In praise of copying the "good stuff"
File under: Tip #1 ~ Copy better stuff
Stealing well
Above: A nudge from CFPA, one of my favorite comms innovators. I'm a CFPA monthly donor, in part because I like their hiking trails, in part because I don't want to miss anything they dream up. (Why the voice balloon, you ask? This is a training slide from a webinar.)
Relax.
Your donor comms don't have to be brilliant from the get go. But you DO have to steal from good sources.
Picasso said (or was said to have said): "Bad artists copy. Great artists steal." Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs, supposedly restated it: "Good artists copy. Great artists steal." Someone else said: "Copy first. Then originate." In other words: tracing over a copy of the Mona Lisa won't make you Leonardo da Vinci ... but you'll learn a lot in the process, even so.
In praise of copying: Until you can do it yourself, imitate what's already working. (You'll learn about such winners in this e-news, for instance.)
Just make sure the thing you're imitating actually worked. If it was a year-end appeal to current donors, for instance, what was your response rate compared to the previous year? If it was an email, what percentage opened it? How were your click-through rates? (There are nonprofit industry benchmarks.)
How many people watched your 1-minute video, announced in this "gotta take a peek" postcard?
Note: In 2024, billionaire philanthropist, MacKenzie Scott, awarded CATA $2 million. More than 6,300 nonprofits applied in 2024. CATA was among only 250 to land the prize, and CATA's award was among the largest given nationwide. You might want to watch CATA's full 15-minute video as well as the 1-minute trailer. They are amazing, inspiring productions.
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Maybe my earliest introduction to donor communications was a mound of newsletters issued by various U.S. community foundations.
There must have been 30 of the beasts. I was asked to grade them. In my trained view, maybe one earned a "C." There were a couple of "D"s. Most, though, were built to fail: a waste of the foundation's time and money, squandering precious attention spans.
Leading the list of grave missteps: headlines that didn't meet basic journalistic standards. Plus wholesale bragging. Plus donor indifference.
Below: A training slide explaining the difference between a functional and a dysfunctional headline.
What was clear from reviewing 30 newsletters at one time? They'd borrowed each other's bad ideas — for the front page, for the boss' column, for offers, for photos, for the tone. Unasked: "How did it do?" They borrowed from the weakest, not the fittest ... and couldn't tell the difference.
Study success. Before you copy, ask: "How did it do?"
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Dear Reader: This is an excerpt from Tom Ahern’s e-newsletter. Did you miss crucial back issues of this how-to e-news? Immediately available! Just GO here. (And scroll down just a bit to sign up for Tom’s revenue-boosting tips and insights. In your inbox regularly. It’s free.)