Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic

Tag: fundraising

  • 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.

  • 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.