Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic

Tag: behavior

  • Why is the copy for direct response fundraising so weird?

    It’s not weird, really. But it is way different from academic, business, or journalistic writing, and so it can seem weird to the (uninitiated) people at nonprofits who review copy.

    As my article in NonprofitPRO points out:

    Good copy is simple. It uses short words, sentences, and paragraphs, without jargon. That doesn’t mean it’s dumbed down, as some nonprofits think. That means it’s plain talk, which everyone appreciates, including donors.

    Good copy is repetitive. You need to repeat the important points, because most donors don’t read a letter or email from front to back. They skim. Repeating key concepts means you have a better chance of grabbing attention.

    Good copy is dramatic. To get donors’ attention and keep it, copy has to have emotional content. It has to have drama. But then it’s seen as over the top by some at the nonprofit. That’s too bad. Toning down the copy just leads to boring copy. As David Ogilvy said, “You can’t bore people into buying.” Well you can’t bore them into giving either.

    Direct response copy is the way it is because that’s what donors respond to. You can see more about why this is the case by clicking here.

  • Reaching mid-level donors with direct mail

    You probably hear a lot about mid-level donors, and that’s for good reason. For most nonprofits, these donors represent a major opportunity for short-term and long-term growth. It’s a revenue source that’s largely untapped. The potential is there, waiting to be realized.

    So, who are mid-level donors? Defining mid-level donors will vary for different nonprofits, of course, depending on the size of your nonprofit. But in general, for many nonprofits, mid-level donors are those who give about $1,000 to $9,000 a year.

    Another way to look at it comes from Sean Triner of Moceanic. The Pareto Principle tells us that 80 percent of your donations come from about 20 percent of your donors. That 20 percent consists of about 4 percent for major donors and about 16 percent for mid-level donors. Keep in mind, this is a rough guideline. It won’t work out exactly this way for every charity, but it gives you an idea of where to start in determining who your mid-level donors are.

    Defining your mid-level donors is a good first step. Because the real problem is that most nonprofits tend to overlook these important donors. That’s because they give too much to be considered typical annual fund donors, and at the same time, they give too little to be considered typical major donors. They’re the “middle child” in fundraising – the ones with loads of potential who nevertheless go unnoticed.

    And that’s too bad. Because when nonprofits cultivate and communicate with mid-level donors, it’s possible to:

    • Generate game-changing growth. Remember, mid-value and major donors give almost 80 percent of your revenue. But for many nonprofits, mid-level donors are underperforming. The potential is there for them to give more.
    • Create a class of donors who can be cultivated to move up to major giving.
    • Provide a stream of promising leads for planned giving and legacy gifts. Along with mid-level donors, bequest donors represent one of the best opportunities for revenue growth.
    • Increase donor retention, since donors who give at higher levels tend to remain more loyal.

    Successfully cultivating mid-level donors will require research, data analysis, as well as some means of personal contact, such as telephone calls or even personal donor visits. You’ll want to contact these donors in various ways – ways that correspond to their preferences, of course.

    It takes a comprehensive program. But one key to the program is a specialized direct mail appeal. All the analysis and fundraising strategy will come to nothing unless the approach to communicating with these donors is the right one.

    In general, mid-level donors are less transactional in their giving than most annual-fund donors and far more relational. This is why standard direct mail probably won’t work for them. But specialized direct mail can and will.

    What’s needed is a bigger, better, more strategic direct mail pack – not simply a fancier version of a typical annual-fund mailing.

    Mid-level donors need to be approached in a unique way that demonstrates the impact, stewardship, and engagement they expect. In general, they respond best when there’s a specific program or initiative, when they receive plenty of information, and when they’re acknowledged as being part of a group of select supporters.

    This specialized mail pack has higher production values than you’d use for regular donors. It often has a 9 x 12 envelope. It has a multiple-page letter, with copywriting that conveys the right tone and copy voice for higher-dollar donors. It’s on better-quality paper. It’s highly personalized throughout. It has multiple components – brochures, lift notes, inserts, and so on – that provide plenty of information, both in terms of factual information and emotional content. And it has a full-page reply device that not only presents the ask but reinforces the reasons to give. This is the kind of direct mail appeal that will tend to cut through the clutter and attract attention.

