|
|
|
Alan Sharpe - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Alan Sharpe is a a fundraising practitioner, author, trainer and speaker. Through his books, handbooks and workshops, Alan helps not-for-profit organizations worldwide to acquire more donors, raise more funds and build stronger relationships. As the Director of Direct Development with The Gideons International In Canada, Alan manages their direct mail, major gifts and planned giving programs.
[View Alan Sharpe's Extended Author Bio]
[Display Categories] Sort By [Title] [Newest] [Oldest]
- Donation Letter Reply Devices - Four Ways to Make Your Fundraising Letter Reply Coupons Effective
[Business:Fundraising] Successful direct mail donation letters contain three things: a compelling case for support, a request for funds (the "ask"), and a response device. The case is the Incentive. The ask is the Imperative.
- Donation Request Letters - Why a Convicted Felon Should Write Your Next Fundraising Letter
[Business:Fundraising] I know a man who spent 21 years in maximum security prisons. A product of rape born in an abandoned building, he was incarcerated at age eight into Canada's most violent and brutal reform school. He became a chronic runaway, then a gang leader, then a drug king-pin.
- Online Fundraising - Are These Four Vital Words on Your Non Profit Fund Raising Website?
[Business:Fundraising] Your success at online fundraising depends on four words. If you want to acquire members and donors, raise funds and encourage others to advocate for your cause, these four words must appear on your website.
- Online Fundraising - Your Website Visitors Want to Get Engaged
[Business:Fundraising] The non-profit organizations who raise the most money online use their websites to engage visitors. This is a vital step in raising money online. It's not enough just to have a Donate Now button. You have to have a website that actually encourages people to do something on your website and get involved in some way.
- Direct Mail Fundraising Letters - Should You Mail a Reminder Or Follow-Up Letter?
[Business:Fundraising] Just so everyone is clear, we're talking here about a "reminder letter" or "follow-up" letter that a non-profit mails a few weeks after sending out a major appeal. The reminder letter is mailed only to donors who have not responded to the first appeal, and "reminds" them about the need discussed in the earlier mailing, and asks them to respond with a donation.
- Is Your Returned Fundraising Letter Mail Costing You $481 a Piece?
[Business:Fundraising] You have a costly problem with returned mail. All non-profit organizations do. You mail perfectly nice letters to donors who have supported your cause for years, and then, one day, without so much as a by-your-leave their mail comes back to you marked RETURN TO SENDER.
- Help Your Lettershop Bungle Your Direct Mail Fundraising Letter Campaign
[Business:Fundraising] I know from reliable sources that the Mr. Murphy who coined Murphy's Law ("If something can go wrong, it will") worked as an account manager at a lettershop. After leaving his position of direct mail fundraising manager at a national charity. After all, in what other line of work, other than, say, launching a space shuttle, could you meddle with so many small details to sabotage your mailing? Murphy knew every way to mess up a direct mail appeal, but he had his favourites. Here they are. Follow these fun steps to compromise donor confidentiality, increase the chances for mistakes, and boost your volume of nixies and undeliverable mail...
- Do Your Donation Request Letters Speak to Someone Or to Everyone?
[Business:Fundraising] The secret to success in direct mail fundraising is to write to an individual, not to a list. Write to someone, not to everyone. Take this short quiz to discover if your appeal letters are personal or impersonal.
- Free Sample Donation Thank You Letter For a Fundraising Gift Or Contribution
[Business:Fundraising] The most important letters in direct mail fundraising never ask for a donation. Thank-you letters increase donor loyalty, strengthen relationships and increase your chances of receiving more gifts in the future, including major gifts and legacy gifts.
- Send Donation Thank-You Letters, Cards and Notes Quickly in Direct Mail Fundraising
[Business:Fundraising] The most important thing about your donation thank-you letters is not what you say or how you say it but how quickly you say it. According to Stephen Hitchcock in Open Immediately!, for many donors, a brief thank-you note pre-printed with just the amount and date of the gift can be more effective than long-winded thank-you letters that arrive long after the donor mailed you a gift.
- How to Write a Fundraising Thank-You Letter For Example (Includes a Free Sample)
[Business:Fundraising] Thank-you letters are one of the most important letters that your non-profit mails to donors. They increase donor loyalty, strengthen relationships with your donors and increase your chances of receiving more gifts in the future. So here are some pointers for writing effective thank-you letters.
- In Fundraising, Do Not Watch Costs, But Cost Effectiveness
[Business:Fundraising] The metric to watch in fundraising is not cost. It's cost-effectiveness. We fundraisers have to spend money to make money. How much we spend, and when we spend it, and how we spend it, should be determined not by some arbitrary number on our budget but by the return we anticipate from spending that money.
- How to Find and Identify Wealthy Major Gift Donors in Fundraising
[Business:Fundraising] The first step in major donor fundraising is identification. You must identify those individuals you think have the capacity to give a large gift, are connected to your organization in one way or another, and are concerned about your cause. Here are some ways to identify major gift prospects.
- Need Sample Direct Mail Fundraising Letters? Donate to Your Competitors
[Business:Fundraising] One of the quickest ways to learn the craft of direct mail fundraising is to donate money to your strongest competitors. Pick the Top 10 organizations you admire and mail them a donation of at least $20. Then watch your mailbox. What you'll get is a correspondence course in raising money with paper and postage.
- Major Gift Fundraising Program Lessons
[Business:Fundraising] The main difference between direct mail fundraising and major gift fundraising is simple. Direct mail fundraising solicits small gifts from many people while major gift fundraising solicits large gifts from few people. One tactic solicits on paper, the other in person.
- Major Gift Fundraising - "Moves" Management is Key to Success
[Business:Fundraising] The key to securing large gifts from your donors is relationships. Relationships that are warm, professional and mutually beneficial. But how do you nurture or cultivate those relationships with prospective donors who have little or no connection with your organization and your cause? With a comprehensive moves management system.
- Do Direct Mail Fundraising Envelopes Need Teaser Copy?
[Business:Fundraising] Which pulls better, an outer envelope dressed in the fashions of the day or a naked envelope? If I have the courage, and the approval of the board, I will test this with my next mailing.
- Direct Mail Fundraising Letter Length - Six Ways Not to Decide Their Length
[Business:Fundraising] How long should your next fundraising letter be? One page? Two pages? Six pages? What is the correct length for a direct mail appeal?
- Reduce Your Direct Mail Fundraising Letter Costs and Attrition Rates With NCOA on Your Next Appeal
[Business:Fundraising] What would you do if I broke into your office at midnight, sat down at your computer, and jumbled the mailing addresses of 1,200 of your current donors so they became undeliverable? You'd be upset. My actions would cost you plenty.
- In Direct Mail Fundraising Appeal Letters, Don't Ask For the Donation Or Gift
[Business:Fundraising] f your donation request letters are typical, you repeat yourself throughout your letters by asking the donor to give or to donate, to mail you a gift or a donation. My advice, which bears repeating, is to stop, um, repeating yourself so much. Juggle things up a bit. Here's how.
- Christmas Fundraising Letters - Make Your Direct Mail Appeal Original But Contemporary at Year End
[Business:Fundraising] If your non-profit organization is typical, your direct mail program raises 50 percent of its revenue with one mailing-the Christmas appeal. More people give more money to the "Holiday Season" letter than they give to any other single mailing all year. Your goal this Christmas is to persuade these generous donors to give again. Here's how.
- In Direct Mail Fundraising Letters and Appeals, Use Present Tense to Increase Donations
[Business:Fundraising] Presenting tomorrows possibilities and yesterdays news in the present tense makes news stories more forceful. Removing conditional phrases (can, may, might) from sentences also makes them stronger. Same goes for fundraising letters.
- Direct Mail Donor Acquisition - How to Ask For the Right Amount With Prospect Fundraising Letters
[Business:Fundraising] How much should you ask a person to donate if they have never donated before? If you ask for a large gift, they will not give. And if you ask for a small gift, they will give. But maybe if you ask for a gift that's larger than your small ask but smaller than your large ask, you'll also get a donation. If you ask for an amount that generates a huge response, you'll likely agonize that maybe you could have asked for just a little bit more and got it.
- Back-End Premiums in Direct Mail Fundraising Letters - Think Twice Before Offering
[Business:Fundraising] Yes, your goal with offering a front-end premium is to boost net revenue. But offering a book or DVD or other incentive affects more than just your short-term bottom line.
- With Donor Database Fundraising Software, it Pays to Be Exclusive in Data Entry
[Business:Fundraising] The most valuable thing in direct mail fundraising isn't your donors, but your donor data. Your building could burn down this afternoon, and all your staff could quit, and you'd still be able to recover if your donor data remained intact. But if you lose your donor data, you lose, period.
- Direct Mail Fundraising Letter Tests - Eight Rules For Successful Donation Package Testing
[Business:Fundraising] The best way to improve your direct mail fundraising program is through testing. Don't follow fads, board whims, or a gut feeling that turns out to be indigestion. Instead, test. And, to save money and time (and further indigestion), follow these eight rules.
- Look For Connection, Not Cash, in Prospective Direct Mail Donors If Writing Donation Request Letters
[Business:Fundraising] The most important quality to look for in a potential direct mail donor is a connection with your cause. You shouldn't be looking for millionaires, or billionaires. Direct mail fundraising works by soliciting small gifts from lots of people regularly. Even retired folks can give you a small gift.
- Lapsed Direct Mail Donors Respond Better Than New Donors in Fundraising Letter Appeal Mailings
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Lapsed donors and expired members are usually better prospects for a donation than cold lists. A direct mail appeal sent to people who have not given a donation in the last 12 months or 24 months or even 36 months is likely to generate a higher response rate and a higher average gift than a similar appeal mailed to a list of non-donor names that you rent.
