If you’ve employed a professional direct response copywriter to pen your appeal letter,
beware of passing it on to your committee for approval. Everyone will have an opinion,
and want to make their mark by ‘improving’ the letter.
Here are six ways to kill copy:
- ‘It’s too emotional’ – fact is, emotion equals success when you’re trying to motivate
people to donate money. If they don’t feel angry (animal or child abuse), sad (hunger,
poverty), inspired (education), frightened (cancer, Aids), they won’t get involved. And if
they don’t get involved, they won’t give.
- ‘It doesn’t sound like me’ – many CEO’s are used to writing formal reports and business
letters and they’re uncomfortable signing a letter that’s so different from their usual style.
But great direct response copy tends to be warm and friendly in style.
- ‘It’s too long’ – but is it interesting? Does it flow and draw the reader on? Is it broken
down into short paragraphs and headlines so that even if it’s only scanned, the message
gets through?
- ‘We haven’t mentioned all our other projects’ – it’s important to concentrate on the single,
most appealing aspect of your work and build a focused appeal around that. Too many
different ideas in one letter will confuse the prospective donor.
- ‘We should just change a few of the words’ – like substituting assist for help,
malnourished for starving, invest for give .... Direct mail copywriters use short, common
and emotive words to get the message across clearly. Don’t be tempted to substitute
these for bigger, more impressive words.
- ‘You can’t start a sentence with and, but or because!’ – an experienced copywriter knows
that a letter should flow seamlessly from one point to the next, and will therefore take
some licence with the rules of grammar.
What you should change: any facts, figures, names and descriptions that are incorrect
or untruthful. |
