The Intro #49: Don’t discount the power of a great email

by | Oct 22, 2020 | The Intro

Raise your hand if your email inbox is out of control. 🙋‍♀️

We know we’re not the only ones who receive a lot of emails. And we also know that, as marketers who write digital campaigns for organizations, we contribute to inbox clutter.

We feel you. We’re sorry. And we’re not going to stop. 

Because here’s the deal: Emails still work. 

Yes, even in 2020, when we have Facebook and Twitter and all the things, an old school email still converts. A Campaign Monitor study showed that “across the board, donors prefer email. Nearly 42% of donors prefer hearing from nonprofits via email, and 21% of respondents claimed nonprofit emails inspire them to donate.“

Consider us convinced.

This fall, as you are plotting your Q4 plans and feeling fatigued by your own ballooning inbox, don’t get discouraged. And don’t discount the power of a great email. 

We want to make this process as painless as possible, so we’re dedicating this week’s newsletter to all things email. Stay encouraged. Stay creative. And if you need some additional assistance, reach out! We’d love to help you make your emails awesome. 

Raise your hand if your email inbox is out of control. 🙋‍♀️

We know we’re not the only ones who receive a lot of emails. And we also know that, as marketers who write digital campaigns for organizations, we contribute to inbox clutter.

We feel you. We’re sorry. And we’re not going to stop. 

Because here’s the deal: Emails still work. 

Yes, even in 2020, when we have Facebook and Twitter and all the things, an old school email still converts. A Campaign Monitor study showed that “across the board, donors prefer email. Nearly 42% of donors prefer hearing from nonprofits via email, and 21% of respondents claimed nonprofit emails inspire them to donate.“

Consider us convinced.

This fall, as you are plotting your Q4 plans and feeling fatigued by your own ballooning inbox, don’t get discouraged. And don’t discount the power of a great email. 

We want to make this process as painless as possible, so we’re dedicating this week’s newsletter to all things email. Stay encouraged. Stay creative. And if you need some additional assistance, reach out! We’d love to help you make your emails awesome. 

The Intro #48: Consider this your reminder to pick your battles

by | Oct 15, 2020 | The Intro

On any given day, there are a million concerns that could consume your attention and focus. Countless projects that need your input. And endless to-dos and “very important” tasks. (Want to know what we think of work emergencies for marketers? Start here.) 

When it all gets to be a lot, it can seem like every little thing is a fight. 

Consider this your friendly reminder to pick your battles. 

Not every project is mission critical. And not every assignment deserves an equal portion of your brain space. 

Sometimes, it is ok to give up. 

Let’s say you’re working on an insignificant (in the grand scheme of things) task. On your list of key projects, it’s not even in the top 10. Your colleagues have a vision. You disagree with their plans. If you’ve raised your questions and presented your opinions, and you still aren’t getting anywhere? Wave that white flag, buddy.

You did your job. You fought the good fight. And your time will be better spent working on the things that are actually at the top of your priority list. 

We’ll be the first people to promote determination, attention to detail, continual improvement, and a commitment to excellence in your work — but make sure you’re choosing battles that actually matter. 

5 easy ways to upgrade your skills and write copy like a pro

5 easy ways to upgrade your skills and write copy like a pro

by | Oct 12, 2020 | Copywriting

I write words for a living. Sometimes that means long-form articles that read like research papers. Other times, it means speeches. And occasionally it means an op-ed or an interview. 

But most of the time, I write copy. 

And if you’re a marketer, you write copy, too—whether you know it or not. 

Copy is the bucket term for everyday words that drive organizations. It’s headlines and ads and emails. It’s social media posts and status updates. It’s campaigns and calls to action. It’s all the stuff you’re writing every day to compel donors to give, people to buy, and prospects to get involved. 

And it’s something that you could probably be doing better. 

Whether you’re new to the copy game or have been writing organizational messages for years, here are five tips to upgrade your skills and write copy like a pro. 

Write like a human. 

If you learn nothing else, learn this: Write the way you speak. 

Luckily this is the easiest thing in the world to test. Ready? Read your copy out loud. If it sounds clumsy and confusing when you’re saying it, it’s not ready yet. Your readers will think it’s clumsy and confusing, too. 

If you’re really stuck, pull out your voice memo app. Explain what you’re trying to communicate to your phone, then type up a transcript. Chances are, you’ve just done 90% of the work. 

We know you’re smart—you don’t need to prove it by dropping in big words and being complicated. 

Speak to a human. 

In copywriting, the most powerful word you can use is “you.” 

Unlike a college essay or a news article, marketing copy is directed at someone—and is designed to move that person to action. Who is your reader? What do you want them to learn, think about, or do? Are you holding their hand until they get there? 