- Direct Mail Fundraising - Boost Response By Not Including A Reply Envelope
[Business:Fundraising] Asking for a donation in every single thing you mail your donors (and a reply envelope asks for a donation, however subtly) is wrong-headed. You and I are in the friend-raising business. And friends who are always looking to their friends for money soon find themselves looking for other friends.
- Special Events Fundraising - Estimate Bigger Budget, Smaller Income When Planning
[Business:Fundraising] Special events are a great way to raise money. And a great way to lose money, too. So if you lack experience planning and hosting special events, or if your non-profit organization does not have a particularly high profile in your community, you should plan on your budget being big and your income being small. In other words, you should overestimate your costs and underestimate your income.
- Major Donors Prefer To Donate Online Rather Than By Direct Mail Says Internet Fundraising Survey
[Business:Fundraising] The majority of major donors prefer online giving over direct mail. In a survey conducted by Convio, Sea Change Strategies and Edge Research, 51 percent of survey respondents said online giving is their preferred channel, compared with 30 percent who said they prefer giving by mail. These "wired wealthy" donors prefer their mouse over the mail for a number of reasons.
- Monthly Giving Programs - Seven Benefits Of Preauthorized EFT Giving In Fundraising
[Business:Fundraising] According to the folks who make Donor Perfect, the fundraising software, 28% of donors say they would probably or definitely consider making recurring donations if this method of giving was offered. So why not offer it? Here are seven reasons to start a monthly giving program.
- Will Direct Mail Fundraising Work for You? Test and Find Out
[Business:Fundraising] Direct mail fundraising is like proposing marriage. You won't discover if it works for your organization and your cause unless you ask. And you do that with a direct mail test. You craft your case for support, your write and design a strong donor acquisition package, you rent a list (preferably many lists) of potential donors, and you ask a small group of people on that list to marry you, sort of.
- Online Fundraising - Attract Donors with Search Engine Optimization
[Business:Fundraising] Like every other charity, you want a high ranking on the search engines. Unfortunately, many charity websites appear poorly in search engine rankings-or not at all-because they are not written and designed to take advantage of how search engines work. So how do search engines rank your web pages?
- Direct Mail Fundraising Letters - Mail an Envelope, Not a Postcard
[Business:Fundraising] I have on my desk a direct mail fundraising envelope that I have never opened. And never will. Perhaps you can learn a lesson from its failings. The offending article was mailed by the Canadian Red Cross. It is a full-colour envelope, 6.5 inches wide and 5.75 inches tall, with a window. The envelope promotes the organization's lottery. This envelope fails most of the tests in my book. Here's why.
- Your Non-Profit Donor Newsletter Has Just One Reader Where Fundraising is Concerned
[Business:Fundraising] When you write your donor newsletter stories, do you write to one reader at a time? One person writing to another? Or do you make the common newsletter mistake of writing from "us" to "them?" Direct mail donors are individuals. They donate as individuals. And they read your newsletters as individuals.
- Make Your Direct Mail Sales Letters More Powerful with More Personalization Says Consultant
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The easiest way to increase your direct mail response rates is to make your packages more personal. Given the choice between reading a flyer and reading a hand-written note from a friend, most people will read the personal note first. Here are some ways to make your direct mail packages more personal.
- Fundraising Donor Newsletters - Show The Person Behind The Story, and The Story Behind The Person
[Business:Fundraising] The quickest way to improve your donor newsletters is to start seeing your world in story form. Behind every person there is a story. And behind every story there is a person. Your job is to uncover both. Your donors want to read about people, not projects. So write about people. Show photographs of people. Let me give you an example of what to avoid.
- Boost Donor Newsletter Readership With Great Photos in Your Fundraising Print and Email Newsletters
[Business:Fundraising] Your fundraising newsletter will attract more readers, raise more funds and retain more donors when you publish outstanding photographs. Photographs are the most important images you can feature in your donor newsletter. Good photos make your newsletter pages more interesting.
- Writing Effective Business Reports in Five Simple Steps
[Business:Workplace-Communication] Samuel Johnson once said that "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." Writing is hard work. It's laborious. Writing, especially business report writing, is more than just putting words down on paper. It's a process. The writing process includes all the activities-thinking, writing, discussing and revising-that take place as you write a business report. Master the five steps in the process and you will write effective business reports.
- Online Fundraising Donation Pages and Forms Must Answer Donor's 3 Questions at Your Website
[Business:Fundraising] Do you use direct mail fundraising letters to drive donors to your website to make their donations? If you do, make sure your website donation page answers the three most common questions asked by donors.
- Online Fundraising - Four Deadly Blunders to Avoid with Website and Email Fund Raising
[Business:Fundraising] The good news is that 62 percent of adults visit a non-profit's website before donating (according to a recent online survey conducted by Harris Interactive). That's also the bad news. For many non-profits, the quickest way they can scare away donors is to direct them to the organization's website. Too many non-profit websites are making blunders that discourage donors from browsing, donating, volunteering or referring others to the site. Here are four common blunders, and how to avoid them.
- Writing Business Letters, Proposals, Reports - Omit Needless Words Says Online Writing Course Coach
[Business:Workplace-Communication] William Strunk wrote a short, valuable essay on the need to omit needless words: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." Here are some examples of wordy and redundant phrases, and ways to shorten them, so that your business writing becomes tighter and clearer.
- How To Write Effective Business Letter Proposals When Writing At Work, Contemporary Or Formal
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] Do your letter proposals generate business? Or do they often miss the mark? I've learned that letter proposals must do four things. Incorporate these four steps into every letter proposal and you'll see improvements.
- Reduce Your Direct Mail Fundraising Costs by Mailing Less Often to Those Who Give Less
[Business:Fundraising] The secret to reducing your direct mail fundraising costs is counterintuitive, like fertilizer. Next time you're out in the boonies, watch as a farmer spreads fertilizer over his field. As he passes over the parts of his field that always produce the smallest yield, he spreads little or no fertilizer. As he passes over those parts of his field that traditionally deliver the highest yield, he pours the fertilizer on thick.
- In Public Speaking, Use Eye Contact to Show You Honestly Care
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] Want to learn a vital lesson in public speaking from the CIA? Make eye contact with your listeners. Failure to make eye contact is often a sign of deceit, says Lindsay Moran, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and author of Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy. Another expert, Derrick Parker, who served with the New York Police Department for 20 years, agrees that shifty eyes are evidence of a shifty nature. So make eye contact with your audience, frequently and sincerely.
- Direct Mail Fundraising Letters - 41 Things You Can Mail to Donors
[Business:Marketing-Direct] A fundraising letter fanatic is someone who thinks the only thing you can mail a donor is a fundraising letter. But that's just one of more than 40 things you can mail to make friends and raise funds using paper and postage.
- Writing Effective Business Letters - How to Organize Your Thoughts Before You Write
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] Your business letters, to be effective, must be organized, clear, direct and short. Writing letters with these qualities takes time (at first) and effort. Before you begin writing the letter, organize what you want to say. The simplest way to organize your thoughts is to arrange them around three characteristics...
- Direct Mail Fundraising Programs - Five Vital Signs that You're Healthy
[Business:Marketing-Direct] I spent last night visiting two hospitals with my four-year-old son, Spencer. I noticed that the staff at each hospital took the same vital signs (pulse, oxygen saturation, temperature, breathing) to determine Spencer's health. Nurses and doctors miles apart, working for different hospitals, on different shifts, knew the same things to look for to determine the health of their patient. You must do the same with your direct mail fundraising program. Here are the five vital signs to watch for to make sure your program is healthy, and remains healthy.
- In Public Speaking, Prepare Longest for the Shortest Speeches and Business Presentations
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] Experience will soon teach you that the shorter your speech, the longer you must prepare. Provided you respect your subject and your audience, that is. This is especially true of important talks, such as college commencement addresses and graveside eulogies. The more important the occasion, and the less time you have to talk, the more time you must take to prepare.
- Direct Mail Fundraising Success Depends on Strong Case for Support in Donation Request Letters
[Business:Fundraising] The secret to raising funds with direct mail appeal letters is not found in what you say or in how you say it but in why you say it. Success is found not in technique but in truth. The truth of your case for support. That's why, before you write a word of your fundraising letter you must state your case for why a donor should support you.
- Be Confident Public Speaking by Mastering a Simple Three-Point Outline
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] Human beings use threes to conceptualize everything. So if you want to deliver a speech that is both easy to follow and easy to remember, divide your talk into three parts-beginning, middle, end-using the outline feature in Microsoft Word. There are three advantages to doing so.
- Boost Fundraising Letter Response Rates With Creative Business Reply Envelopes in Donation Appeals
[Business:Fundraising] When was the last time you agonized over what to put on your business reply envelope? If you're like most non-profit organizations, your BRE never changes. You mail the same BRE with every direct mail fundraising letter. But maybe you should re-think the humble BRE.
- Business Report Writing - Improve Your Skills With This Checklist And Tips
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] Business reports are usually written to address a problem. So make sure that after you've investigated the problem, gathered your facts and presented your recommendations, you don't create more problems by leaving mistakes in your business report. Get first-class results when writing your business reports by checking your reports in three ways before you hand them in.
- Sales and Business Presentations - Key to Persuasion in Public or Corporate Speaking is Credibility
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] If you want to be more persuasive in your sales presentations, business meetings and speeches, work on your credibility. You can't sell anyone anything, not even an idea, if you are not believable, or credible.
