“You”.
Aside from “thanks”, “you” is likely one of the most important words in your direct mail letter. And that’s “you” as in ‘you the donor’. Get out your highlighter folks.
For those of you who might care, here is a quick tutorial on how I produced these video’s this week.
and lastly- Seth Godin speaks very appropriately for this post on why no one cares about – you – they only care about them.
JL
Don’t ‘we’ all over your copy is a mantra that people should remember when drafting their next fundraising letter.
A letter developed by the Starlight Children’s Foundation in Australia recently had 50 (that’s right 50) uses of the words I/you in a 4 page letter.
It doubled income from the previous year.
Not just because of that – this was one in a number of classic DM principles that were followed. But making it personal using colloquial language is a must.
Wonderful people (donors) couldn’t give a toss about internal stuff, they want to hear from a person (not bricks and mortar).
The letter needs to read like a letter, not a brochure. Best way to test this is to read it aloud. Its uncomfortable, but it works.
Anyway well done on your series this week.
JG
Hey Jonathon! Thanks for sharing that. Frankly I was disturbed at how many letters in that stack on mail that i had barely used the word “you” – people need to stop blaming their lousy returns on the recession and look at the basics.
This is very interesting for people to visually see the difference between letters that are really focused on the organization and ones that take the time to speak to the donor in a more personalized way and make them feel special. I think we all have to remind ourselves about this basic principle every once in awhile.
Tara