Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic

Author: George Crankovic

  • Tell me a story — but make it fast

    Storytelling. It’s an essential part of persuasion for fundraising and marketing.

    But your story can’t be a rambling, meandering yarn that goes on without a point. Not in the hyper-paced, information-now world we live in. No, stories have to be focused and most of all succinct.

    How to stay on point? A good place to start is by crystallizing the message … to determine the crux of the story before writing to make sure the point you’re making is right out front.

    That’s where the six-word story comes in.

    What’s a six-word story? It’s kind of like a haiku poem with a dash of narrative thrown in. It gives just enough information for the reader to fill in the blanks. More importantly, it’s a great exercise to get to the heart of your story and keep it front and center as you write the longer version.

    One of the most famous six-word stories is this one from Hemmingway:

    For sale: baby shoes. Never used.

    Just six simple words that start the story playing in the reader’s head.

    For marketing, think of a case history about how someone used the product you’re selling; or for fundraising, how someone benefited from the services they received from the charity. Then pare it down to its essence, to six simple words.

    That’s the key message of your story.

    Try a six-word story when you’re working on your next marketing or fundraising project. It’s a great exercise.

    For inspiration, visit a great website – http://www.sixwordstories.com – and see stories on just about every conceivable topic that capture your imagination while they celebrate brevity. It is the soul of wit, after all.

  • What’s the right pacing for your promotional copy?

    A direct response letter – whether it’s for fundraising or for a consumer or B2B product –tends to take on a life of its own. It has a tone, a voice, an overall feel.

    A big part of creating that feel is pacing – how the letter moves along once the reader starts into it, how it progresses from beginning to end.

    Here are a couple of good examples from the fundraising world.

    The first is from Mercy Home, a well-known charity. The letter comes in a window envelope without any teaser.

    At the top of the letter is a Johnson Box that says, “If you read one letter from me this year, please read this one … because what I’m about to tell you is a limited-time opportunity – and concerns the future of every child at Mercy Home.”

    Then the letter begins:

    Dear Mrs. Joan Sample,

    I met recently with a member of our Board of Directors, a good friend of Mercy Home. And he gave me some of the biggest news I’ve heard in a very long time.

    He told me that if I can raise $52,000 by August 31 for our kids, he will match it with another $52,000!

    Allow me to explain.

    That means if you send a gift of $10 to help our kids right now – you’ll really be offering a total gift of $20 toward giving our kids the second chance they desperately need!

    Okay, it’s a matching grant appeal, a fairly commonplace offer to donors in which each gift is doubled by a charitable grant. But in this letter, it took a Johnson box and four paragraphs to get the reader to that point.

    Now compare that with a completely different way of pacing, this one from Bible League.

    The envelope has the teaser, “Now your gift will go twice as far! See inside …”

    At the top of the letter is a brief and direct overline – “Special grant will double your gift!” – and the letter dives right in.

    Dear Mrs. Joan Sample,

    Great news! Now your gift goes twice as far. You can place twice as many Bibles in the hands of the spiritually hungry who are begging for an opportunity to read God’s Word.

    Imagine – twice as many! And the best part is, there’s no need to add even one extra cent to the amount of your donation. I’m thrilled to tell you this, because demand for scripture is exploding. Here’s how it works …

    Notice the difference between these two approaches. The first mailing sidles up to the reader gingerly, almost tentatively. There’s the plain envelope, the Johnson box that refers somewhat vaguely to need. And even when the letter begins, it takes its time getting around to the matching grant, and then goes on to explain how the grant works.

    All of this is no doubt deliberate. Mercy Homes knows its donors. Maybe the charity rarely offers a matching grant and feels it must allow donors the time to warm up to the idea. Or maybe the slower pacing is simply intended to match the sentiments of its donors base, most of whom are seniors.

    It’s completely different from the second letter, the one from Bible League.

    Right from the get-go, this letter takes aim at the donor’s gift. The teaser on the envelope puts the matching grant squarely in the donor’s sights. The overline on the letter reinforces it, and then the letter immediately presents the benefit to the donor – the fact that her donation will be automatically doubled.

    Where the first letter is relaxed and calm in the way that it brings readers along, the second one is more rushed, more in-your-face, more of an overt push for a donation.

    These are two widely different ways of going about pacing a letter. It’s not that fast pacing is better than slow or that an overt push is better than a more subtle one. It just depends. Just as salesperson will sometimes mirror the gestures and expressions of his prospect, the pacing of a letter has to match up with the temperament of the reader. When it comes to results, getting that right makes all the difference.