- Public Speaking Tip - Don't End Your Speech or Business Presentation With Questions
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] People tend to remember the first thing you say and the last thing you say. So make sure the last thing you say is what you want the audience to remember. Don't make the mistake I did and let an audience member conclude your speech for you with a tough or inappropriate or embarrassing question.
- Donor Newsletters - Four Things Donors Demand from Non-Profit and Fundraising Organizations
[Business:Fundraising] You can save serious money by making your donor newsletter the kind that donors want to read. Here are the four things that today's donors demand in a donor newsletter.
- Writing Effective Business Proposals - Top 10 Tips on How to Write a Winning Proposal
[Writing-and-Speaking:Writing] You want their business but you misspelt their company name in your proposal. Should you expect to sign the contract? Mistakes in your proposals cost you time, money and business. Take these steps toward letter-perfect proposals.
- Fundraising Letter Writing Tips From Reader's Digest for Successful Donation Request Letters
[Business:Fundraising] If your donor has the choice of reading your fundraising letter of reading the latest issue of Reader's Digest, which one will she read? This is not a trick question. The competition for your donor's attention has never been greater. If you want your donors and members to read your fundraising letters from start to finish, learn a few lessons from the editors at Reader's Digest, the largest-selling magazine in the world.
- Overcome Fear of Public Speaking in 21 Days by Mastering Your Anxiety and Phobia Through Preparation
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] The best time to conquer your fear of public speaking is during the 21 days before you give your speech. Like all public speakers, you are frightened of failure. You are nervous about standing in front of an audience and delivering a talk that tanks. That's why you need to take time to prepare. "A well-prepared speech," as Dale Carnegie liked to say, "is already nine-tenths delivered."
- Boost Your Direct Mail Fundraising Response Rates with Deadlines in Your Donation Request Letters
[Business:Fundraising] Plenty of perfectly nice donors with perfectly good intentions to donate will nevertheless procrastinate or get distracted, lay your fundraising letter aside to deal with tomorrow, but then forget. Which is why I recommend you give your donor a deadline for responding. You'll likely boost your response rate.
- Use Humor in Business Presentations and Speeches Says Executive Public Speaking Coach
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] How many blondes does it take to change a light bulb? Tell that joke during your next business presentation and you'll either win your audience or lose them. Maybe forever. Most jokes are suitable for some occasions and unsuitable for others. Few things are as painful as listening to a speaker tell a bad or tasteless joke. The speaker suffers, and so does the audience.
- Reduce Donor Attrition in Four Ways Says Direct Mail Fundraising Consultant
[Business:Fundraising] But some donors fall away because of something you do. Or don't do. Here are a few proven ways to keep your direct mail donors inspired, motivated and giving.
- In PowerPoint Business Presentations, Visual Aids Must Be Both (Be Visual and be an Aid)
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] I sat through a presentation where the speaker handed the audience a copy of his notes (his talk written out in full), projected those same notes onto a screen behind him, and then read word-for-word from his notes, and sometimes from the screen, which amounted to the same thing. The overall effect was deadly.
- Fear of Public Speaking Won't Vanish With Memorization Says Training Consultant
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] If you want to overcome your fear of speaking in public, learn a lesson from Winston Churchill. Long before he became prime minister of the United Kingdom, Churchill tried to overcome his public speaking jitters by writing out and memorizing his speeches.
- Attract More Donors With Direct Mail Donor Acquisition Fundraising Letters - Avoid These Mistakes
[Business:Fundraising] Acquiring donors with direct mail fundraising letters is complicated and time consuming, and expensive if you do it wrong. Here are five common mistakes to avoid.
- Build Your Direct Mail Fundraising Mailing List in Three Ways Says Direct Response Consultant
[Business:Fundraising] Your success as a direct mail fundraiser depends on the quality of your list. A mediocre letter mailed to the right list will outperform a terrific letter mailed to the wrong list. How you build that list is up to you. Here are three ways.
- Direct Mail Fundraising - How Donor Acquisition Mailings Differ from Donor Renewal Mailings
[Business:Fundraising] Your job as a direct mail fundraiser is to make new friends every and keep them for as long as possible. And to do that you need two kinds of letter, acquisition and renewal. Understand the differences between these two letters and you'll improve your results.
- Prevent Costly Direct Mail Donor Acquisition Blunders With Test Mailings
[Business:Marketing] Acquiring donors through direct mail is risky. So you should reduce your risks as much as possible by testing. There are two primary tests - lists and creative. You test who you mail to (lists) and you test what you say to those people (creative).
- Grant Proposals Must Promote Funder's Goals, Not Yours, in Grant Writing Fund Raising
[Business:Fundraising] The biggest mistake you can make as a non-profit organization seeking a grant is asking grant makers to fund something they will never fund. Doing so wastes a tremendous amount of your time and little of theirs because your proposal will land in the shredder without delay.
- In Donor Newsletters, Avoid Cliche Photos, Says Direct Mail Fundraising Letter Consultant
[Business:Fundraising] If you want to guarantee that your donors will ignore your newsletters, illustrate your stories with cliche photos. If you want to guarantee that your donors will ignore your newsletters, illustrate your stories with cliche photos. Here are the top four:
- In Direct Mail, Study Your Prospect More Than Your Product Says Direct Response Consultant
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Since your prospective customers care about themselves more than they care about you or what you are selling through the mail, your direct mail package should make your prospects the hero of your letters.
- Donor Newsletters Must Avoid Boring Stories in Direct Mail Fundraising
[Business:Fundraising] If you want to write, design and produce newsletters that attract donors, avoid these boring stories.
- Donor Newsletters Must be Newsworthy in Direct Mail Fundraising
[Business:Fundraising] The secret to publishing compelling donor newsletters is to only publish stories that are newsworthy to your donors. But how do you decide if a story is newsworthy? Take this simple test.
- Millionaires Are Generous Donors if Asked Properly in Major Gift Philanthropy
[Business:Fundraising] The good news is that millionaires give generously to causes that move them. Your job as a fundraiser is to find millionaires and then work with all your charm and might and passion to reduce their capacity to give. With the donor's full cooperation, of course.
- Not All Wealthy Donors Live In Upscale Neighbourhoods Says Direct Mail Fundraising Consultant
[Business:Fundraising] Many people who live in expensive homes in upscale neighborhoods do not have much wealth.
- Look for Tightwads, Not Millionaires in Direct Mail Donor Acquisition
[Business:Fundraising] Most first-generation millionaires are tightwads. They aren't rich because of how much they spend but because of how much they save. If you need to find millionaires who will donate a large sum of money to your non-profit organization, look for tightwads, not millionaires.
- Direct Mail Fundraising is a Program, Not a Series of Mailings or a Campaign, Says Consultant
[Business:Fundraising] If you want to attract donors, raise funds, retain donors and move donors up the giving pyramid, you need to get with the program, the direct mail fundraising program.
- Want to Double Your B2B Direct Mail Response Rates? Mail the Same Offer to the Same List Twice
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Some business-to-business
direct marketers have discovered that the same offer
mailed to the same list a second time produces
double the response of the initial mailing.
- Direct Mail Marketing Agency Says "Over, Please, with 'Over, Please . . .' in Sales Letters"
[Business:Marketing-Direct] When your direct mail sales letter is longer than one
page, should you write "Over, please . . ." or "Please
continue" at the bottom of the page? Of course
not.
- Database Direct Mail Fundraising - Improve Personalization With Detective Work, Says Consultant
[Business:Fundraising] Learn a tip from your local detectives the next time you examine your donor file. You can personalize your direct mail fundraising appeals in many creative ways when you pay attention to only the name, address and date of birth fields.
- Test Your Email Marketing Message on a Business Card First, Says Internet Marketing Consultant
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] Your enemy in business-to-business email marketing is the preview pane. Most individuals at work use the preview pane in their email program. The preview pane, of course, is that window that shows the contents of an email message before you open it. It usually appears beneath the email inbox. But it can also appear to the right of the inbox (in Microsoft Outlook, for example).
- Are Your Fundraising Donation Request Letters Too Long?
[Business:Fundraising] I write fundraising letters for some of the most well-known non-profits in North America, and not one of them has ever hired me to write a one-page fundraising letter. They know from testing that donors read two-page letters. And four-page letters. Even eight-page letters. Donors read what interests them, and not a word more.
- In Direct Mail Advertising, Don't Lie On Your Envelope, Says Direct Response Copywriter, Consultant
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Telling the truth in direct mail advertising is essential
for your long-term credibility. And long-term viability.
Lying is always wrong, even when it makes you
money.
- In Direct Mail Fundraising Programs, Count Your Donors and Your Dollars, Says Consultant
[Business:Fundraising] One of the greatest mistakes I see non-profit organizations making is watching their dollars and not their donors. When I conduct a comprehensive audit of an organization’s direct mail fundraising program, I invariably discover that they have all sorts of hard numbers about their response rates, average gifts and cost to raise a dollar. But they lack data on donor attrition rates, donor renewal rates and first-time donor conversion rates. Big mistake.
- Email Marketing Opt-in Landing Pages - Boost Conversion Rates with 1 Column, Not 2, on Website Forms
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] A recent study conducted by Omniture for Marketing
Sherpa shows that a single-column opt-in form
outperforms a double-column form on email
subscription landing pages.
- Email Fundraising Subject Lines - Use Today's News Headlines to Boost Open Rates with Online Appeals
[Business:Fundraising] If you want to increase the number of people who read
your email fundraising letters and email newsletters,
put today's headlines in your email subject
lines.
