Special Speech

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times: less than ten days after their first postcard is mailed, the client calls me and says, “Rachel, it should have arrived a few days ago, but my phone hasn’t rung yet. Are you SURE the postcard was mailed out?” First I reassure them that we mailed it. Then I remind them again that it usually takes several mailings before the phone starts ringing off the hook.

Sometimes my clients believe me… and a few months later, they start seeing great results from their postcards. Sometimes my clients don’t believe me… and they give up on postcards before ever really giving them a chance.

You remember when Grandma told you that patience is a virtue? You might not have realized it then, but she was talking about your postcard marketing campaign, too.

The truth is, anyone who doesn’t live under a rock already knows that successful advertising campaigns are based in repetition, repetition, repetition - and consistency. Let’s take a few examples. What comes to mind if I say…

“Tastes Great, Less Filling”

“Where’s the Beef?”

“I just saved a lot of money on my car insurance!”

Getting the idea?

We remember successful advertising campaigns for many different reasons - they are clever and well-written (I’ll address this in subsequent articles), but more than that, we remember them because we hear or see them over and over again.

Yet when it comes to postcard marketing, many of my clients seem to think that one huge run of postcards is sufficient for their advertising needs for the whole quarter or the whole year.

Use common sense by thinking about your own buying habits:

Do you buy a product the first time you see it advertised?

Do you buy a product the second time you see it advertised?

Aren’t you much more likely to buy a product after you have seen it advertised several times?

Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your postcard marketing budget.

1. When you create your postcard marketing budget, plan for a minimum of eight mailings.
As I always tell my clients, your money will be put to better use by mailing 1,000 people eight times than 8,000. Even if you can only afford to mail a small number of people on a monthly basis, this is a better strategy than mailing a large number only once or twice.

Don’t give up after just a few mailings. Our company once had a real estate agent client who mailed NINE months in a row without a single phone call. He had decided that if he didn’t get any results on the tenth mailing, he was calling it quits. On that tenth mailing, his postcards yielded three high-quality listings. Just one of those listings was more than enough for the ten months of postcards.

2. Be as consistent and frequent as you can afford.
We are a culture of very busy people. Very busy people share something in common - very short attention spans. If you want people to remember your company, your name, your product, mail them at regular intervals - weekly if you can afford it, but at least monthly. Mailing once per quarter can work for certain clients - for example, retail clients who have a big quarterly sale that their current clients already know about might benefit from a quarterly postcard, especially if they are also utilizing monthly postcards. But once per year? What advertising do YOU remember from one year ago? If you can’t remember, how do you expect your prospects to remember YOUR advertising if you’re only doing one mailing per year?

3. Use your budget, your consistency, and your frequency on ONE group of people.
Just recently, a client mailed a list of 2,500 people. For his second mailing, he chose a new list of 2,500 people, and he hasn’t gotten a single phone call. Groaning, he called us and said, “Why didn’t I listen to you??” Even though he’s now done two consistent monthly mailings, he may as well only have done one mailing for those two groups of 2,500. Each group will have only heard of him once, not twice. It can be tempting - especially when our budget is small - to reach out to more and more people by mailing to a different group every time. However, this is another strategy that flushes your advertising dollars down the toilet because it breaks the rules of consistency and repetition.

4. Above all, be patient!
There are plenty of people out there who will try to tell you that they can get you rich quick with little marketing, no marketing, or cheap marketing. The people selling get rich quick schemes are preying upon our unwillingness to be consistent and patient. Don’t fall for it. As one famous advertising slogan goes, “Good things come to those who wait.”

About the Author
Rachel Medlock is an account representative and website designer with Mr. Postcard, LLC, of Atlanta, GA. For over ten years, Mr. Postcard has been helping real estate agents and business owners in the Atlanta area and beyond to succeed through direct mail and postcard marketing. In addition to postcards, Mr. Postcard designs and prints business cards, stationary, newsletters, and websites. If you need help on your next marketing campaign, turn to the experts. http://www.MrPostcard.com.

If you are like most internet based home business entrepreneurs then marketing your product and driving increasing traffic to your web page is essential to increasing sales. The challenge is to market your products and increase your traffic and to do it affordably or even for free.

Fortunately, this is an option for home based businesses, and all it takes is a little creativity combined with dedication. And for those home based businesses with advertising budgets, there are even more advertising options available. Here are some suggestions that should help your product marketing plan significantly.