  • What makes people do what they do?

    They’re inscrutable. Insufferable. Illogical. And unpredictable. What makes people do what they do, react the way they do, buy the things they buy, or make the decisions they make?

    It’s maddening. Just ask anybody in marketing or fundraising, and you’ll hear war stories of counterintuitive results and just plain weird reactions on the part of the people we try to persuade.

    Luckily, there’s hope. As psychologists and cognitive scientists delve deeper into human behavior, we’re learning more. And much of this research is on the web — one example is the site by psychologist Susan Weinstein. It’s an ongoing list of “100 things you should know about people,” with each entry revealing a priceless plum about human behavior.

    One such insight is this — anecdotes persuade more than data. Despite everything that common sense might tell you, when it comes to whether people base their decisions on emotion or reason, it’s not even close. Decision-making is almost entirely emotion based. That’s why stories sell. They evoke empathy, which triggers emotional reactions, which motivate people to act. In fact, in most selling situations — and especially in fundraising — rational arguments will discourage response. Emotion sells because emotion is what informs people’s decisions, regardless of how much they may protest otherwise.

    Here’s another example. Groups are swayed by a dominant personality. Whenever people gather in a group, there’s a subtle jockeying for position that takes place until an unspoken org chart emerges. People subconsciously elect someone to be the leader of the group. And often that leadership role is granted to the person who speaks first.

    Think about the groups you’ve participated in — from your kid’s cub scout meetings, to strategy sessions, to serving on a jury. Isn’t it true that there’s always someone who takes the lead and influences others? And often, that someone isn’t the official, designated leader. Think about what that means for focus groups. Just one dominate personality can skew the results, often canceling the validity of the research and wasting thousands of dollars and countless hours of time.

    And yet another example. The more difficult something is to attain, the more people want it. This is all about exclusivity and scarcity. The nightclub that keeps people waiting to get in, the wildly expensive new restaurant, the hazing that college students go through to get into a fraternity, and on and on. Instead of turning people off, exclusivity and scarcity motivate us all the more. Until …

    Sometimes, the nightclub doesn’t seem to be all that exciting once you’re inside, or the fraternity not all that cool. Now here’s the interesting part. When that happens, instead of admitting they were wrong, most people fall back on their original assessment and convince themselves that the group or activity really is worthwhile after all. They reinforce their original decision.

    So, does that mean making products and services appear more exclusive or scarce will entice customers to want them more and cause them to persuade themselves that they’re good even if the actual performance is less than stellar? Trying to cloak a brand in exclusivity it doesn’t merit would probably be a risky strategy if you know the product is poor. But it does seem that people will overlook faults if a brand has cache. Jaguar remains a status brand despite a dismal record of service and reliability. And not so long ago, Harley Davidson motorcycles were almost falling apart on the road because quality had sunk so low, and their customers got the company logo tattooed on their arms.

    The website is www.whatmakesthemclick.net . Well worth a look.

  • When marketing dollars are wasted

    Acme Industries has a created a new product. It’s the result of a big investment in R&D — for them, anyway. It’s been field-tested and focus-grouped. Acme is convinced it has a winner. “It’s so good people don’t even know how much they’re going to want it,” their president has said. Now that they’ve created this new wonder, it’s time to call in marketing and instruct them to tell everyone in the industry about it.

    The obvious response might be full agreement — “Yes, tell everyone!” After all, that’s the role of marketing, right? Mass communication. So Acme’s marketing department — three guys, but hey — starts churning out ads for the trade pubs and press releases for the media. But, wait — that’s probably not the best approach, because …

    The reality is that not everyone in your industry is a prospect for your product or service, nor is everyone who uses the kind of product you sell a prospect for your particular model, no matter how good it is. That’s often tough for companies to accept when they’re not marketing driven. It’s even tougher for the president of the company to accept when he or she has invested blood, sweat, and tears into a project. Fact is, unless the new product has a niche — and increasingly, a very specific niche — it’s not going anywhere.

    Ideally, marketing would work closely with R&D at the very beginning of product development. That doesn’t always happen, of course. But if it did, a new product would more likely occupy a defined space in the market and so have a greater chance for success.

    Another reality is that bringing all potential buyers up to speed about a new product — which is what you’d have to do — is generally a very expensive proposition. The amount of time and money you’d have to spend on educating buyers about the product will far outweigh any potential return on investment from marketing. Marketing gains power — and its cost efficiencies — by exploiting a mass desire in the market not by trying to create one.