- Drip Marketing - What to Direct Mail (and Email) to Stay in Touch With Your Lead Generation Prospect
[Business:Marketing-Direct] One of the best pieces of advice I ever received on customer retention was this: "Never forget a customer. Never let a customer forget you." But putting that maxim into practice is the hard part.
How do you stay in touch with someone who is not ready to buy this quarter?
- Direct Mail Fundraising - Your Competitor in Donation Request Letters is American Idol
[Business:Fundraising] Learn a lesson in direct mail fundraising from Cindy
Sheehan. The bereaved mother who became a figurehead for
the US anti-war movement abandoned her fight in May
2007 after growing disenchanted with the
campaign.
- Targeted Email Marketing - Put a Colon in Your Subject Says Consultant
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] Please forgive me for being so candid, but I'd like to
talk about the subject of your colon. The colon in your
email subject line, that is. One of the most effective ways to boost your email
marketing open rates is to improve your subject line.
The more relevant your subject line is to your
customers, the more likely they are to open your
email.
- Why I Respectfully Disagree with Vincent James, the 12-Month Millionaire
[Business:Marketing-Direct] If you plan to make outrageous but true claims in your
direct response copy, make sure you have a calculator
nearby as you write. Because skeptical prospective
customers and existing customers will check your
numbers, even if you don't.
- Improve Fundraising Letters By Translating Statistics Into Stories In Donation Request Letters
[Business:Fundraising] The secret to writing compelling fundraising letters is to tell great stories. Relevant, moving, inspiring
stories, well told. But how do you find these great stories in the first place?
- Direct Mail Lead Generation Sales Letters Work Best When You Refund Your Fee
[Business:Marketing-Direct] In the termite capital of the US, Tampa, Florida, lives a man by the name of Chet Rowland who generates direct mail sales leads by promoting his poor service.
- Fundraising Donation Request Letters Must Tell Great Stories (Three Samples)
[Business:Fundraising] If you want your direct mail donors to respond to your
letters in greater numbers and with larger gifts, learn
the craft of storytelling. Learn how to write
human-interest stories that inspire, motivate and
move your donors-to give.
- Need to Boost Direct Mail Marketing Results? Buy a Filing Cabinet, Says Copywriting Service Company
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Buy a filing cabinet. A big one. That's my advice for
aspiring direct mail copywriters, creative directors at
direct mail agencies, and marketing managers who
want to improve their direct mail results as quickly as
possible.
- Donation Request Letters Must Give Donors a Reason to Give Again and Renew their Annual Support
[Business:Fundraising] I pay my mortgage automatically. I renew my insurance automatically. I pay my taxes automatically. I have many incentives for doing so. But I don't renew my charitable support automatically. If you want me to give again, give me a reason. A good one. And give me that reason long before you ask me to renew my gift.
- Testimonials in Direct Mail Advertising Sales Letters Must Sound Groovy - Dude
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Putting a testimonial in your sales letter will only help
your case and persuade prospects to respond if the
testimonial sounds authentic.
- Measure Your Success with Direct Mail Fundraising Letters with Just Four Numbers
[Business:Fundraising] A while back I realized that measuring the effectiveness of direct mail fundraising campaigns is a lot easier than I'd thought.
- Direct Mail Advertising Copywriting - Twelve Ways to Evaluate Direct Mail Copy
[Business:Marketing-Direct] How can you know if your direct mail sales letter is ready to mail? Check it against these guidelines from Don Kanter, the US direct mail specialist.
- In Donor Newsletters, Put Captions Under Photos to Boost Readership with Fundraising Bulletins
[Business:Fundraising] A picture is never worth a thousand words. That's why you must put captions under the photographs in your donor newsletters. I'm not talking about stock photos that your designer places on pages for artistic effect. I'm talking about the newsy photos, the photos of your work, your volunteers, your latest event, the people you help, the photos that must communicate news or facts to your donors.
- Match Your Direct Mail Marketing Offer with Your Sales Reps' Best Closing Techniques in B2B
[Business:Marketing-Direct] If you use direct mail to generate leads for your sales force, and if you’re hunting for an offer that will motivate prospects to respond to your mailings, how about asking your sales force for some advice?
Your best sales people know what to say to prospects to close sales. Different folks need different closes. You can take these closing techniques and make them your direct mail offers.
- In Direct Mail Donor Acquisition, Compare Cost Per Donor with Cost Per Dollar
[Business:Fundraising] The best way to measure your success in direct mail donor acquisition is to examine your cost to raise a donor rather than your cost to raise a dollar.
- For Effective Direct Mail Sales Lead Generation, Group Sales Letter Inquiries Into Four Groups
[Business:Marketing-Direct] If your direct mail lead generation campaigns are
typical, the majority of people who respond to your
sales letters aren't ready to buy. That's why one of the
most important tasks in direct response lead
generation is qualifying every inquiry, assigning it to
one of four groups.
- Fundraising Letters - Are You Too Small for Direct Mail Donor Acquisition?
[Business:Fundraising] Some non-profit organizations should not use direct
mail as a way to attract new donors. Is your
organization one of them? Take this simple test and
find out.
- Pick Direct Mail Marketing Lists that are Added to Often, Not Just Updated Often
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The success of your next lead generation mailing
might depend on one simple question. Before you
rent a list of potential customers, ask the list broker
this straightforward question: "How often are the
names on this list added to?"
- Write Your Direct Mail Sales Letters Like a Page on Google to Boost Response, Results and Business
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Your primary goal at the start of your sales letter is
to demonstrate relevance. You must prove, and
quickly, that what you have to say is relevant to your
reader. That’s why I recommend you write your copy
as though it’s appearing on page one of a Google
search results page.
- Make Your Direct Mail Fundraising Appeal Letters More Friendly With Informal Design
[Business:Fundraising] Your fundraising letters need to be
personal and informal, and they need to look personal
and informal. Here are some design tips to help you
achieve those goals.
- A List of Direct Mail Fundraising List Brokers and Managers for Acquisition or Prospect Mailings
[Business:Fundraising] Nothing is more important in direct mail fundraising than who you mail to. Here is a list of some of the best list brokers and list managers in North America that specialize to one degree or another in non-profit fundraising lists.
- Eight Ways to Enable Response With Direct Mail Lead Generation Postcards Using Direct Response
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Postcards are cheap to print and mail but they have one major weakness as far as direct response lead generation is concerned. They don't have a physical response mechanism.
- Avoid Formula Approach When Asking Businesses for Gifts With Direct Mail Fundraising Letters
[Business:Fundraising] The one thing to remember when asking businesses for donations is that businesses don't give donations. People give donations, and sometimes those people work for or own a business, and donate on behalf of that business.
- Boost Email Open Rates and Clickthrough Rates with Transactional Emails in Online Marketing
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] The secret to improving your email open rates is to
make your messages more timely and more relevant.
And there's no better place to do both than in
transactional email.
- Testimonials in Direct Mail Marketing Sales Letters - Choose the Correct One of Three for Your Needs
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Your direct mail sales letters must overcome three
doubts if you are to make money through the mail.
- Direct Mail Fundraising: Use Testimonials To Boost Readability And Response In Your Donation Letters
[Business:Fundraising] Sometimes people will say the sweetest things about
your non-profit organization, your staff, your volunteers,
and the work you do. These compliments usually
arrive unsolicited, and remain private. But you can use
them to your advantage in your direct mail fundraising
appeals in the form of a testimonial.
- Direct Mail Marketing is a Rifle, Not a Shotgun, Says Direct Response Advertising Services Company
[Business:Marketing-Direct] When I served in the British Special Forces, I learned
a lesson from a sniper that applies directly to your
success at direct mail marketing.
- Response Rates to Expect in Direct Mail Fundraising with Acquisition and Renewal Appeal Letters
[Business:Fundraising] What kind of response rates do your direct mail fundraising letters generate? That's a good question, since non-profit organizations need the highest response rates they can get in today's competitive environment. Direct mail is an expensive way to raise funds if your response rates are low and your average gift is small.
- Death to the Long - One-Page - Online Sales Letter Says Direct Mail Consultant
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] Will you read a sales letter 147 pages long? Would you mail your customers a sales letter that
makes them page through 124 case studies before you describe what you’re selling? Will you read a sales letter that contains 56,938 words, enough to fill a 253-page paperback book? Some online marketers think you will.
- Boost Net Income by Mailing Fewer Direct Mail Fundraising Appeal Letters
[Business:Fundraising] One of the easiest ways to boost net revenue in direct mail fundraising is to stop sending every appeal to every donor.
- Use Pain Instead of Credentials in Direct Mail Marketing Lead Generation
[Business:Marketing-Direct] How do you persuade prospective clients to call you
or visit your website or meet with you when you
don’t have decades of experience, a high profile in
the community, testimonials from hundreds of
satisfied clients, dozens of inches of free publicity in
the press, and all the other credentials that your
established competitors have?
- Use Quotations in Your Fundraising Appeal Letters to Inspire and Motivate Your Donors
[Business:Fundraising] Next time you write a letter to a donor but can't think of the best way to express yourself, let someone else do it for you. Someone like Mother Theresa. Mark Twain. Rosa Parks. Ernest Hemmingway.
- Don't Mail Postcards to Generate Appointments in Financial Services Direct Mail Lead Generation
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The mistake one company is about to make is thinking it can set up face-to-face, private
appointments with prospective clients using postcards in the same way it uses postcards to fill seminar rooms.
