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Tag: copywriting

Imagine this. As a smart fundraiser, you’ve put together a compelling appeal. It has an emotional story. A tangible offer. And direct asks in all the key places. Then it goes through the approvals process. The committee thoroughly edits your carefully crafted appeal. The end result sounds like it came from a corporate machine. It’s no longer a warm, personal, emotional message from one person to another.
So many interesting things in this for fundraisers... https://jasonlefkowitz.net/2014/01/against-line-chart-liberalism/ How often do we draw conflicting conclusions from donor data? Also, how often do we try to rely on data and facts (the head) rather than narratives and emotions (the heart and gut) to motivate donors to take action? As Jason says in the article I linked to above, "assuming that data can tell its own story ignores something fundamental that we know about how communications between humans works. People aren’t motivated by facts; they are motivated by narratives, by stories." Senior managers often hate the emotional narratives needed to inspire donations. Also the line, "You have to reach out to people as they are, not as you would wish them to be." That's exactly my point in my post about emotions. You need to start with emotions the donor already has... not the emotions you want the donor to have.
Last week, I got an email from a client sending me a direct mail sample from another charity. She suggested we do something similar. I opened up the sample… and did a facepalm. It was not the most terrible piece of fundraising communications I’ve ever seen… but it broke all the rules of effective direct response. And not in a good way. The problem is the client thought it was good simply because their much bigger competitor did it.
As a copywriter, I hate jargon! Yet jargon crops up in fundraising appeals, direct mail, donor newsletters, websites… and just about anything else written for donors! So I’ve decided to start a regular spot on my blog called June’s Jargon Watch. The aim will be to highlight these atrocities of the English language. And also suggest how they could be rewritten so the donor – and the average person – can actually understand them.
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