One of the best ways to get your web page noticed is by writing and publishing articles. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of ezines and newsletters that are constantly looking for new content. First, you need to find some ezines and newsletters that target your niche market. You can search for them on your favorite search engine by searching for “ezine directories” or “newsletter directories”. Then, write an article that can be submitted to a variety of these ezines and online newsletters, just make sure you retain the copyright. You may not think that you have the ability or creativity to write articles, but it can easily be done with a couple hours of effort and some commitment. The key part of marketing your home business is by creating a resource box at the end of your article that contains your URL and some brief information about you and your company. Doing this will get your web page out in the public quickly and will result in many hits and free product marketing.

Another way to market your products is to create a forum on your web page. By doing this, you are getting individuals to talk about products and services offered by your company as well as competitors and other relevant topics. This alone will help your product assuming you are offering top notch quality and customer service. If not, then a forum might not be the best idea for you. In addition, a forum will require a commitment of your time in reviewing the posts to make sure the discussions are kept within the rules. However, for those that are committed to their customers, forums generally create repeat traffic which is important to making sales. This is important because it has been proven that more than 70% of sales are made after the third, fourth or fifth contact. A forum keeps individuals coming back for more and more contact, which means you will sell more products.

Additionally, you should use banners on your own web page as well as others by exchanging links. You should also list your web page with search engines. All of these will help your web page get noticed which means your products and services will get noticed and your home based business will prosper. Remember that the most important factor in product marketing online is URL marketing. You might have the best product for the best price on earth, but if nobody knows how to get to your web site it doesn’t matter. Therefore, be diligent about getting your URL out there.

Finally, market your product and URL offline. This will reach a different sector of individuals and will also increase web page traffic. Make sure your URL is printed on any correspondence from your company including checks, faxes, web pages, emails, and letters, envelopes, and any promotional items like key chains, mouse pads and the like. The more people that know your URL means more traffic to your site. This in itself is the best product marketing you can receive.

Copyright 2005 Timothy Spaulding

Timothy Spaulding is the owner of the Work At Home Business Resource Center at http://www.workathome-awesomeopportunities.com and Home Made Profits at http://www.homemadeprofits.net which provide valuable tools, articles, affiliate programs and products for the home based entrepreneur.

Today I received the following email from one of my autoresponder services. It was sent to their customers on September 14 but due to a misspelling in my email address, I didn’t get a copy until they responded to a service request I sent yesterday.

———-

Dear DemandMail Customer,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your patronage of the DemandMail system. We have been providing the best quality autoresponder marketing system for over three years and I hope it has been a benefit to you.

As I am sure you are aware the email marketing environment has become very challenging recently because of the mis-use by some and the continuing new laws regarding the transmission of email.

First we had the enactment by the US Government of the Can-Spam act and most recently the enactment of laws by Utah and Michigan called the child protection laws. These later laws allow anyone to bring suit against someone who sent an email to a child in their state that contains prohibited material. The problem is that the there is no definition of what prohibited material is.

Additionally, they do not freely publish “don’t email” list. You can wash lists through their system but at a cost per email that in our opinion is prohibitive.

Because of these developments we have determined it is too risky to provide the DemandMail service and take the risk of multiple lawsuits, fines, and imprisonment that this legislation provides.

So it is with great sadness that I must inform you that DemandMail will be closing it doors on October 1, 2005. It has been our great pleasure to serve you over these many years and I personally want to thank you for your business.

…

———-

I am sharing this message with you because I used this service for more than 3 years and had more than 4/5 of my subscribers located there.

Now even though I have backups of my subscriber lists and can import those names into a new autoresponder the impact of losing a fundamental business service is not inconsequential.

I know this from experience.

You see, a little over 3 years ago, I had this same thing happened to me with a different autoresponder service.

Because spam was becoming such a big issue and the service I was using had received enough complaints about various customers they decided to close down early and avoid the rush.

Since double opt-in was a way to avoid most spam complaints, I chose that route when I imported my list to a different service. Unfortunately, unexpected confirmation requests are usually deleted so I experienced a 96% loss of my subscribers. Because I again won’t be able to tell my subscribers to expect a confirmation request, I expect the same type of loss.

With all the new legislation and legal threats it looks like double opt-in autoresponder service providers are running scared and I don’t think their fears are unjustified. I do think that many legitimate service providers and users will suffer more than those who are causing the problem.

But this tip is not an editorial about spam and it’s impact on online business. It’s about determination.

You see, if I wasn’t determined, now would be a great time to give up.

But I am not giving up. Instead, I’ll salvage what I can, try to implement a plan to avoid going through this a third time and go on.

Remember, if you are going to succeed online you must be determined. You must be able to recover from things like your website being down or hacked, losing your hosting or autoresponder service, receiving “not nice” email, being accused of spam and a host of other things that can and do happen everyday to legitimate online business people.