- Why New Non-profits Shouldn't Use Direct Mail Fundraising Donation Request Letters to Raise Funds
[Business:Fundraising] Be warned. If you're starting a non-profit and don’t
have $100,000 in the bank, don’t use direct mail. You
literally cannot afford to use direct mail to raise
funds right now.
- Personalization Boosts Direct Mail Response Rates (and Sales) with Letters, Postcards - Self-Mailers
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Seven in ten consumers want you to personalize the direct mail you send them. Are you giving them what they want?
- In Direct Mail Donor Acquisition - What You Win Them With Is What You Win Them To
[Business:Fundraising] So, when you plan your next donor acquisition mailing, aim to reach the hearts and minds of your potential donors, not just their wallets. And avoid incentives that attract one-time donors and guilt offerings. What you win them with is what you win them to.
- Give a Reason for Your Deadlines to Boost Direct Mail Marketing Results with Time-Limited Offers
[Business:Marketing-Direct] There are only two kinds of deadlines. Legitimate. And bogus. Your goal as a direct mail marketer is not only to create legitimate deadlines, but to persuade your readers that your deadlines are legitimate. Here’s why.
- How Long are your Donors? Improve Donor Tenure and You'll Boost Fundraising Request Letter Revenue
[Business:Fundraising] Direct mail fundraising, like all effective fundraising, is about raising friends rather than raising funds. Raising a friend is always more important in the long term (the only term worth considering in fundraising) than raising a dollar. And losing a donor is always worse than losing a dollar.
- Boost Direct Mail Response Rates by Mailing Half a Premium Says Dimensional Mailer Company
[Business:Marketing-Direct] What boosts direct mail response rates better than a
premium? Half a premium.
- Three Donor Newsletter Mistakes to Avoid in Direct Mail Fundraising
[Business:Fundraising] You can’t simply present news in donor newsletters. Instead, you must
write every issue with your donor in mind. To do
that, avoid these three common mistakes in donor
fundraising newsletters.
- Fundraising Letter Postscripts Must Startle To Raise Donations In Direct Mail Appeals
[Business:Fundraising] Are the gurus correct? Is the postscript one of the
first things donors read when they look at your
fundraising letter? Then you must make your PS as
powerful as your envelope teaser copy and the first
sentence in your letter.
- Baby and Child Adoption Information-Expect 12 Steps to International or Domestic Agency Adoptions
[Home-and-Family] When my wife and I decided on baby adoption as a way to build our family, we discovered that whether you adopt through an adoption agency or go private, adopt a child internationally (China or Guatemala, let’s say) or domestically, you go through 12 basic steps.
- Why Donor Acquisition Fundraising Letters Are Longer Than Donation Request Letters Mailed to Donors
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Should you mail a one-page letter or a two-page letter? Neither. Mail a four-page letter.
- Offer Self-Assessments, Not White Papers, in Direct Mail Lead Generation
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Are you a business-to-business direct mail marketer
looking for something better to offer than white
papers? Consider self-assessment surveys.
- Annual Doesn't Mean Annually in Direct Mail Fundraising Campaigns
[Business:Marketing-Direct] One of your greatest obstacles in operating a
successful annual fund is thinking of it as an annual
fund.
- Donation Request Letter Envelopes Don't Have to Be Envelopes Says Direct Mail Fundraising Agency
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Instead of taking a #10 envelope and adding some teaser copy to the front, this non-profit chucked the #10 altogether and used an unusual envelope that’s a teaser from top to bottom, back and front.
- Attract New Donors with "Friend Get a Friend" Donation Request Fundraising Letters
[Business:Marketing-Direct] New donors are closer than you think. Often they are
friends of your donors, or family members.
- Direct Mail Advertising Company Says "Mail Fewer Pieces, Make More Money"
[Business:Marketing-Direct] You'll make more money in direct mail by selling to
fewer people.
- In Direct Mail Donation Request Letters, Ask, Ask, Ask
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Did you hear about the couple that won the Irish Sweepstakes? The husband enters the kitchen one morning and kisses his wife. "Darling," he announces, "we just won The Irish Sweepstakes, so we did.
- Stamps Boost Response Rates Over Metered Postage and Indicias in Direct Mail Marketing
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Direct mail fundraisers learned long ago that stamps
boost response rates. Maybe the same will work for
your sales letters. Why not test and find out?
- Spot Potential Direct Mail Donors Using the 3 Cs of Fundraising Acquisition Letters
[Business:Marketing-Direct] What does an ideal new direct mail donor look like?
How can you spot one in a crowd? Or in a list of
potential donors? Look for the 3 Cs.
- Boost Your Direct Mail Marketing Response Rates with Unilateral Offers, Says Direct Response Agency
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Direct mail marketing rules are made to be broken, or
so I'm told. So break this one and see what
happens.
- Appealing Fundraising Letters Request More than Donations When Asking for Gifts
[Business:Fundraising] The last thing you should ask for in a fundraising
letter is a donation. You have no business asking for
money until you have first persuaded your donor that
you deserve her attention, value her time, appreciate
her as a person, and want to partner with her in
turning the world upside-down.
- Direct Mail Marketing Agency Copywriter Says "Start at the Start" with Sales Letters.
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Call me a dunce, but I can’t write a single line of copy until I write my opening paragraph.
- Make Your Fundraising Appeal Letters More Personal With Best Date Format (See Samples and Examples)
[Business:Fundraising] Are your fundraising letters impersonal by mistake?
That depends on how you date them. Some dates
are more personal than others. Here’s what I
mean.
- Fundraising Letter Frequency: Mail Often Enough to Prove Friends Stay in Touch with Donation Letters
[Business:Fundraising] Want to know one of the most vital truths in direct
mail fundraising? Friends stay in touch.
- Online Fundraising - Build Your List of Email Donors in 10 Simple Internet and Offline Ways
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] Your greatest challenge as an email fundraiser is your list. If your organization is typical, only 10% of the people in your donor file have given you their email address. And that list isn't growing any larger all on its own.
- Build Your Email Marketing Opt-in List In 11 Direct Ways Online
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] The most important tool in online marketing isn't your website. It's your email list. Most of your customers and potential customers won't visit your website today. But they will check their email.
- Email Fundraising Campaigns Must Inspire Donors to Go Online
[Business:Fundraising] Sending an email with no links to follow is like mailing
a direct mail appeal without enclosing a reply device
or return envelope. Costly.
- Drip Email Marketing Campaigns Prevent Customer Defections from Your Company
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] My wife never talks about the guy who sold us
the Ford, or the Chevy, or even the Honda Odyssey.
She only remembers the nice guy from Columbus,
Ohio, and she remembers him for only one reason. He
stayed in touch.
- Email Drip Marketing Campaigns Reach 25 Percent of Prospects Who Are Usually Ignored
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] Do you snub 25 percent of your potential customers? If your business is typical, you do.
- Boost Email Donor Newsletter Open Rates with Safe Subject Lines in Online Fundraising
[Business:Fundraising] The last time I checked, which is to say, yesterday, the average open rate for an email donor newsletter was 37%. That means 63 percent of donors are not opening the email newsletters they’ve asked to receive.
- Drip Email Marketing System Converts Long-Term Leads to Sales
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] One of your most valuable assets is people who
won't buy from you—today. They are the majority of
your prospects. But if your business is typical, and I
hope it isn't, the majority of your sales leads slip
away and never give you their business. Drip
marketing is the way to win them.
- Email Donor Newsletters: Improve Your Open Rates for Online Fundraising and Donation Success
[Business:Fundraising] One of the greatest challenges in email fundraising is
poor open rates. The majority of donors who
subscribe to email donor newsletters receive them
but never open them.
- Direct Email Marketing List-Building Tips for Targeted Opt-In Solutions
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] One of the greatest challenges in direct email
marketing is building your list. Your most valuable
asset is a list of people who have given you their
permission to email them periodically. The larger that
list is, the better. Here are some proven ways to add
opt-in subscribers to your email lists each
day.
- Email Fundraising Serves Four Strategic Functions in Direct Mail Program
[Business:Fundraising] Email fundraising has its challenges, but as a tool for involving donors, mobilizing members, raising emergency funds and delivering late-breaking news, email stands alone.
- Boost Email Marketing Open Rates by Sounding Like Grandma in Your Direct Email Advertising
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The secret to persuading your customers to open and read your direct email marketing messages is to make them sound like a note from grandma.
- Donation Request Letters Need Strong Protagonist, Says Fundraising Company
[Business:Fundraising] Do your donation request letters lack a protagonist? The most compelling appeal letters feature a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, that captures the donor’s attention and makes the appeal human, moving and profitable.
- Lift Note Advice From A Direct Mail Services Company Copywriter
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Know one of the quickest ways to boost the effectiveness of your direct mail sales letters? Mail two letters instead of one, in the same envelope.
- Write Better Fundraising Letters by Making a Scene (Includes Examples)
[Business:Fundraising] Successful fundraising letters are exciting to read. They take you to crack houses, battlefields, logging protests, prisons, floods and other places you will never set foot yourself. Effective donation request letters show you the organizations you support engaged on the front lines in the battle to right wrongs, correct injustices and make the world a better place. They put you in the thick of the action. And they usually do this by making a scene.
- Direct Mail Sales Lead Generation Success Involves Three Numbers
[Business:Marketing-Direct] You will succeed at business-to-business direct mail sales lead generation if you master three calculations, and your response rate is not one of them. Your response rate tells you only a small part of what you are doing correctly.
- How To Write Fundraising Letters: Your Donors Deserve Pity
[Business:Fundraising] Back in 1985, which I now realize is more than 20 years ago, a homeless man stood at the corner of College and Yonge streets, in downtown Toronto, begging for money.