    And then there’s the strategic view. Once you’ve already done the educating, you’ve laid the groundwork for your competitors to come right in and start communicating with those prospects — and now they’ll be able to do it at lower cost, thanks to your efforts. You’ve done all the work of clearing out the trees and brush simply to create a playing field for your competitors to use.

    So, then, what’s the right play here? Simple — fish where the fish are.

    Marketing should focus on finding those specific prospects who would benefit from the product’s specific advantages. Headlines, email subject lines, white paper titles, and so on, have to zero in on getting the right prospects to raise their hands and say, “Yes, this is something potentially useful to me.” When you communicate aggressively to those prospects and those prospects only, then you’re on the right track to generating more leads faster, winning more sales faster, and creating an installed base faster.

  • Will this marketing tactic work for your next promotion?

    Two different promotions. Two different products. One marketing tactic. Maybe these marketers are onto something. They are, and it’s something we can use.

    In the space of one week, two promotions arrived in my mailbox. One was for a collection of uncirculated coins. It came in a snap-pack envelope (the kind with the perforated edge that you pull off to open) with all the markings of a special delivery business mailing. It talked about the coins and included a reservation certificate, which was of course an order form. What really stood out, though, was the heading “Notice of item on hold.” The letter went on to explain, “This is a 10-day hold. After this 10-day period, we will be forced to regard the item as unclaimed.”

    The second promotion was for a collection of leather-bound books. It came in an envelope with special-delivery markings and the label, “photo mailer.” Inside were photos of the books. The letter explained that “Our records show 1 (one) unclaimed genuine leather-bound Collector’s Edition of Huckleberry Finn being held in your name.” Here we had the “unclaimed item” approach again. This promotion went a bit further, though. It included an official-looking claim tag with instructions on how to claim the item (“simply affix your Claim Tag sticker to your Reservation Card and return it before January 31.”).

    You might be thinking that this “item on hold” approach isn’t new, and you’d be right. It isn’t. But, then again, offers like “buy one get one free” aren’t new, and, be honest, how many times have they worked on you?

    Fact is, these tried-and-true approaches work, and you can’t deny that the psychology of “item on hold” is interesting. These promotions both presented me with an item that’s virtually in my hands now. It’s really already mine. The little matter of actually paying for it is positioned as nothing more than a technicality. What’s more, in a clever bit of reframing, I don’t even have to go through the trouble of ordering the item. I simply have to claim it.

    But before you dismiss “item on hold” as just another schlocky direct mail trick, take a moment to consider how you could use this approach in marketing your product or service. It’s worth thinking about, because this tactic could be adapted to a variety of B2B or consumer products or services – for example …

    · Novell updates – our records show unclaimed software updates available for you now.
    · Acme Industries’ new white paper – Social Media Strategies for Lead Generation – is on hold for you now, pending your acceptance.
    · There’s a new Dell Inspiron laptop on hold for you – claim it now and receive a free keyboard!
    · Our service team is holding a maintenance certificate for the 5,000-mile oil change for your BMW 3-Series. To claim it simply respond now.
    · Notice of Unclaimed iphone Ap! The new Starbucks-finder ap is on hold now for you – just text “I want coffee” to claim it.
    · The July introductory issue of Investor’s Monthly is ready to deliver to you, pending your approval – claim this valuable investing intelligence now.

    Borrowing this tactic just might erode some sales resistance and create an opening for your product or service. Or, as a jumping-off point for brainstorming, it might lead to another solution that creates sales or lead generation opportunities. At the very least, it’s worth testing with your product and your audience. You never know – it just might work.

  • Make your webinar sell — 3 traps to avoid

    It seems as if there are more webinars on offer than ever. Just about every topic in marketing and fundraising is covered, along with just about every other conceivable subject in business or commerce. There are even all-day “conference” webinars, complete with virtual coffee breaks. And perhaps not surprisingly, there are webinars on giving webinars.

    The proliferation is understandable. After all, not much beats a webinar for reaching prospects inexpensively. I’ve been on the receiving end of lots of them, and unfortunately they can often fall short of delivering specific, actionable, useful information. That includes paid webinars as well as free ones. If you’ve attended even some of these events on the webinar circuit, you know it’s true.

    What’s also true is that the presenters don’t want people coming away feeling shortchanged for having spent an hour in their busy day. Certainly the audience doesn’t what that either. So, to the folks out there who are putting webinars together, for the sake of all of us who will be watching and listening, please …

    · Don’t serve up some vague aphorisms about strategy, planning, and benchmarking, and think that it’s information people can use. If we come to a webinar on marketing or fundraising, we want specifics we can put to use right now, today – not the airy, hand-waving, 10,000-foot perspective. We get enough of that in meetings. Give us tips, techniques, how-tos. That’s what we’d expect in an in-person seminar. Why should a webinar be any different?