**********

Susan Carroll is the owner of http://www.friendswhocare.us and has formed a global community of online business people through her weekly newsletter.

Susan recently opened a free membership area where she offer’s her subscribers both a way to be recognized for working their business plus free and discounted tools to assist them.
http://www.friendswhocare.us/join.htm

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

**********

Susan Carroll is the founder of the
FriendsWhoCare.us Newsletter and provides a helping hand to those starting an online business. Although designed to assist those just getting started, her community of friends include both newbies and experienced internet marketers.

A study was recently released showing that visitors navigating
directly to a web site resulted in almost twice the conversion
ratio of those using search engines to arrive there (4.23%
compared to 2.3%). Internet traffic generated from other sources
such as text links or online advertising converted at less than
1% (.96%).

To make the best use of this information as business owners
let’s start with how visitors can navigate directly to a web
site — there are really only two ways:

• By typing your web site address into the address bar of
  their browser
• By using a bookmark that they have
  previously saved

In order for someone to arrive at your web site in one of these
two ways, they will have to be reached through some other means
first, such as face-to-face sales calls, networking, direct mail
postcards or some other form of marketing. Therefore, be sure to
include your URL on all of your marketing materials, stationary
and company literature. There is something more tangible about
being able to hold a brochure, business card or postcard in your
hand and type the address into your browser. It creates a higher
degree of trust by showing that you really are more than just a
web site.

Now we’ll look at the lower converting traffic from search
engines, links and online advertising. Although it will offer a
lower conversion ratio when compared to visitors navigating
directly to your web site, it’s still a valuable resource and
can also serve as the first contact that someone has with your
company so that their next return can be through direct
navigation. You should include a mix of SEO and online
advertising to improve the effectiveness of your overall
marketing campaign.

Your website is an important part of your business. Not only for your online but also for many offline business. Your online presence means that you can tap into the huge and growing market of the Internet. Many people think that having your own website and setting it up is complicated and expensive but it is not necessarily so. Here are some tips to have you up and running with ease.

1. Planning your website

1. Analyzing your desired visitors
2. How to attract them and warm them to the sale
3. Writing good content
4. Your sales letter
5. Your domain name
6. Optimizing content

Before you build a website you will need to put some thought and planning into it. Your first step will be to decide who are your most wanted visitors. Analyze them carefully, who are they? What interests them? Where do they go? Make a thumbnail sketch and write it down for reference.

Then list all the ways you will attract them and make them stay at your site. What info content are they looking for? What sort of newsletter will interest them? Most important of all find out their needs and wants, so that you can build your product/service to fulfill these needs. List all these and keep record of them.

Make a list of all the info articles that will interest them and warm potential buyers for the sale. Put a couple on your website and keep the rest for future newsletter material.

Your sales letter: This is the heart of your business and should be done right. If you are an experienced copywriter then go ahead and write a warm persuasive personal sales letter. If you do not have experience then it is worth hiring a professional to write one for you. You can hire professional writers at http://Elance.com for a reasonable price. You should place your sales letter on your home page and have your info articles link into it.

Your domain name: Should have at least 1-2 keywords or even be made up of your key phrase for your business. This will help with Search engine placement and will help to brand your business in your visitors minds.

Ideally your content should be optimized so that you can be placed well with the search engines.

2. Choosing an HTML editor.

1. Which one is right for you?
2. How to get a free one with hosting
3. Do it yourself VS having a website designed

There are 2 major HTML editors that are used commonly, Front Page and Dreamweaver. They can run you about $300-$400 but if you want to work on your site yourself will be worth it. Front page is a basic HTML editor but if your site requires PHP scripting is a little hard to work with. Dreamweaver does allow PHP scripts and is also easy to use. Do a comparison check and see which one will work for you.

If you have Yahoo hosting they provide a free HTML editor, which is quite easy to use.

If you have the funds you may want to have your site designed, especially if you have a service, where credibility is very important. Making your own website can be quite time consuming and although rewarding is not for everyone.

3. Designing your website

1. Your content-Preselling points
2. Free give a ways
3. Layout/Presentation
4. Use of graphics
5. Forms instead of email
6. Basic web promotion
7. Newsletter

When you write your web content you can use a couple of your best articles about your subject. Visitors will enjoy this and see you as an expert in your field. This boosts your credibility, wins trust and warms your potential buyer for the sale.Product reviews are also good selling points. Landing pages for direct advertising is always good; these can and should be optimized for search engine traffic.