- Lead Generation Company Includes Cheque With Sales Letter
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Two of the greatest challenges for a company doing direct mail sales lead generation are getting attention and creating attractive offers. A compelling package with a poor offer will flop. And a poor package with a compelling offer won’t even get opened.
- Do Your Donors Hear Voices (in Your Donation Request Letters)?
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Fundraising letters are about people. People talk. So your fundraising letters should include the voices of people.
- Dimensional Mailers In Direct Mail Marketing Must Intrigue
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The number-one advantage of dimensional mailers is that they get noticed. Amidst the #10 envelopes, postcards and other traditional mail that your prospects receive daily, boxes, cylinders and lumpy oversize envelopes stand out.
- Donation Request Letters Are Irresistible When You Enter Shooting
[Business:Marketing-Direct] When the Argentine army surrendered in June of 1982, ending the Falklands War, some Royal Marines discovered that the quickest way to get the attention of stubborn Argentine prisoners, since we did not speak their language, and they did not speak ours, was to hit them on the elbow with the handle of a pickaxe. Prisoners treated in this fashion followed our orders.
- Direct Mail Marketing Company Says Sell Your Offer, Not Your Premium
[Business:Marketing-Direct] My wife received an irresistible offer in the mail the other day. So she didn’t resist.
- Donation Request Letters Need Suspense To Keep Donor Attention
[Business:Marketing-Direct] How would your next fundraising letter perform if Agatha Christie wrote it?
- Avoid Direct Mail Campaign Response Rates That Are Disastrously High
[Business:Marketing-Direct] I once wrote a direct mail piece that generated a dreadful response rate. It was too high.
- Good Direct Mail Sales Letters Are Like Good Salespeople
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Want to improve your sales letters? Compare them with newspaper classified ads for salespeople. What employers look for in a salesperson, you should look for in a sales letter.
- Fundraising Appeal Letters: Make Yours Novel Using Fiction Techniques.
[Business:Fundraising] What would happen if the author of The Da Vinci Code wrote your next direct mail fundraising appeal letter?
- Direct Mail Guarantees Should Hurt
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The best guarantee to offer your direct mail buyer is one that hurts. You, that is. Like you, your potential buyer lives in a rip-off society where merchants sell shoddy products and vendors do not honour their promises.
- Write Pre-Lapsed-Donor Donation Fundraising Letters Before Donors Lapse
[Business:Fundraising] When is the best time to recover a lapsed donor? Before they lapse. Using a "pre-lapsed donor letter."
- Successful Fundraising Donation Letters Use Before-And-After Samples, Examples
[Business:Fundraising] The best advice I can give you for writing successful fundraising letters is to act as if your donors are obese. Really obese.
- Don't Always Make Direct Mail Headlines Positive
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The most powerful headline I ever read and acted upon was a negative headline. It changed my life.
- Premiums in Request Letters Asking for Donations: Examples, Samples of Pros and Cons
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Q. What is a premium?
A. In direct mail fundraising letters, a premium is an item offered to a donor, usually at no charge, to encourage the donor to make a donation.
- Direct Mail Reply Devices Must Tell Sales Letter Buyers How To Respond
[Business:Marketing-Direct] My brother-in-law says you should be thankful for truckers because everything you buy was handled at some point by a trucker. LoWayne is a trucker, so he’s biased. But I think he’s right anyway.
- Lapsed Donor Reactivation And Recovery: Continue Writing Those Direct Mail Donation Letters.
[Business:Marketing-Direct] When is the best time to stop sending direct mail donation appeal letters to your lapsed donors?
- In Direct Mail Marketing Copywriting, Specifics Outsell Generalities
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Lilly Tomlin, the American comic, once said: “When I was growing up, I wanted to be a somebody. Now I realize I should have been more specific.”
- Donor Newsletters Boost Direct Mail Donations Without Asking For Donations
[Business:Marketing-Direct] I have a client whose direct mail fundraising program is in trouble. I think you can profit from his predicament. I know he is going to.
- Donation Thank-You Letter Mistakes To Avoid In Direct Mail Fundraising
[Business:Fundraising] I once had a friend who used to bid me farewell by exclaiming, "Up 'yer kilt!" Where Jock is today and how many pals he still has I cannot tell. But his original and startling phrase reminds me of a vital truth in direct mail fundraising: How you thank your donors and how your donors hear you thank them can be two different things.
- Like Direct Mail, Landing Page Conversion Starts Above The Fold
[Business:Marketing-Direct] In the Good Old Days of direct mail, which is to say, before 1997 and the advent of the Internet, I and other direct mail marketers agonized over what to put "above the fold."
- Your Not-For-Profit Fundraising Letter Programs Has Three Goals
[Business:Fundraising] Your direct mail fundraising program should have three goals.
- Your Landing Page Should Resume Your Sales Letter In B2B Lead Generation
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Internet-Marketing] Do you tell this lie in your sales letters? "Visit our website for more information."
- Landing Pages And Direct Mail: Increase Conversions By Answering Top Three Concerns
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Your landing page conversions will increase once you answer three of the most common questions asked by visitors who receive your direct mail invitation to visit their website.
- Write Successful Non-For-Profit Fundraising Letters With Personalization
[Business:Fundraising] Have you ever played The Mennonite Game? When two Mennonites meet for the first time, they soon start asking each other questions designed to discover who and what they share in common.
- Reactivate Lapsed Donors With A Direct Mail Fundraising Survey
[Business:Fundraising] A proven way to reactivate lapsed donors is to ask them why they have stopped giving.
- Direct Mail Business-To-Business Sales Lead Generation: 5 Ways To Attract Hotter Prospects
[Business:Marketing-Direct] In B2B direct mail lead generation, as your volume of leads goes up, your quality goes down, and vice versa.
- In B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation, Sell Your Offer, Not Your Offering
[Business:Marketing-Direct] In business-to-business direct mail lead generation, sell your offer, not your product.
- Why Envelopes Outpull Self-Mailers in B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation.
[Business:Marketing-Direct] In business-to-business direct mail lead generation, letters invariably outpull self-mailers, including postcards. Your sales message belongs in an envelope for a number of good reasons.
- Donation Thank-You Letters, Cards And Notes Should Never Ask For A Gift
[Business:Fundraising] The most important letter in direct mail fundraising never asks for a gift. Ever.
- Direct Mail Lift Notes: Boost Response by Breaking the Lift Letter Rules
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Do lift notes still lift response rates in business-to-business mailings? Yes, as long as they stand out.
- Fundraising Mailing Lists: How List Brokers Can Help
[Business:Fundraising] Last time I checked, there were 25,000 response lists and 50,000 compiled lists currently on the market. Among all of these lists, you'll find hundreds that work for fundraising appeals. Actually, you likely won't find them. Locating the best names for your mailing is complicated and best left to an experienced list broker.
- Earn Six-Figures Copywriting? Why I Respectfully Disagree With AWAI and Michael Masterson
[Writing-and-Speaking:Copywriting] Aspiring copywriter, be warned. Don't expect to "retire this year and still make more money than most doctors." Paul Hollingshead and The American Writers & Artists Institute say you can. According to their website, all that you need to do is
take Michael Masterson’s Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting, which teaches you to write "simple letters."
- Boost Response Rates and Income with Appealing Fundraising Letter Envelopes
[Business:Fundraising] Writing a terrific fundraising letter is a waste of time if your donor throws your entire package in the trash unopened. And that happens more often than any of us dare to think about. That's why your envelope is so crucial to your success.
- Direct Mail Letter Design Tips For Improved Lead Generation Response
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Successful sales people dress their best when in front of prospects. And so do successful sales letters. Here are some tested sales letter design and layout tips, some of them from direct mail designer Ted Kikoler, and excerpted from The Lead Generation Handbook by Bob Bly.
- First-Time Direct Mail Donors: How To W-I-N Them Over As Repeat Givers
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Don't ask me how I know, but in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings you'll sometimes hear a member mention "The Elephant in the Living Room." In AA circles, a family member's drinking problem is the elephant in the living room that everyone sees, that everyone feels uncomfortable about, but that no one wants to confront. In direct mail fundraising circles, the elephant in the living room is abysmal conversion rates.
- Direct Mail Invitations: Eleven Ways to Boost Response To Your B2B Campaign
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Will your business-to-business direct mail package
ever produce a standing ovation? It might. When you
mail an effective invitation to a seminar, workshop,
awards show or other live event, you literally move
people-out of their seats and into yours.
- Direct Mail Fundraising Arithmetic: Avoid Blunders By Knowing Your Numbers
[Business:Fundraising] Your direct mail fundraising results never lie. But they mislead you if you let them.
- Donor-Centered Newsletter Stories Increase Income, Boost Donor Loyalty
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Your donors read your donor newsletter to discover news about themselves. You are of secondary interest.
- Your Fundraising Letter P.S.: 10 Ways to Write Powerful Postscripts
[Business:Fundraising] Your postscript is one of the most important parts of your fundraising letter. It usually stresses the point of your letter and asks for action. Some donors read it first. Some professional writers write it first.
- Sales Letter Writing: Boost Your B2B Readability
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Who do some sales letters put a smile on your face while others put a yawn in your throat?
Why are some sales letters harder to read than others?
- How to Increase the Size of Donor Gifts with Fundraising Letters
[Business:Fundraising] Do you want your donors to give more, do you want them to give more often, or do you want more of your donors to give?
- Catalog Tips For Business-To-Business Direct Mail Marketers
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Can your business sell its products to other businesses using a mail-order catalog? Probably. And make a profit? Maybe, as long as you follow some proven guidelines. Here are a few of them
- Fundraising Letter Reply Devices: Are You Making These Mistakes?
