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MONDAY:
Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he
or she will not feel the time was wasted.
– Kurt Vonnegut
This quote is No. 1 on Vonnegut’s “Eight Rules for Writing A Short Story.” For anyone familiar with his crisp and concise style, it should come as no surprise that he worked in his early years as a copywriter.
As a novelist, his specialty was using short, simple words to express big, complex ideas. And express them in a very entertaining way. For example, below we have a clinical, technical analysis of a corny old joke.
Even the idea sounds boring. But look what Vonnegut does with it: Even the simplest jokes are based on tiny twinges of fear, such as the question, “what is the white stuff in bird poop?” The auditor, as though called upon to recite in school, is momentarily afraid of saying something stupid. When the auditor hears the answer, which is, “that’s bird poop, too,” he or she automatically dispels the fear with laughter. He or she has not been tested after all.
That little paragraph does many things: it educates us about the art of joke telling, it explains a complicated psychological concept and, of course, it makes us laugh. The one thing it does not do is make us feel we have wasted our time!
This rule is every bit as critical in direct mail fundraising as it is in literature. Because you can’t hold the attention of someone who feels his or her time is wasted. And make no mistake: attention lost is money lost!
We live in an entertainment-dominated culture, where your reader is not just a donor or prospect, he or she is your audience. So when you’re writing fundraising copy, be emotional, be informative, but above all be interesting.
TUESDAY:
Write in a conversational style ... engage the reader
from one person to another.
–Todd Baker
When was the last time you heard someone in a conversation end a sentence with a preposition? Or split an infinitive? Or use a sentence fragment?
It’s a safe bet that, if you listen for them, you’ll hear all kinds of grammatical errors in just about every conversation you have with someone. Right?
Well direct mail, as so many great writers point out, is a conversation. So your letter should sound like one person talking to another. In other words, don’t get so hung up on textbook grammar that you sacrifice energy, clarity and emotion.
Yes, it’s important to be correct. But it’s even more important to be convincing.
Many of the best direct mail writers recommend using some unconventional techniques to make sure your copy sounds fresh. A lot of writers encourage you to read your copy aloud to yourself and to others. Jerry Huntsinger used to compose letters by walking around his office and dictating into a tape recorder.
Another effective technique is to talk out your letter before you write it. Sit down with someone who is not a fundraiser and tell them the story of your organization and why they should support. it. You might be amazed at what you’ll learn – from your listener and just from listening to yourself!
WEDNESDAY:
Is a cliché bad for your letter? Nope, because a cliché turns a light on inside your reader’s mind. Avoiding clichés leaves the reader in darkness.
– Jerry Huntsinger
Avoid clichés like the plague, says the old writer’s joke. It’s a good rule, but it’s advice directed to beginning writers. Its point really is to teach mental discipline – to force young writers to think about what they’re writing rather than rely on trite phrasings that do not express original ideas.
If you’re reading this article though, we assume you’re savvy enough to recognize when a cliché works like a charm and when it falls as flat as a pancake. (If not, hire a professional writer!)
Despite their bad rap, the strategic right use of clichés can tap into certain emotional archetypes, and really motivate people to take action.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us…
“We’ve got to watch them every minute…
“It’s now or never…”
Your Composition 101 teacher would slap you silly for using phrases like these. But in direct mail, they can be emotional shorthand for your reader. A carefully chosen and strategically used cliché can help deliver the urgency and emotion of your appeal with out a lot of explanation. And you can use valuable copy space telling your story.
Just remember that writing clichés is like juggling rattlesnakes: if you do it right you can be very impressive. But if you do it wrong they will come back to bite you.
THURSDAY:
Write in a style consistent with (the letter signer’s) position or function.
– Roland Kuniholm
Most fundraising letters sound pretty much alike. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The tone and style of the typical letter has evolved over many years and thousands of tests. In other words direct mail copy sounds the way it does because it’s been proven to work.
That said, you do need to have a good understanding of your letter signer’s position, education, and professional and social status. And, within the context of solid fundraising principles, write accordingly.
Think about writing a package, for example, that has a letter signed by a doctor as well as a lift note from a mother. Which person would say, “I need you to understand how urgent this situation is,” and which one would say, “I was scared to death Timmy might not make it?”
Obviously, you’d want the doctor to sound serious and professional as in the first quote, and mother to sound more emotional, as in the second. That’s a pretty obvious example, but its very obviousness shows the importance of using the right voice for each speaker. Voice and tone are critical to building drama and keeping your reader engaged (See Monday’s Rule).
When you’re in the midst of crafting your package, keep in mind who is speaking and make sure that your words fit them.
FRIDAY:
Your creative should be developed to convince and
please the customer, not to win awards.
– Donna Baier Stein
Industry recognition is good for business (and great for the ego). But a reputation for consistently strong results is even better!
As Donna Stein and Alexandra MacAaron point out in their excellent book The New Marketing Conversation, “Your art department may suggest tiny drop-out type on a turquoise background, but if your reader can’t read that type, you’ve blown your chance to start a conversation.”
This is where a reliance on proven fundamentals, combined with aggressive testing, can make all the difference. You can find case after case in which the simpler, less fancy package, outperformed the “nicer looking” one.
Just one example: our agency tested a very nice looking 4-color carrier against a client’s fairly bland 2-color control. This organization positions itself as a fairly upscale charity, and its typical donor is well educated and well traveled. The purpose of the test was to see whether targeted prospects for this group would respond better to a more sophisticated look or to the much simpler straight-from-the-heart design.
In fact, the 4-color actually had a slightly higher response. But the increase was not nearly enough higher to overcome the additional cost of the “classier” look.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEKEND:
It ain’t what you don’t know that hurts you.
It’s what you do know that ain’t so.
– Mark Twain
I’ll never forget a package our agency created many years ago for an American Indian charity. The client handled the production and some photos were left out of the letter. There were several FPO boxes with handwritten instructions like, “adobe hut” or “photo of hungry child here.”
Everyone was horrified to learn that a batch of those packages actually mailed… until the results of those packages came rolling in. It had outperformed every other prospect test in the mailing!
So what’s the point? Only that fundraising is a crazy, counterintuitive business. You have to know the rules to break the rules. And every so often you have to test everything you think you know – just to make sure the rules haven’t changed when you weren’t looking.
Have a great week!
©2007 Huntsinger & Jeffer, Richmond, VA
Willis Turner is a senior writer at Huntsinger & Jeffer in Richmond, VA.
You can e-mail him at willis@huntsinger-jeffer.com
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