Free info can be offered in the form of reports and e-courses. These can be given as a bonus for subscribing to your newsletter.

Your layout is important. Navigation should be simple and easy for your visitors, usually on the left hand side. Keep your layout professional and businesslike with normal font (Times Roman, Ariel or Veranda in normal size font). Black on white background is good for a business site. Try to use just 2 colors at the most to keep it looking businesslike. A simple template looks good for a business website. Try to find one that matches your topic.

Use graphics sparingly. Business websites should always look sober and professional. Small graphics are good to emphasize a point and book covers help to sell e-books and software.

Use forms instead of email addresses on your website for the contact us and about us section. This will cut down Spammers harvesting your email address.

Basic web promotion includes search engine submission, Pay-per-clicks, Google ad campaigns, and linking to related sites. Article distribution is also a powerful way to get targeted traffic to your site.

A free newsletter is a must for capturing visitors email addresses and building your business list.

Building your website can be a fun and rewarding task. However it does take time and good planning. With these few points you will be able to build a profit pulling website, that will continue to make you money for years to come.

I was born in September 20, 1955 in Romania, and I am a Romanian citizen. Married, 2 beautiful daughters 18 and 20 years.
I graduated Faculty of Automatics in 1983 becoming a System Engineer, with a full degree. I worked in Ultra Sonic and High Frequency Power Supply Converter research institute in Bucharest, Romania until 1990.
After the fall of Ceausescu’s regime, I have worked in sales since 1994. I now run my own company FOX I.E. in Romania. Starting in 1997 my company has dedicated its whole efforts to internet software activity.
In 2003 I founded my own US based corporation IT PRO VISION, Inc. Both companies have their own websites at FOX SOFTWARE and IT PRO VISION, Inc.
More articles can be found at marketing.itprovision.net

Copyright 2005 Rok Hrastnik

As much as this might surprise most bloggers, the #1 mistake most blogs are doing is not publishing their content via e-mail, as a supplement to their RSS feeds.

Just think about it: while RSS is growing strong, it still only penetrates about 5-6% of the American online population. Furthermore, according to a recent BlogAds survey, “only 12 percent of the blog reading audience said it used RSS always or often”.

If you’re delivering your blog content only via RSS, you’re missing out on about 80% or more of potential regular readership/followship.

THE KEY BLOG PROBLEM

There are millions of blogs already, but really few people have the time to watch more than a few daily. But if they come back just once a week, they can be quickly overwhelmed with the amount of new content.

That’s why it’s crucial to provide a “best of”, a helping hand to guide your readers to the “must-read” content you publish … and delivering this content either as a standalone “blog-zine” or as part of your regular e-mail newsletter.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

Deliver your blog posts as they are written via RSS, but then also publish a regular (weekly or monthly) e-mail e-zine with your “top blog posts” for those that are still not in to RSS.

Don’t do just one channel, do both.

E-mail is still the #1 end-user content delivery channel … whether we like it or not. Using e-mail (as a supplement to RSS) to deliver our content is just good business practice, at least for now.

THE CHRIS PIRILLO EXAMPLE

Chris Pirillo is the publisher of one of the most popular sites on the net, Lockergnome.com. He was actually the first to proclaim e-mail as being dead.

But still, while he preferrs for his subscribers to use RSS instead of e-mail, that isn’t stopping him from using or promoting either RSS or e-mail.

COMPARING BLOGS, E-ZINES, E-MAIL AND RSS

If you’re reading this article and thinking that blogs are actually “beyond e-mail”, just consider the following reality.

RSS and e-mail are content delivery channels; the tools that enable us to deliver our content to end-users. Blogs and e-zines on the other hand are two different internet media content formats, differing in how/what content is provided and presented through them.

RSS/e-mail and blogs/e-zines cannot be directly compared. Blog content and e-zine content can both be delivered via RSS and e-mail, and there is no direct business/logical relation between, for example, blogs and RSS.

Blogs are “personal” conversations, opinions and news, delivered in a linear structure, usually written in a more personal style, and confined to a limited number of content types.

E-zines on the other hand are more similar to magazines or newspapers, carrying content presented in a complex non-linear content structure, and having the ability to carry many different content types that do not mix well together if provided through a linear content structure.

A typical e-zine might include:

- an editorial;
- a leading article, representing the prevailing topic of a specific e-zine issue;
- supporting articles, clearly structured to show they are secondary to the leading article;
- links to “best of” blog posts in the given timeframe;
- links to the most relevant forum topics and posts;
- a news section;
- a featured client case study;
- different advertisements (banner ads, textual ads, advertorials etc.);
- a featured consultant;
- a Q&A section;
- a featured whitepaper;
- etc.