[Business:Fundraising] Fundraising letter reply devices—also known as reply coupons, donation coupons, reply slips, response forms and gift forms—are the instruments that conclude your request for funds. If your reply device doesn’t work, your appeal letter doesn’t work—and you don’t get the gift.
- Self-mailers in B2B Direct Mail: Advantages and Disadvantages
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Business-to-business direct mail marketers have learned through testing that a letter in an envelope will usually generate more sales and pull more inquiries than a self-mailer will. Here's why.
- Donor Acquisition Fundraising Letters: Five Tips For Attracting New Donors And Members
[Business:Fundraising] Your organization is doing well if 85 percent of your donors renew their support each year, according to Stanley Weinstein in his book The Complete Guide to Fundraising Management.
- Improve Your B2B Direct Mail Response Rates With Premiums
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Premiums are an effective way to increase your direct mail response rates. Whether you are selling a product or service directly through the mail, or whether you are using a sales letter to generate leads, premiums can help you boost response, increase conversions and motivate buyers to pay now rather than later.
- Improve Your Donation Thank-You Letters, Cards, and Notes: Make Your Donor The Hero
[Business:Marketing-Direct] One temptation in writing fundraising thank-you letters is to make your organization the star of the letter. You feel pressure to tell your donors how terrific you are, how cost-effective you are or how broke you are. You are tempted to brag about your achievements, your success, your volunteers, your new board member and more.
- Increase Direct Mail Response Rates (And Revenue) By Segmenting Your List
[Business:Marketing-Direct] If you want to increase revenue using direct mail, you have two options: sell more to the customers you have, or find new customers and sell to them. The tricky part is knowing how to do that.
- Fundraising Letter Response Rates: Boost Them (And Your Revenue) By Watching: Nine Vital Statistics
[Business:Fundraising] Direct mail fundraising is a numbers game. A game that changes all the time. Who could have predicted the advent of online giving? Or the popularity of sweepstakes? Or the rise of a generation of young donors whose primary method of communication is text messaging?
- B2B Direct Mail Lists: Ask These Questions Before Renting
[Business:Marketing-Direct] If the most important part of any
business-to-business direct mail package is the list,
how can you be sure that you have a good list
before you drop your money (and your reputation) in
the mailbox? Answer: Ask the right questions before
you rent that
- Fundraising Letters: Questions To Ask Yourself Before You Ask Anyone For A Donation
[Business:Fundraising] The secret to attracting new donors, renewing support, raising funds, building relationships, and retaining loyal donors with direct mail is to ask yourself the tough questions before you ask anyone for a donation. You need to know who you are writing to, why you are writing them, and what you want them to do.
- For Direct Mail Lead Generation Success, Clone Your Best Customers
[Business:Marketing-Direct] I don't relish being proven wrong. But a while back I sat down to discover who my best clients were. I wanted to increase my revenues. I figured that the best way to do that was to discover who my best clients were and to then go after more firms that were like them.
- Your Direct Mail Donors Should Be Arrested (By Your Letter Opening)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The first time I was shelled by enemy artillery, I learned a vital lesson that applies to the success of your fundraising letters.
- Increase Direct Mail Response Rates With Double Window Envelopes
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Here’s something to test. Take your existing business-to-business direct mail package and make just one change: put two windows on the mailing envelope instead of one. Mail it and see what happens.
- Need New Direct Mail Donors? Look For These Three Qualities For Fundraising Letter Success
[Business:Fundraising] New donors are a lot closer than you may think. And
persuading them to make that vital first donation
need not be as hard—or as
expensive—as acquiring
them in other ways.
- Test Your B2B Direct Mail Offers To Boost Response Rates
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The secret to success in business-to-business direct
mail lead generation is testing. I have hunches. You
have hunches. But testing settles the debate. When
you test your package against my package and we
measure the results, we know for certain which
package performed better.
- Annual Appeal Letter Asks - Four Secrets Of Requesting Donations
[Business:Fundraising] In the fundraising profession, the act of requesting funds from a donor is called "the ask." When you are writing a fundraising letter and you arrive at the place where you must actually, ahem, request a donation, you have arrived at the ask. And the ask, as you probably know, is one of the toughest things to get right in fundraising.
- Reach Wealthy Prospects With Direct Mail Marketing And A Good List
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Do you need to reach wealthy prospects using direct
mail? Then work on your list. Who you mail to (your
list) is the single most important thing that
determines your success.
- Eight Advantages of Fundraising Letters Over Other Methods
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Unlike capital campaigns, major gift campaigns and special events, fundraising letter campaigns can be conceived, planned, and launched within weeks instead of months.
- B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation Success Needs Planning, Testing, Measuring
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Is Direct Mail Useless for DMers? Is direct mail useless at helping direct mail businesses generate leads? That’s the question I was asked last week by a reader of Alan Sharpe’s B2B Direct Mail Tactics newsletter. Here is her unusual challenge, and my response.
- Fundraising Letter Templates Harm Your Non-Profit's Reputation and Response Rates
[Business:Fundraising] Fundraising letter templates are a mistake. They insult donors. They mislead fundraisers. And they don't work. You cannot generate sustainable income, build relationships and retain loyal donors by mailing fill-in-the-blanks letters. Here are some sound reasons for avoiding boilerplate appeals.
- How to Introduce a New Product Using B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation
[Business:Marketing-Direct] How do you generate sales leads with B2B direct mail when your product is not only new but also changes the category?
- Year-End Fundraising Letter Appeals: 10 Tips to Give Them a Boost at Christmas
[Business:Fundraising] If your non-profit organization is like many others, you receive half or more or your contributed income at the end of the year. Which means your year-end appeal letter can make or break your year, financially speaking.
- How To Get Past C-Level Gatekeepers With Your B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation Sales Letters
[Business:Marketing-Direct] If your business uses direct mail to reach C-level
prospects, you face a unique challenge: getting past
the gatekeeper.
- How to Overcome Sales Objections With Your B2B Lead Generation Sales Letters
[Business:Marketing-Direct] One of the advantages of sales letters is that you are selling on paper, not in person. Face to face, a prospect can interrupt you and change the
subject. But on paper, you remain in control.
- In Business-to-Business Direct Mail Sales Letters, Make It Easy To Respond
[Business:Marketing-Direct] My client had a terrific product, a compelling offer, and a sound business model. He had just one problem. He wanted to make all website visitors register before they could browse his product catalog. Big mistake.
- Direct Mail Deadlines: How To Use Them Effectively
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Giving your prospect a deadline for ordering, particularly when that deadline is a date and not simply a period of days ("Order within the next 30 days"), will outpull mailings with no deadline almost every time.
- Direct Mail Envelope Tips For Successful B2B Lead Generation Sales Letters
[Business:Marketing-Direct] In business-to-business direct mail lead generation, more prospects see your mailing envelope than will ever see what is inside. That’s because prospects spend only a few seconds examining your envelope before deciding whether to peruse it or pitch it.
- In B2B Direct Mail Lead Generation, Work Backwards
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Business-to-business lead generation is one of the
few times in life when you should start at the end
and work backwards.
- Testimonials Boost Direct Mail Response Rates In Business-to-Business Sales Letters
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Correct me if I am wrong, but there is nothing more powerful in a business-to-business sales letter than a credible testimonial from a person in your prospect’s peer group.
- Your Fundraising Annual Appeal Letters Need A Villian
[Business:Fundraising] Anger is one of the best emotions that you can arouse in a donor. Anger is a healthy emotion, particularly when your fundraising letter offers donors a way to assuage their anger.
- Read This, Sell More: Direct Mail Marketing Is About Benefits, Not Features
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Your customer wants a cleaner kitchen, not a kitchen cleaner. Your customers are interested in benefits, not features. So sell benefits in your sales letters.
- Write Effective Fundraising Letters By Being Conversational (Includes Examples & Samples)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] How do you write a fundraising letter that sounds like it came from the mind of a person and not an institution?
- Fundraising Letters Are Easier To Write With AIDA
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Learn a lesson from professional direct mail copywriters. They follow a time-tested format in their sales letters, a format that you can also follow when writing direct mail fundraising letters for your non-for-profit organization. All you need to remember is AIDA.
- Dear Friend: Don't Start Your Non-for-profit Fundraising Letters As A Stranger
[Business:Marketing-Direct] When was the last time you received a letter from someone dear to you, addressing you as “Dear Friend?” Never, right? The days of the Dear Friend letter are dead. So let’s bury the Dear Friend letter together.
- Write Fundraising Letter Overlines That Donors Can't Resist (Includes Samples & Examples)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The headline that appears over the salutation in a fundraising letter is known as the overline. Overlines have one goal: to persuade your donor to read your letter.
- Your Direct Mail Sales Letters Must Differentiate You
[Business:Marketing-Direct] You need to decide what makes you different from your competitors, and you need to promote that uniqueness in your sales letters. Just make sure your differentiator is compelling and actually differentiates you.
- Eleven Reasons Donors Stop Responding To Fundraising Letter Appeals
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Donors will stop responding to your fundraising letter appeals for many reasons. Some of which you can manage, but many of which you cannot. Use these findings to retain as many of your donors as you can.
- Direct Mail Catalogs & Brochures: Write Captions That Sell
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Many prospects skim through catalogs and brochures, glancing at the photos and reading the accompanying captions only when a particular image arouses their interest. That's when you have their attention. And so that's when you sell them.
