Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic

Month: January 2011

  • What should a headline do?

    You’re working. You’re with a group, brainstorming. You’re trying to come up with a concept for an ad. You’re thinking about images and ideas and of course headlines. And inevitably, someone — it could be a designer, the client, or even a creative director — says something like this … “We have to somehow get the whole point across in the headline to catch people who are just leafing through the magazine — because, you know, nobody reads body copy.”

    Is that true? Does the headline have to do all the work of the whole ad? Well, like most things in marketing, the answer is … it depends.

    It depends on the product or service, the state of the market, and the target audience. Say you have a product that’s pretty simple and your audience is fully aware of. In that case, sure, the headline can do all the heavy lifting. In fact, sometimes a headline might be all you need. For example, “Laundry Baskets — 3 for $9.99.” Not a lot else to do there.

    Or even if the product is just slightly more complicated than a laundry basket but your audience is aware of it and its benefits — even then, the headline can do most of the work, like this — “Laugh at the Snow with Goodyear Ultra Ice Winter Tires Thanks to Posi-Lock Traction Tread.” Sure, you could go on in body copy about tread design, rubber compounds, differentiating from competitors, and whatnot, but for the most part — and depending on the audience — the headline says it.

    For the vast majority of cases, though, the purpose of the headline is NOT to convey the entire sales message. Not by a long shot. For most ads, the purpose of the headline is to get your target audience to read the ad. Because if we’re trying to introduce a new product, open up a new market, or reinvigorate a product that’s nearing the end of it’s lifecycle, then our best hope of persuading prospects is by exposing them to a powerful step-by-step sales argument. And you just can’t do that in a headline alone.

    Think of one of the greatest headlines of all time — “Do You Make These Mistakes in English?” This gem was the first step in a blockbuster ad for a correspondence course in grammar. What if someone had imposed the headline-has-to-say-it-all requirement on the writer of that headline, Max Sackheim, one of the true greats of advertising and copywriting? The ad wouldn’t have generated the millions of dollars in business that it did. The key to the success of the headline, of course, is the addition of the unassuming little word “these.” The headline works because — with the help of this one little word — it points the reader’s attention to the body copy, where the ad then takes up the art of persuasion in earnest. Most of the time, that’s the headline’s real job.

  • How NOT to telemarket

    Lots of nonprofits telemarket to persuade donors to give. They can, because the do-not-call laws don’t apply to them. But even so, there’s a right way and a wrong way.

    I received a phone call a few days ago from a nonprofit I support. Without naming names, it’s a well-known civil liberties charity. The guy on the other end of the phone introduced himself politely and explained why he was calling. He went into his rap about what the charity does and why it needs donor support.

    I told him that I was in full support of the charity’s mission but that I preferred to be contacted only by mail. I was expressing a clear preference.

    The caller acknowledged my preference – which is good. But he didn’t honor it – which is very bad. He could have reassured me that future contact would be by mail, politely thanked me for my time, and hung up. Instead, he decided to see this situation as what’s euphemistically called a “service-recovery opportunity.”

    He launched into a lecture about how vital donor support is to keep the work of the charity going. This went on for some minutes. After which, he asked me to make a donation now over the phone and then sign on to become a sustaining member with monthly contributions from my credit card.

    I again reiterated my preference for contact by mail.

    Undaunted, he took a fall-back position. After another dissertation about the need for donors to pony up, he asked for a single donation now over the phone.

    Finally, getting frustrated, I told him that I supported charity’s mission but wanted to be contacted only by mail, and bid him a hasty goodbye. The lasting impression from having been worked over like that for a donations was, “can you believe that guy?”

    Not the impression any nonprofit would want to create. Telemarketing is a fundraising channel that’s supposed to complement other channels like direct mail and email. Telemarketing like this doesn’t compliment other channels – it harms them.

    When I’m contacted by that organization in the future, instead of thinking kindly about them, I’m going to hesitate. That hesitation – even if it’s only for a moment – is deadly for fundraisers. That hesitation could spell the difference between meeting a budget goal and falling short. It’s vital to eliminate it, because as fundraisers, that fleeting moment of decision – or indecision – is all that we get. We have to make the most of it.

  • East is east and west is west?

    There’s fundraising. Then there’s marketing. In most people’s minds, they’re two separate worlds. One is about blatant materialism, and the other’s about selfless altruism.

    While that may be true on one level, the fact is that both marketing and fundraising are strikingly similar from the point of view of persuasion.

    Take one example, a very successful mailing done for Peale Partners, a division of the Guideposts empire. The reason it did so well is that it uses many of the techniques of direct marketing. The envelope features a bold headline delivering a specific promise to the customer – er, donor. This big promise is then followed up with additional benefits to make the sale – in this case, to persuade the donor to open up the envelope – including, of course, the offer of something free. It’s consumer marketing from top to bottom, aimed at a donor instead of a buyer.

    Other examples abound. In the fundraising world, creative directors talk about making a promise to the donor. They talk about presenting the donor with a specific, believable offer that will motivate her to give. They talk about persuasion strategies, about using guilt and fear and other motivators, about donors’ motivations for giving and how to tap into them.

    Replace “donor” with “customer,” and you can see how interchangeable the two disciplines are becoming. In fact, a lot of fundraisers refer to their craft alternatively as fundraising and donor marketing.

    Not surprisingly, one of the best direct response copywriters of all time, Clayton Makepeace, found his inspiration in fundraising. He recalls a time when he was a copy cub noticing how the fundraising writers were able to persuade people to send in money just by the sheer power of their letters.

    From this revelation, he developed his theory of the dominate emotion and how to evoke it. He used his theory to sell – literally – millions of dollars of products and services to customers all over the world.

    Fundraising and marketing – two separate worlds? Don’t you believe it.