Donation Request Letter Items 1 - 13 of 13 Attract New Donors with Friend Get a Friend Donation Request Fundraising Letters. New donors are closer than you think. Often they are friends of your donors, or family members... Details... Writing Donation Request Letters Writing a fundraising letter is not that difficult. However, you need to know what works and what doesn't before you invest your time composing your donation request. Fundraising letters have some general rules of thumb: Keep in mind whenever you are asking for money that you are providing a service. Tell people what you've done and what you plan to do to achieve progress toward your goals. Details... Fundraising Letters - Crafting Your Donation Request Writing a fundraising letter is not that difficult. However, you need to know what works and what doesn't before you invest your time composing your donation request. Fundraising letters have some general rules of thumb: Keep in mind whenever you are asking for money that you are providing a service. Details... Going For The Sales Letter Gold In the 1998 Winter Olympics downhill skier Picabo Street won a gold medal by the slimmest possible margin -- one 1/100th of a second. Anything less than the flawless technique she displayed and the total effort she put forth and she would have finished at best, second, at worst, completely shut out of the medal ceremony. She would have lost the chance to realize a lifelong dream, and, most likely, hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income. Details... Direct Mail and Direct Mail Marketing for Crisis Centers Crisis Centers with special call in numbers can do wonders to help people with severe depression and such, and yet if those people do not call in their time of need, then the crisis center can do little good for that individual. The most important thing is to get those folks to call when they need help. But how can we get the help to these people if they do not call? Well, a robust yet inexpensive marketing and advertising program might do the trick. Let me explain; you see, direct-mail and direct-mail marketing for crisis centers makes sense. It also makes sense to send them out every single month so that the phone number is close at hand. Details... The Surprising Maxim that Maximises Your Marketing Results Who was it that said, “Modesty is a virtue”? Whoever it was, I’m sure they weren’t referring to the field of sales and marketing, where self-promotion is the name of the game … or were they? Take a good look at anyone who is a roaring success in sales, in copywriting or in marketing and you’ll see that one of the secrets of their success is in being able to really connect with people one-on-one, on their level. Sure, that means developing a great rapport with them, being a great listener and being a great communicator and more. But there’s one factor that separates these greats from the wannabes. Details... 5 Tips For Writing A Good-Looking Sales Letter That Produces Profitable Results Do looks matter to you? If you're like most people -- including your customers and prospects -- the answer is Yes. Particularly in sales, appearance is important. For example, in a competitive situation, all else being equal, the appearance of the salesperson may well be the deciding factor in who gets the business. Details... Designing Strong Direct Mail Letters Direct mail is one of the world's venerable advertising systems, a spin-off from the text-heavy ads that used to appear in magazines. Reduced to almost a pure science through obsessive list management and refined copywriting techniques, it remains an amazingly effective means of branding, acquisition and retention. (Look no further than Citibank, who distributes tens of billions of acquisition pieces every year.) Details... Neglect the Envelope and Your Direct Response Could Get No Response So, you spend hours and hours getting your direct response letter just right. You’ve mastered the conversational tone. Your message is clear. You’ve highlighted the benefits just right. And you’ve got a great call to action. Let’s face it. Your letter is as perfect as it can possibly be. Now maybe you’ve rented a mailing list or maybe you’ve created your own list one name at a time. How you got your mailing list doesn’t really matter. You carefully address each one, run it through your postage meter, and send it to your 1,000 names. Then you sit back and wait for the 1 to 3% response rate you’re expecting. Details... Five Deadly Sales Letter Mistakes To be effective your sales letter must be opened, read, believed and acted upon. In order to do this it must attract attention, warm the interest of the reader, create a desire for your product or service and cause your prospect to take positive action. An effective sales letter, not surprisingly, achieves the same objectives as an effective salesperson. And just as there are certain mistakes a salesperson wants to be sure to avoid in the selling process, the same holds true for the writer of sales letters. Details... Write Better Fundraising Letters by Making a Scene (Includes Examples) 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. Details... Donation Request Letters Are Irresistible When You Enter Shooting 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. Details... Fundraising Letter Templates Harm Your Non-Profit's Reputation and Response Rates 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. Details...