Define your “you”—then spend the rest of your copy talking right to them. 

Think like a human. 

You know more about your work than anyone else does (and, spoiler, you care more about your work than anyone else does, too). So ask yourself this question: If you didn’t know anything, would your copy still make sense? 

There’s a popular notion that you should always write for a third-grade reading level. Generally, this is good advice. But even if your audience is a bunch of technical experts who have the vocabulary of a college professor, you still want to think simple, conversational, and clear. Have you deleted all the industry jargon? Can you make what you have even simpler? Would it make sense to a brand new reader? 

Details matter. 

Proof, proof, and proof again. Small errors may seem insignificant, but they separate good writers from great ones. If your idea is clear, your language is concise, and your proofing skills are strong, you will stand out. 

There are a million things to keep in mind, but simple things like capitalization, passive and active voice, parallel sentence structures, and all things punctuation are good places to start. 

Simplify, shorten, and sizzle. 

Here’s another trick to make your copy even stronger: Delete words. Literally. Go through what you’ve just written and remove whatever you can. (You can always put it back if you decide you need to!) 

And as for that sizzle? What can you do to make your copy pop? Can you make your headline bolder? Your subhead snappier? Your call to action even more compelling? 

People are inundated with content all day long. Your job is to cut through the noise with something punchy and powerful. 

For nonprofit organizations (the organizations I work with most frequently), effective copywriting is critical. The power of your writing is directly correlated to your fundraising success. If your campaigns are boring, cluttered, and difficult to understand, donors won’t feel inspired. If your webpage is impossible to navigate or riddled with errors, prospects won’t know how (or why) to convert. If your email asks fall flat, you’re just delivering one more message to an over-crowded inbox. And most of all, if you aren’t thinking, writing, and speaking like a human, how are you ever going to build relationships with your community?

But here’s the good news: You have a great story. I know you do. And I know that you can tell it well. It just might take some practice.

Like anything worth learning, copywriting is a skill built over time—but thankfully there are a few easy tricks that you can start using right now.

If you’re interested in learning more about effective copywriting—or looking for someone to manage your messaging—reach out! I’d love to talk to you about your story.

The Intro #47: Big lessons from a year of carefully laid (and quickly destroyed) plans

by | Oct 8, 2020 | The Intro

Imagine this scenario:

You make amazing plans. A campaign calendar. Monthly communication themes. An email schedule. You have a vision for the quarter (or, even better, the year), and you are ready to do big things for your organization.

And then something happens. Like, say, a hurricane. Or a famine. Or, I don’t know, a global pandemic.

All of a sudden your (truly great) plans are back-burnered at best, and thrown out entirely at worst. Ugh.

If your experience has been anything like ours, this has been the unending story of 2020. We’ve planned so many things that have yet to happen (and might not ever see the light of the day). It sucks. We totally feel you.

But we’ve also learned the art of rapid response. Of shifting gears more quickly than we ever thought possible. Of prioritizing agility, flexibility, and creativity above so many other valuable skills.

Here are a few of our big lessons from a year of carefully laid (and quickly destroyed) plans:

  • The best teams work with what’s in front of them (not what they wish they had in front of them). Don’t be too precious about anything, because plans are only great until they change.
  • Timeliness matters. In the world of crisis communications (and crisis programming), you need to move fast. This is true for fundraising success (hello, emergency response), it’s true because your community is waiting to hear from you, and it’s true because the actual scenario to which you’re responding could change at any moment.
  • Done is better than perfect. We are all about being error-free, but sometimes all you need is for a project to be done. Get the email out the door. Post the graphic. Make the appeal. 100% is awesome, but most of the time 90% is really all it takes.

What plans have you upended? And what have you learned about rapid response fundraising and communications this year? We’d love hear from you!

The Intro #46: We have a challenge for you: focus.

by | Oct 1, 2020 | The Intro

As we round the corner into a new month (where does the time go?!), we have a challenge for you: focus.

When you’re in the weeds on dozens (hundreds?) of projects, can you identify your priorities and then create space to actually work on them?

Listen, on any given day we are multitasking with the best of them. (Have we been on a Zoom call and a phone call simultaneously? Yes. Was it effective? No, not at all.) But recently, we are repeatedly seeing the power of single tasking. Of deciding what the big project is — and then getting rid of everything else that’s getting in the way of doing that thing well.

Functionally, this might mean turning off your slack notifications, carving out “hiding” time, or putting up an out-of-office. But in our experience, the “how” is pretty easy once you make the choice to do it.

You are smart, capable, and creative. What incredible thing might you produce if you gifted yourself the brain space (and the literal hours) you need to actually think about your project?

It’s our October challenge — and we invite you to be a part of it.