    A pack like this will of course cost more than the mailings you send to regular donors. But to reach mid-value donors and cultivate them, it’s important to focus not on cutting costs but on maximizing revenue. There may be areas in your fundraising where it makes sense to pinch pennies, but not here. A cheap direct mail appeal for mid value donors is likely to fail. But a higher-quality appeal that communicates the exclusivity, personal attention, insider status, and insider information that mid-level donors expect is likely to succeed and generate the revenue you want.

  • Should you do a year-end fundraising appeal?

    Yes, and here’s why.

    It’s one of the easiest appeals to create. And it can be one of the biggest revenue producers of the year. About 30 percent of most nonprofits’ revenue comes in between Giving Tuesday and December 31. At year end, donors are looking for a place to give. That place could be and should be your nonprofit.

    The messaging for the appeal is usually pretty straightforward, emphasizing the Dec. 31 deadline  and how your donor’s gift will help your nonprofit end the year strong and begin the New Year strong.

    The design of the appeal should be equally simple and straightforward. No need to go overboard on photos and graphics. In most cases, simple is best for year end.

    And don’t forget email. A lot of online giving happens in the last three or four days of the year. Your emails can and should be showing up in your donors’ inboxes, so that they can support the good work your nonprofit is doing.

    For more on year end fundraising, see Best Practices for Year-End Fundraising (nonprofitpro.com)

  • The offer in fundraising

    In direct response fundraising, what’s an offer?

    Is it like the offer in commercial direct marketing, or is it completely different?

    Why does the offer matter?

    Is it really the most important thing in a letter appeal or email appeal, as some say?

    If you include an offer in an appeal, won’t that just make your fundraising seem too transactional?

    Is the offer just an exchange of money for outcomes, or does it do more to actually motivate and inspire donors to give?

    Sure, an offer may work in a letter, but what if you’re more interested in your nonprofit’s brand. An offer doesn’t have anything to do with that, does it?

    Good questions, all. Let’s take a closer look at some answers here: https://tinyurl.com/22e74ea4

  • When fundraising is too cautious for its own good

    You can just see the fundraising team around a conference table trying to create an appeal that doesn’t draw any complaints, doesn’t raise even one hackle, doesn’t offend in any way, real or imagined.

    And the result is this:

    For many of our community members, living without shelter can be traumatic and dangerous.

    That’s the first line of the email. Talk about stating the obvious. “Living without shelter can be traumatic”? The only possible response to that generalization would be “no kidding.”

    It continues:

    And in the summertime, extreme temperatures make the experience even more perilous.

    Another obvious point, made even less impactful by the cautious, corporate-memo-style phrasing. But there’s more going on here. So, being homeless is an “experience” now? And in the summer, it’s “perilous”? That’s an understatement. In the southern part of the country where this nonprofit operates, the temperatures are in triple digits, have been for weeks, and will continue to be. For someone who’s out on the street, that must feel like living on the surface of the sun. You would bake out there. And even if you could find some piece of shade, it’s so hot that it would feel like the life is being drained right out of you. “Perilous” doesn’t begin to cover it.

    It continues:

    Neighbors will face the risk of dehydration, heat exposure, and worse… 

    Actually, they’ll die. Their hearts will stop beating, and they’ll die from the heat. As many homeless people do. Just as, in the winter months, homeless people freeze to death.

    It continues.

    That’s why I am writing to you today. This is a critical time of need in our community. Our community members without permanent shelter are looking for friends to stand up and help make summer not only bearable, but hopeful too.  

    A couple things going on here and in previous paragraphs. Referring to someone who’s homeless as a “community member” or as “living without shelter” or as “community members without permanent shelter” or as “neighbors” just wouldn’t ring true for donors, either when it comes to what they might know about homelessness or what they might presume about it. These are obvious, hollow euphemisms.

    Imagine you’re a donor, and you see a homeless man picking in a trash can for a half-eaten hamburger, do you think “Oh, there’s a community member without permanent shelter” or do you think “that man is homeless, he’s hurting, he deserves help”?