- Fundraising Letter Envelopes: How To Make Them Irresistible
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Readers spend only a few seconds deciding the fate of your direct mail fundraising appeals. Either they open them on the spot, set them aside for later, or chuck them in the waste paper basket. Here are some creative ways to tease your donors into opening your envelopes.
- Fundraising Letters: Where To Find Creative Ideas For Your Appeals
[Business:Marketing-Direct] How do you make your fundraising letters creative and fresh year after year when your needs don’t change all that much? I am not talking about new initiatives. I’m talking about the programs that you run year after year. The membership drive that you run year after year.
- The Fundraising Letter PS: 25 Powerful Things To Say There (Includes Examples & Samples)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Since the PS is one part of your letter that you can be confident your donors will read, you need to write something there that will motivate your donor to send you a gift or take your desired action. Here are some ideas.
- How to Write Fundraising Letters That Motivate Donors To Make Donations to Your Non-Profit
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Motivating strangers to give their money away is one of the hardest jobs around. Your chances of receiving gifts in the mail increase once you employ some of the tested methods that are used by leading non-profit organizations around the world.
- Effective Fundraising Letters Are About People, Not Projects (Includes Samples & Examples)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Donors don’t send donations by mail to support a mission statement. They don’t respond to appeals because of your vision statement. Or simply because your general fund is depleted. And they are not (with rare exceptions) inspired to pay for electrical bills, staples, travel costs and plumbing repairs. Donors are people. And people give to people, usually to help people.
- Direct Mail Sales Letters Flow Better With Subheads
[Business:Marketing-Direct] A subscriber to my newsletter asks: "Got any good pointers on writing great sub-heads?" Yes, I do. Here they are.
- Lapsed Donors: How to Write a Fundraising Letter That Wins Them Back
[Business:Marketing-Direct] A carefully crafted appeal that lets past donors know they are important, appreciated and missed almost always produces a net income.
- Fundraising Renewal Letters: Four Goals to Strive For With Each One You Write
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Asking recent donors to send you another gift is a lot easier and less expensive than acquiring a new donor. That’s why renewal letters play such a vital role in helping your non-profit raise funds affordably.
- Hook Your Direct Mail Sales Letter Readers With Good Transition Sentences
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Anglers in Maine catch trout using dry flies with barbless hooks. Unless they keep tension on the line all the way to the net, they lose the trout. Your sales letters must do the same. But how?
- Where to Look for New Donors for Your Fundraising Letter Appeals
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Have you ever studied your best donors and wished you could clone them all? Maybe you can, with a bit of creative thinking.
- Successful Non-for-Profit Fundraising Letters Share Eight Qualities
[Business:Marketing-Direct] You’ll be encouraged to know that the art of writing effective fundraising letters can be learned. I learned it. So can you...
- Fundraising Letters Should Raise Donors, Not Donations, When Mailed to Strangers
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Are you willing to spend $1.25 to raise $1? To lose money to make money? You should be. Most donor acquisition mailings never pay for themselves. They lose money. And rightly so.
- How to Convey Trustworthiness in Direct Mail Marketing Sales Letter
[Business:Marketing-Direct] A person or business that might buy from you is called a prospect. But they might just as accurately be called a skeptic. We live in the age of the spam filter. And call-display. We live in what fellow-copywriter Herschell Gordon Lewis calls, “The Age of Skepticism.”
- Design Direct Mail Postcards Back-to-Front to Boost Response Rates
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Conventional wisdom says that the front of a direct mail postcard is for the picture and the back is for the address, stamp and a short message. But some savvy direct marketers design their postcards the other way around-and boost response rates as a result.
- How to Write a Direct Mail Fundraising Letter (Four Tips for Fund Raising Success)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] When was the last time you received a letter from someone dear to you, addressing you as “Dear Friend?” Never, right? Follow these four simple steps to improving your direct mail fundraising letters.
- Direct Mail Response Rates Soar With Dimensional Mailers in Business-to-Business Lead Generation
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The toughest job you face as a B2B direct marketer is reaching your prospect with your message. That's why dimensional mailers are one of the most effective ways to reach elusive prospects with your sales message.
- Free Sample Sales Letter: Example of How to Write a Persuasive Business Marketing Letter
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Here is an example of a business-to-business sales letter mailed to auto dealers by a firm that markets gift cards that replace paper gift certificates.
- Postcard Direct Mail Marketing Works (It's Cheap, Quick, Affordable and More)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Used the right way and with the right audience, postcards often outperform their mailbox “competitors” in money saved and revenue generated (the competitors are sales letters, self-mailers, unaddressed flyers, dimensional mailers and catalogs). Here’s why postcards are so effective.
- Direct Mail Response Rates Low? Eliminate These Mistakes
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Are your direct mail response rates lower than you expect? Check your sales letter or direct mail package against this checklist to uncover the reasons for your poor response.
- Direct Mail Response Rate Boosters (12 tips and ideas)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] How should you boost results when your direct mail response rates start to flag? Here are 12 things to look at first.
- Direct Mail Response Rates Mislead if You are Careless
[Business:Marketing-Direct] I could tell you that the average temperature in the world is 60 degrees Fahrenheit. But that fact wouldn’t keep you from getting sunstroke in Cairo. Or frostbite in Tuktoyaktuk. Averages tell you only so much.
- Business Postcard Marketing: 35 Ways to Use It
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Postcards are an effective way for many business owners and marketing managers to attract new customers and increase sales from existing ones.You can use postcards in dozens of ways to promote your business.
- Postcard Direct Mail Marketing: 15 Ways To Grab Attention
[Business:Marketing-Direct] If you use direct mail postcards to generate leads or sell a product or service, you need to create postcards that grab your prospect’s attention. The place to do that is Side A, the side that doesn’t have the stamp and address on it. Here are some creative ways . . .
- Postcard Direct Mail Marketing Tips And Ideas
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Postcards are perhaps the least expensive way of reaching a large number of people with your sales message. Although they have their drawbacks, they are cost-effective at attracting new customers. But only if you follow some simple rules that professional direct mail copywriters follow.
- Improve Email Deliverability: 15 Tips for Email Marketing Success
[Internet-and-Businesses-Online:Email-Marketing] Delivering email newsletters and sales messages to opt-in subscribers and customers is getting more exasperating—and more expensive—by the day. Delivery rates for email have gone through the virtual floor. According to MarketingSherpa, one out of every six people who asked to be on your mailing list won't receive your email newsletter or marketing message because a spam filter blocks it by mistake.
- Where to Find New Customers Using B2B Direct Mail
[Business:Marketing-Direct] The challenge in business-to-business direct mail is knowing where to look for new business. You need a source of potential new clients that is
reliable and affordable. A source that will give you the contact information you need to send a direct mail package to prospective customers who need, want and can afford what you offer.
- Direct Mail Formats: How to Choose the Right One for Your Next Mailing
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Which pulls the best response, a postcard, a self-mailer or a letter? The answer, you’ll be irritated to know, is clear. It depends...
- Direct Mail Offers: Eight Steps to Making them Effective
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Every direct mail package you drop in the mail should contain an offer. The offer is the incentive or reward that motivates prospects to respond to your mailing, either with an order or with a request for more information. “Subscribe to Hook, Line and Sinker today and save 45% off the newsstand price” is an example of an offer. To be effective, your offers must pass eight tests.
- Business to Business Direct Mail Offers that Say Free
[Business:Marketing-Direct] In direct mail, the offer is the incentive or reward that you dangle in front of your prospects to motivate them to respond to your mailing, either with an order or with a request for more information.
- Advertising Headlines and How to Write Them
[Business:Advertising] Five times as many people read your headline as read your ad. So make sure your headline does plenty of selling.
- Brochures that Generate Sales Leads (and How to Write Them)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] One rule in direct mail is that your letter sells your offer and your brochure sells what you’re selling. For example, let’s say you mail a classic direct mail package to generate sales leads for your enterprise software product. Your classic package will consist of a #10 mailing envelope, a sales letter, a brochure (perhaps an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet folded twice), a reply device and a #9 return envelope.
- Nurture Sales Leads with Direct Mail Marketing
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Direct mail is a cost-effective way to make sales and generate leads. But it’s also an excellent way to keep your brand name in front of customers, and to nurture leads until they become customers. But what should you mail to businesses that you want to keep in touch with? Here are some ideas for mailings that you can use throughout the year.
- Qualify Prospects Using Direct Mail Marketing
[Business:Marketing-Direct] When a prospect responds to your lead generation sales letter, how do you know if the prospect is a qualified lead or not? By qualifying them before they respond.
- Direct Mail Sales Letter Mistakes to Avoid
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Some companies that use direct mail to sell their products and services are like the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there. They repeat the same mistakes, and enjoy the same poor results. Here are their eight most common misdemeanors, and a cure for each.
- Business to Business Direct Mail Sales Letters Need an Offer (and Here's Why)
[Business:Marketing-Direct] In direct mail, the offer is the incentive or reward that you dangle in front of your prospects to motivate them to respond to your mailing. In business-to-consumer direct mail, for example, a magazine publisher will offer a yearly subscription to its magazine at 60% off the newsstand price. The discount is the offer. It motivates prospects to subscribe now and save 60%.
- Direct Mail Response Devices and How to Craft Them
[Business:Marketing-Direct] Successful direct mail packages contain three things: an attractive offer, a call to action, and a response device. The offer is the Incentive. The call to action is the Imperative. And the response device is the Instrument.
- Direct Mail Marketing Generates Sales Leads: Here's How
[Business:Marketing-Direct] What's the most cost-effective, personal and direct way there is to attract new customers to your business? Direct mail marketing.
|
|
|
