Words don’t have to be this blatantly offensive to cause offense. Watching what you say isn’t as easy — or even as all-fire important

By Scott Swedenburg

You can’t possibly have too much of that emotion in a direct-mail package, can you? Maybe, according to Lisa Selner of Ashburne, Va.-based Lisa Selner Creative. She recently developed a five-step direct-mail renewal series for a health-care client, with each letter building on the urgency of the preceding one. After all, if the donor hasn’t renewed after the first three notices, you need to turn up the heat.