    · Don’t simply repeat what’s on the slide. It’s the curse of the deadly PowerPoint presentation transferred to our computer screens. If the slide is filled with copy and the webinar presenter is simply going to read what we can see for ourselves on our screens, what do we need a presenter for? No, the wording should be simple bullet-pointed phrases, in most cases. And those phrases should just be thought markers, to provide the presenter with a jumping off point for expanding on the ideas presented and offering more specifics and insight – maybe even an anecdote or a war story. That’s what we want.

    · Don’t speak softly or in a monotone. One of the advantages of a webinar is the same as that of attending an in-person conference – hearing someone speak confidently and enthusiastically about a topic. It’s frustrating for people in the audience to have the moderator interrupt the proceedings to say that people are emailing in with the comment that they can’t hear the presenter. It happens all the time. And it’s just as frustrating to sit through a monologue that’s monotone. Instead, we want the presenter’s enthusiasm to come through so we can get excited about the topic too.

    What do you think? How can webinars be more useful?

    Meantime … obviously not all webinars are poorly done. Many are engaging and useful. Webinars given by Seth Godin and Clay Shirky come to mind. The ones that I attended were so interesting that I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who went back the next day to replay them. And neither of these guys hardly even used slides. They let their passion for their topic bring the event to life. And so it did.

  • 4 fast, easy tips to tighten up your copy

    A quick read. That’s what we want. Whether it’s for marketing or fundraising — whether it’s an ad, a brochure, direct marketing, or any communication — copy should get to the point and move along briskly.

    Problem is, copywriting should also be conversational in order to be effective, and by definition, writing that’s conversational means more words not fewer, since it involves phrases and expressions used in everyday speech.

    But there’s a way to make copy both tight and conversational. In fact, there are at least four.

    1. Watch out for that. When you write or review copy, be aware of how often you see the word that. Often it’s the written equivalent of like when we talk — not needed. And it slows copy down. For example,
    • “It’s one more way that Acme Advertising ensures your success” can become “It’s one more way Acme Advertising ensures your success.”
    • “Staying number one means that we need to work harder” becomes, “Staying number one means we need to work harder.”
    • The server that stores our applications is on the third floor” becomes “The server storing our applications …”

    Of course, not every that can be eliminated. But you’ll hear the ones that can be when you read the copy.

    2. Be careful of to be. The verb to be is a tricky one, since it takes many forms, such as am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being, and so on. These verb forms show up when we write because we tend to use them when we talk. Most times, copy is better off without them. For example,
    • “The Red Cross is doing life-saving work” can become, “The Red Cross does life-saving work.”
    • “The income we’re generating comes from increased prospecting” can become, “The income we generate comes from increased prospecting.”
    • “The changes in the economy we’ve been seeing …” becomes, “The changes in the economy we see …”

    3. Go easy on the modifiers. Whenever you see an adjective or an adverb, ask yourself whether it’s necessary. Most times it isn’t. We tend to use them liberally when writing in an effort to be emphatic. But modifiers often weaken the impact we try to create. And worse, they slow copy down. For example,
    • “We desperately need this program” isn’t as strong as “We need this program.”
    • “Our lead-generation process is extremely effective…” isn’t as strong as, “Our lead-generation process works.”
    • “Advertising that’s precisely targeted generates rock-solid results in sales” becomes “Targeted advertising generates more sales.”

    4. Chop off the first paragraph or two. When we write, we tend to work up to the main point instead of tackling it straightaway. As a result, the first one or two paragraphs of just about any piece can usually be deleted. Copy will get to the point faster and will seem more direct — both of which are good things.

  • Why brainstorming sessions often don’t produce good ideas — and what to do about it

    The idea of brainstorming is so ingrained in most businesses today — especially among marketing and fundraising people — that we pretty much know all the “rules” of a brainstorming session by heart. Like … don’t judge, go for quantity of ideas not quality, set a time limit, get people up and out of their chairs, and so on. Some people even go further by wearing funny hats and passing toys around a conference table.

    These various techniques are supposed to produce surprising ideas. But the reality is usually far different. Too many brainstorming sessions are boring and — worse — unproductive time-wasters, with people stifling yawns and glancing at their watches. Be honest — you’ve been there, haven’t you?