    Of course there are real concerns about ‘otherizing’ the beneficiaries of a nonprofit in fundraising, and they’re valid. But when those concerns result in bland, cautious, and sterile fundraising, it’s a problem.

    It’s a problem because it fails to convey the actual lived reality of the very people that the nonprofit hopes the donor will help. And in the end, that’s a disservice to the purpose of fundraising and to the people who need help. And it’s a disservice to donors, who want to accept the reality of a social ill like homelessness, confront it, and make a difference for the people caught up in it.

  • When disaster fundraising works and when it doesn’t

    If you haven’t already, you’ll probably soon receive a barrage of emails appealing to you for donations to help the victims of the horrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria. This is of course a worthy cause. The need is overwhelming. And the rest of the world should do everything possible to help.

    Which makes this email subject line so puzzling. Here it is:

    “How we’re saving lives in Turkey right now.”

    Huh.

    Then in the email itself, there’s this headline:

    “How we’re saving lives in Turkey right now.”

    Double huh.

    Imagine you’re a potential donor. What’s your reaction to that line? Mine is that it looks like they’re got everything covered. Time to move onto the next email in the inbox.

    With that subject line and headline, I’m left completely out of this as a potential donor. And that’s too bad.

    Because the quake zone is total devastation. Tens of thousands killed. Survivors left without shelter, food, sanitation. The risk of cholera and other diseases. It’s destruction on a mass scale.

    However much this nonprofit has done, it’s a drop in the bucket. There’s sooooo much more to do. They need my donation. And I want to give it. But they’re not making it easy. They’re not engaging me. In fact, they’re suggesting that I’m not needed.

    The text of the email begins by referencing the death and destruction. But in the second paragraph, it reiterates the work that the charity is doing. Again, giving the impression that they’ve got this covered and don’t need my gift.

    This is followed by a bulleted list. But it’s not a list of what needs to be done. It’s a list of what they’re already doing. Further on in the email, it says that their teams do whatever it takes.

    Granted, there is a donate button with the words “Rush your gift.” But still, the messaging has an inside-our-four-walls, organizational framing, not a donor-centric one. There’s a lot of “we,” “us,” and “look at what we’re doing,” instead of “you” and “here’s how you can help.”

    Of course this email will probably raise a lot of money. That’s the thing with disaster fundraising. It often does well even if it’s done badly, because donors are generous people who do want to help. Still, donors want to be involved. They want to feel like their support is needed. So instead of making it about what the nonprofit is already doing, it should be more about how much you, the donor, is urgently needed now to save lives. Messaging along those lines can raise even more revenue. Which would save even more lives.

  • How to keep your donors interested in your fundraising appeal

    It’s the age-old problem: how to engage the readers of your direct-response fundraising appeal to, first, start reading and then to continue reading.

    Luckily, we have some tips from Clarification blog:

    • Talk less about us (the nonprofit) and more about you (the donor).
    • Use shorter paragraphs to make copy more inviting and easier to read.
    • Don’t stop at a compelling headline or subject line. Also consider the subheads, the PS, the salutation, and other components to keep readers engaged.
    • Use a metaphor to paint a picture for your readers.
    • Use quotations but keep them short, so they’re more likely to be read.

    These are all good tips.

    But there’s one additional aspect to good copywriting to add to this list. It’s vital if you want to keep readers motivated, and that’s using transitions.

    Transitions are invaluable if you want to keep your readers moving from one paragraph to the next like a slinky toy going down stairs.

    And in linking your paragraphs together, transitions also make a piece of copy seem like a coherent, crafted whole – a good thing.

    The transitions to use? There are an infinite number, limited only by your imagination. But some that are frequently used include phrases like “that’s just the beginning,” “and don’t forget this,” “and here’s the point,” “we’re not done yet,” “what does this mean to you?” and many, many others.

    Using transitions is one of the best ways to help ensure that your readers take in your complete fundraising message. And that’s your best chance of moving them to give.

  • What’s AI got to do with copywriting? Not much …

    All the talk about AI for copywriting serves to highlight a basic misunderstanding of what copywriting is and what it isn’t.

    What AI bots do is produce content. That’s not copywriting. Copywriting – whether for commercial marketing or fundraising – is NOT about producing content. If it were simply about that, then AI might have a place. But it’s not. And it doesn’t.

