tells your story, use it. The story should be clear at a glance, or easily understood with minimal text. Color is best, but black and white or sepia can be effective for some photos. People and animals work better than things.

The Outer Envelope, the Letter and Inserts are the best places for photos. But if you’re going for an image on the envelope, it needs to be particularly strong. Remember, your number one goal with the outer envelope is to get it opened, so any photo you use has to be intriguing and compelling. And you need to follow up on that intrigue in your letter copy, or the people who open the envelope are going to feel cheated.

Offering a free gift? Include a photo of the gift. Inserts are great for this, and you see many organizations put the premium photo on the OE. But be careful that you’re not over-selling the premium to the detriment of the organization and your cause.

MercyCorps is one organization that uses photos well, as is NRDC — check them out.

The Bad

I have been involved in testing photos on OEs, letters, inserts and replies. Results were generally either even with no photos, or unimpressive, with a couple of exceptions like those noted above. It would be easy to assume that photos just don’t work, but the real story is this: BAD photos don’t work.

Photos of people standing around — even important people — are ineffective in direct mail. Got a photo of your executive director shaking hands with President Obama? Great! But please don’t put it in your direct mail. Landscapes often make beautiful photos, but they’re a difficult sell in direct mail…unless they tell that compelling story.

And even the best photos are no good if you have to run them so small that it’s hard to tell what’s in them.

Bottom line: if your photo isn’t going to entice a donor to give, then you’re better off without it.

The Complicated

If you’re running the photo in color, that will mean additional printing costs. Be sure to check to see if you need permission to reprint it, and what kind of attribution you need to supply. Using more photos means less room for copy, so if you have a wordy copywriter or an organizational tendency to include a lot of information in your letters, you’ll have to remember to cut.

I really do like using photos in direct mail. When done well, they can boost response and give your donors a great sense of what your organization is all about. But it’s important to choose the right photo, put it in the right place, and test, test, test!

 

 Posted by Richelle at 9:54 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,

Three Ways to Keep Copy Fresh

 creativity, Nonprofit  Comments Off
Jun 272011
 

The other day, my 8-year-old asked me what I did at work. Patiently, I explained (again) that I write letters asking for money for organizations that help people. She rolled her eyes and said, “I know that! I meant what did you do today?” I told her that I worked on a letter for one of my clients. She heaved a big, 8-year-old sigh and said, “Yeah…but, well, do you just write the same letter over and over?”

Nearly every time I sit down at the computer and stare at the blank screen, it feels like a brand new mountain to climb. There are new facts to learn, new victories to share, new programs to ask for money for. Most of the time, I feel energized by the work that I do. Each letter is a new opportunity to delve deeper into an organization’s mission and to find new ways of telling their story.

But everyone has days where work feels like, well, work.

And one of the most important parts of my work is making sure I don’t write the same letter over and over. Believe me, donors can tell when you’re phoning it in. They know when your copy is less-than-inspired, and they respond by NOT responding.

So how do I keep it fresh each and every time?

  1. Micro-editing. Like all writers, I have words and phrases I favor. Organizations have those too. I combat all that boilerplate with aggressive line-by-line editing. A stronger word or a more active phrase can liven up even the most lifeless copy.
  2. Read it aloud. A direct mail letter is a personal letter from one individual at your organization to one donor. It should sound like that person talking to a friend. When you read it aloud, you can hear those boring recitations of facts for what they are: turn-offs. Bonus — you can also spot the complicated turns-of-phrase, the too-long sentences and the just-plain-awkward asks.
  3. Turn it on its head. Say something unexpected. Use a metaphor or simile that no one would anticipate. Ask a question that cuts to the heart of your issue (and leads the donor right to where you want them to go). Take advantage of literary techniques like assonance and alliteration. Make a pun. Unleash your creativity and see where it takes your letter. (You can always cut those bits that don’t work out, but taking the risk is bound to pay off now and then!)

I told my daughter a few more details about the letter I was working on that day — for an environmental organization — and it led to a great dinner-table discussion about conservation and natural resources. The next day, I heard her telling one of her friends, “My mom writes a lot of letters, but they’re not all the same, even though it kind of sounds like they could be.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

 Posted by Richelle at 10:58 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Tip O’ the Moment

 Nonprofit, Tips and Tricks  Comments Off
Jun 152011
 

Signing the Letter

Sometimes, who signs a fundraising letter (or e-mail) can be one of the most contentious points in planning a direct mail campaign. Which is funny because my answer is very, very simple.

The signer — and there should only be one! – should always be the person with the most name recognition on the particular issue you’re addressing in the mailing.

So why is this very simple thing so complicated to put into practice?

The reasons are endless. A nonprofit might have two figureheads (a President and an Executive Director, say) who both feel they should be the ones signing letters to donors. Or it could have one leader who is very well-known for one specific issue — even though the organization is working on several issues — who insists on signing everything. A nonprofit might have oodles of celebrity support, but be afraid to ask for celebrity signers. And on and on.

Organizations should consider each letter they send out as a new opportunity to bond with their donors. Which means they should think carefully about what issue will do that and who the best person in the organization is to address that issue.

In an organization with a particularly strong or charismatic leader, it might be that leader every time. In an organization that has two distinct audiences — say an activist human rights group with a strong education program — there may be one leader who is perfect for addressing the activists on the list, and one for the education supporters.

One environmental group I work for has a celebrity — in this case, an actor well-known for his environmental advocacy — sign a letter for them a few times a year, while the executive director signs everything else.

Above all, your letter should always have only one signer. Remember, fundraising letters are personal letters from your organization to your donor. They should speak directly to that ONE donor, person-to-person. And they can’t do that if they’re signed by two people.

 

 Posted by Richelle at 11:20 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
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