    But if we all know how to brainstorm, why are these sessions usually so far removed from the free-wheeling, free-association love fests of brilliance and creativity that they’re supposed to be?

    A few possible reasons …

    • We may know the rules of brainstorming but we often don’t follow them. I’ve attended so-called brainstorming sessions that have gone on for hours, with a “facilitator” standing before the group like a grade school teacher and pointing out the goals and guidelines of the session and subtly showing disapproval when any idea strayed from them.
    • Most of the time, people come to brainstorming sessions cold, with inadequate background information or preparation about the problem or the opportunity.
    • Work is a competitive situation — much as we try to act as though it isn’t. When someone unleashes a really good idea — maybe THE idea — there’s sometimes a tendency to try and top it … not necessarily to build on it but to try and squash it by changing it. Sometimes an idea that has merit will even get ridiculed. Ego gets in the way, and the good idea can get overlooked.
    • You just can’t “operationalize” breakthrough ideas, although many companies try. You can’t say, “We’re brainstorming at 3:30 today!” and expect everybody to just turn it on like they’re flipping a switch. We all try to be so efficient, but ideas often don’t respect our timetables. Naturally, some people may be able to flip a switch and produce some mediocre ideas but probably not the game-changing ones we’re after.
    • Some people just aren’t good brainstormers, just like some aren’t good test-takers. That doesn’t mean these folks don’t have ideas. They just have a different style of working. Some people need time to ruminate. Some people may not feel comfortable shouting out an idea in front of a group. Still others might be more visual and need some images to spark their thinking instead of staring at a blank whiteboard. It just depends.

    So what to do about it?

    It would help simply to acknowledge that the typical brainstorming session isn’t the only way to generate ideas and might not even be the best way.

    Beyond that, what about …

    • Creating a hybrid situation where people work on developing ideas on their own AND attend a brainstorming session at a different time?
    • Having a pre-brainstorming session where you provide background information and allow people some time to digest it? (There’s just no way around doing the homework. It’s essential for creating ideas.)
    • Letting people go off-site or do something to break up the routine?
    • Letting people separate into smaller groups so they can work with fewer people?
    • Making it a contest where the team that generates the most ideas wins a prize?
    • Using google and keying in some terms related to the problem and see what comes up?
    • Going onto a stock photography site and doing the same to see some different kinds of images?
    • Asking for thoughts from a professional network like Linkedin?
    • Having people come up with ideas that they know will fail, just to get that whole fear of failure thing out of the way?

    What do you think? How can brainstorming be better?

  • Tell a story to sell

    Because storytelling is so much a part of marketing and fundraising, it’s important to know what goes into a good story … what makes it grab people’s attention and lock it onto the point you’re making for maximum persuasion power.

    Luckily, we have some insightful help in our efforts to persuade through storytelling, and it comes from Mark Rovner, a noted fundraiser who draws on lessons from screenwriting. Rovner gives good, workable advice in a webinar titled The One-Minute Storyteller. You can get the audio here http://www.fundraising123.org/files/NP911_060909_Audio.mp3 and get the pdf here http://www.fundraising123.org/files/NP911_060909_Handout.pdf. It’s worthwhile, but the gist of it is this …

    To craft a good story, the first thing you need is a main character, or protagonist, who has something to gain or lose and who faces and ultimately overcomes the conflicts put in his or her path.

    The second thing you need is a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s the basic structure. Now, character and structure must come together, and here’s how …

    In the beginning of the story, you introduce the protagonist and include endearing details about him or her. You want the audience to like the protagonist right off. After affinity is established, the protagonist goes through some sort of life-changing event – this again arouses the audience’s sympathy. Which leads us to …

    … the middle. Here you introduce the conflict (with either something or someone) and the obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. By now the audience is cheering for your main character to beat the odds and make it.

    Which leads us to the end. At this point, it should look as though your protagonist may not prevail, but in the final scene he or she overcomes the last obstacle or conflict and emerges victorious. The audience, having grown to like the character and having shared in the journey, now has a sense of satisfaction and closure. Things worked out. All is well with the world.

    If you think about it, that’s the same format that gets played out over and over again in TV shows, movies, novels – just about any kind of entertainment. That’s because it works. And it works particularly well for marketing and fundraising. For our purposes, the story can be anything from the handful of sentences of body copy in an ad to one or more pages in a case history, but even in its most compressed form, your story needs to contain all the elements of storytelling. That’s because you want your audience to go through the process with your main character and to be changed as your character is changed. That’s real persuasion.

  • 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.