    Copywriting is about persuasion. And because of that, it relies heavily on the rhetorical triangle. Yes, Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle.

    He tells us that persuasion consists of three basic things:

    Ethos – this is about the writer and his or her credibility — which is essential for your prospect to accept and believe your argument.

    Pathos – this is the emotional aspect and how you tap into your prospect’s feelings.

    Logos – this is the logical argument, the left-brain part.

    The secret to the rhetorical triangle is how you use it. Depending on you, your purpose, and your audience, you could use just one part of the triangle (say, pathos), you could use two parts (say, pathos and ethos), or you could use all three.

    Or you could use two and emphasize one over the other in your copy. You could use all three and emphasize two of the three over the third. You get the idea. Point is, there are lots of variations here.

    And that IS the point. Because there are lots of variations, creativity is involved. Creativity in which of the rhetorical aspects you use in a given project. Creativity in how you choose to express ethos, pathos, or logos (lots and lots of options here). Creativity in how you put all of it together. And creativity in how you craft it into a cohesive whole.

    Copywriting is made up of the many, many decisions the writer makes with regard to all this. Some of these decisions are based on education, experience, and training. Some are based on intuition. Some are based on esthetic sense. Some are done consciously and some subconsciously. All these considerations come into play and combine to make up an effective piece of copywriting.

    No, copywriting isn’t about producing content. That’s because an effective piece of copywriting isn’t just content. It’s one human being who is appealing to and connecting emotionally with another human being. No bot, regardless of how sophisticated, can do that.

  • The envelope teaser

    The burning question in direct mail fundraising?

    Should you use a teaser for the outside envelope of your next appeal, or not?

    Some say the plain, blank envelope is the best ‘teaser,’ a no-teaser kind of teaser.

    But if you use a blank envelope to ‘trick’ people into opening it, and if the appeal isn’t something the donor wants or cares about, and they just toss it, then what have you really gained?

    That’s why the opposing camp suggests using a teaser in order to set the stage for the donor and get her interested in what the appeal is all about, so that when she opens the envelope, she’s ready for something that’s relevant and interesting.

    Along those lines, there are three basic types of teasers that work.

    There’s the offer teaser.

    There’s the benefit teaser.

    And there’s the curiosity teaser.

    To get the whole story – including specific examples for each kind of teaser – visit https://tinyurl.com/ew65trr3

  • How to raise more funds with storytelling

    There’s a lot of talk about storytelling in fundraising, and it’s easy to get the idea that all you have to do is throw in a story about a beneficiary to create an appeal that does gangbusters.

    It’s not that simple, of course. The storytelling in an appeal is of a specific type with certain requirements and restrictions. On the other hand, storytelling for a newsletter tends to follow what we would usually think of as a typical narrative, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

    And that’s where this post about improving your storytelling with playwriting techniques can come in handy.

    The first thing to consider is the basic structure of a plot.

    • The beginning, where we meet the characters and hopefully being to feel a connection with them.
    • The middle, where a problem or challenge is encountered.
    • The end, where the problem or challenge is overcome, and the protagonist is changed in some way. And the donor is given the credit.

    The next thing to consider is how to flesh out the characters in the story:

    • What does each character want?
      What are the conflicts involved?
    • What are the obstacles?
    • What are the consequences to a particular character’s actions?

    Naturally, for a newsletter story it’s not necessary to answer all of these questions, but they do provide a starting point for thinking about the characters who make up your story and how to add more depth to them in order to bring them to life for readers.

    One more thing to consider is the quotations you use in your story. You can think of the quotations as a character speaking directly with the reader in a sort-of dialogue. So it’s better when the quotations reveal something about the character and his or her motivations, rather than just reinforcing the previous point in the story. This too can add more depth to the story.

    These are some of the basics, but there’s lots more to good storytelling. Still, storytelling isn’t a panacea for ineffective fundraising, but it is a powerful part of connecting with donors on an emotional level. Let your donors feel what the beneficiaries of your nonprofit feel. Let your donors relate to their lives, instead of thinking of them as somehow separate. Let your donors into their world. That’s what will engage your donors, and a heartfelt story is one of the best ways to do it.