Sign the letter, pretty please

File under: "It doesn't sound like me!"

Someone signs the appeal. Their signature does NOT entitle them to a rewrite.

What to do if your intended signatory spits on your competent appeal? In a perfect world, you'd just find another signer; someone who'd let you do your job. Alas....


 

Let's be coldly clinical:

Why DOES a direct-mail appeal need a signature?

Because that final scrawl is often the warmest, most personal thing in the entire letter. Everything else is typeset. But that signature? That's evidence of a human presence. That's a bootprint on the moon. That's real. Especially if it's in blue ink instead of black.

Does it matter WHO exactly signs the appeal?

Again, coldly clinical: not really  ... unless a celebrity like Taylor Swift is on board. Environmental charities, for instance, have had sweet success with turtles, salamanders, hummingbirds and other anthropomorphs as signatories.

What DOES matter a teensy bit is maybe the signer's title.

You want the top person in your org. to talk to potential donors. When the boss signs? That certifies at a glance that this particular appeal is TRULY vital to the mission. PLUS it flatters the reader (and, as neuroscience discovered, flattery WILL get you somewhere).

But what if your designated signer balks, arguing: "This doesn't sound like me."

Oh, dear.

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Been there, done that ... more than once. More than thrice. It's the problem that never stops being a problem ... because the untrained can still/might/yet infest nonprofit boards and C-suites.

It happens to vulnerable newbies. It also happens to some of today's best-trained copywriters.

One recent example, from hyper-competent, road-tested colleagues ... a few weeks ago: the new, in-charge, get up and go CEO at a favorite charity REJECTED the new appeal on the grounds that "it doesn't sound like me."

Was the appeal technically competent?

Absolutely. Of course it was. It was built to succeed. Every word, every phrase, every hook, every call to action was there for a reason. It was as solid as such things can be, following international best practices and current research into why people really give.

But this new CEO (unschooled in direct mail fundraising) would NOT sign the letter unless heavy revisions were made to make it "sound more like me."

And then he drew his red pen from his holster....


The problem, as I see it


Without training, no one can understand the peculiar demands of direct-mail fundraising.

For one thing, direct mail is entirely about response rates ... which tend to be small and fragile. On your best days.

Therefore, dear bosses, you should know: Your cherished "true voice" doesn't matter at all to response. No one cares about your "voice" other than your mirror or the noses your breath blows into.

To repeat: NO ONE CARES. Successful direct-mail fundraising is HIGHLY technical ... and your "true voice" is not even on the top-20 checklist. (Would you like a tissue?)

Ungraciously, one more time: the letter-signer's true voice is irrelevant to results.

There are one-in-a-million exceptions.

Across decades I've encountered a couple of charismatic bosses in nonprofit land who have raised serious money with their distinctive "voice."

It's rare, though. Almost no one has that strange gift. It requires humility and what's been called "the common touch."

So....

Frankly, my dear? (to steal from Gone with the Wind) ~ "It doesn't sound like me" simply will NOT matter to your charity's fundraising results. No one will have noticed your missing voice ... except, well, I guess ... you and your best-friend mirror. And the partner who has to smilingly push breath mints your way.


A sort-of solution ... for copywriters?

Before you write the appeal: interview the signatory.

Find out: How DOES she/he talk?

After all, in the case cited above. Surprise, surprise....

The new boss IS passionate. Down to earth. Plain-spoken. Committed. Persuasive. Visionary.

He's no jargon-hobbled egoist.

So maybe there IS a way to combine THIS new leader's real voice with the technical demands of direct-mail appeals.

Spoiler alert: YES! ... of course there is.

PS, though: She/he still doesn't get to rewrite the appeal. CEO rewrites are a recipe for lowered returns.
 

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