Copywriting

What do high-performing appeals and Harry Potter have in common? And, in both cases, what makes donors give and readers buy even when they’re going through a rough financial patch? The answer? Creative writing principles that will grab your readers’ attention and keep them reading. The principles that make novels like Harry Potter phenomenally successful and that sell millions apply to fundraising appeals as well.

Here’s a curious little study — Post-it Note Persuasion: A Sticky Influence — forwarded to The Agitator by reader Tina Cincotti. In this research project, participants were sent a survey packet and asked to complete the survey. Some packets included an affixed personalized Post-it note. Some packets had no note or other variations. Those receiving the personalized Post-it note on their packet had significantly higher return rates, and returned their surveys more promptly with higher quality responses.

Repurposing is an essential part of a manageable communications plan, because it allows you to get more mileage out of your writing, while reinforcing your key messages with your readers. Here are seven easy ways to repurpose your content: 1. make short pieces longer; 2. make long pieces shorter; 3. change the lead; 4. round it up; 5. integrate the comments; 6. add your opinion; 7. recast it.

A nonprofit that my husband and I both love totally screwed up its recent annual report donor list, in at least three ways I saw, and odds are, many more. By insisting on using the too-formal and very outdated Mr. and Mrs. listing, because it supposedly confers more respect on donors, it instead has done two downright awful things: 1. Wrongly guessed the gender of some of its most loyal supporters; 2. Alienated couples who consider themselves a marriage of equals. How respectful is that?

Every piece of content you create should have a marketing plan to support it. Why invest in something if you don’t have a plan for how you are going to reap benefit from such? Below are 16 golden rules for content marketing. I could write a much longer list of these. However, to keep things simple, we’ll stick to short and simple for now.

In the November 2010 issue, fundraising copywriter and creative consultant Kimberly Seville wrote in her DM Diagnosis article, "If your letter signer has a unique 'voice,' use that to enliven your direct mail."

No matter the communication channel, donors must be interested in the messages fundraisers send. In July 2008, FundRaising Success Editorial Advisory Board member Katya Andresen, chief strategy officer at Network for Good, interviewed fellow FS Editorial Advisory Board member Kivi Leroux Miller, president of Nonprofit Marketing Guide, on how to take your newsletter "From Snoring to Soaring."

As a nonprofit staff member, you need to be ready to explain your organization's overhead. High or low, be ready to tell the story. But as you’re talking with donors and prospects, don’t brag about the percentage. You don’t want to be in that conversation. And focusing on percentages cripples your board members’ ability to fundraise. Focusing on percentages and budgets makes it very difficult for board members and others to make solicitations. It stresses them out, like math tests did to so many of us in school. And that stress is unnecessary.

Ever wonder how you can destroy your fundraising program in 45 minutes with little more than a one-way mirror and a bunch of sandwiches?

In the February 2007 issue, then-FS Managing Editor Abny Santicola wrote about an LW Robbins direct-mail piece for the Vermont Foodbank that used a mini notecard to garner outstanding results, appropriately titled, "The Little Mailing That Did."