Providing all of this content demands a complex content structure and a strong and experienced editor. The blog format simply does not provide the level of structure needed to effectively present such a complex content mix.

But that’s not to say that blogs are in any way inferior to e-zines, they’re just different. And businesses need both, and they need to deliver both via RSS and e-mail.

Personal preferences towards content delivery channels and internet content media formats have no place in business. What matters is what our audiences want and how they want it.

About the Author

Rok Hrastnik is the author of Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS, acclaimed as the best and most comprehensive guide to RSS for marketers by leading RSS experts. The complete guide on RSS for marketers: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/index.html?src=sa2

AS a SEM Expert, I have personally seen many clients investing their huge sum in Search Engine Optimization and PPC campaigns. To my surprise, these companies survived hardly a year or two.

I was curious to know, why these clients have lost their businesses. So, I started studying their business and the campaigns they conducted to increase there businesses.

I started with personal interaction with these clients. I asked them, what was the reason for the business failure? And they told me only one thing “High Investments and low Returns”.

This is a normal phenomenon to lose business and this happens because people are not very experienced with the Search Engine Market. When, I personally studied their businesses and matched keywords, I found that the keywords are common. The search results for the keywords are very high! But what is the conversation ratio of the keywords?

So, I am personally asking all of you who are reading this article.

Are you facing the same problem? Then, you are in the right place to solve your problem.

Case 1: High Impressions and High CTR but Low Conversations Ratio -

For Instance take “SEO” as a search term. The Searches for the keyword are very high. The websites listed for the particular keyword receives thousands of Impressions and Clicks, but what is the conversation ratio?

The conversation ratio for the particular keyword is very very less, when compared to Impression and Clicks.

WHY ??

“SEO” is commonly used Keyword, and this keyword may be used by a user to find out information about SEO, or to have an update about SEO information and tools, or to find out the best SEO Company that provides SEO Services, etc….

The impressions for the keyword are very high and the Clicks are comparatively lower. Client investing money in PPC campaign will lose much of his revenue because of Clicks.

If the client needs to pay only for the revenue generated for the particular keyword, then every thing will be in place. But as per the policy they need to pay for the Clicks. So, identifying the type of campaign is the primary task.

Classification of Campaigns:

The word “blog” seems to be everywhere, and what an ugly word it is!

Short for “web log,” a blog is a Web page made up of typically short, frequently updated postings that are listed chronologically. It’s similar to an online journal. Different blog publishers have different types of content and objectives, just like e-zine publishers do. Content can vary greatly, but most blogs I see are used to share news about a certain business, project, person, or idea. I’ve also seen some with personal diaries, photos, mini-essays, and the like. Most blogs feature “here’s what’s on my mind” type entries written by only one person.

Are blogs the next big thing? Well, people seem to love talking about them. (”Do you have a blog? Have you blogged? Want to blog me?”) They’re popular, easy to update instantly, and you don’t have to worry about sp^m filters eating you up.

Do you NEED a blog? Absolutely not. Blogs don’t come close to the marketing power of an e-zine. They require your readers to come to YOU instead of your coming to them.

My friend John Reese has a great blog at MarketingSecrets.com, in which he reveals results to his online marketing tests and news about his programs. (I love his stuff.) He posts to his blog much more than he publishes his e-zine. He says it allows him to share thoughts, resources, ideas, and strategies more quickly and easily. (You can see what his blog looks like here.)

But honestly, I never think to go visit the blog, because I have to … go visit it. Instead I faithfully read his e-zine that arrives right in my inbox.

You May Want to Start a Blog If…

• You’d like your website to rank higher in the search engines.
• You already have a large following of people who would like to keep up with your advice or programs more frequently than your e-zine allows.
• Your business is in a field whose information changes very frequently, such as on a daily basis (e.g. stock trading).
• You have project or personal matter you’d like to update everyone on at once. (For example, my friends who just had a baby post a blog with frequent updates on their little one’s progress.)
• You have so much infomation to share about a certain topic so often that it just won’t work in your e-zine.

Free Tool Helps You Get Started

If you’d like to start a blog, check out www.Blogger.com. It offers a Web-based tool that helps you publish to the Web instantly, whenever the urge strikes you.

Just don’t expect me to come read your blog! : )

(c) 2003 Alexandria K. Brown

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandria K. Brown, “The E-zine Queen,” is author of the award-winning manual, “Boost Business With Your Own E-zine.” To learn more about her book and sign up for more FREE tips like these, visit her site at http://EzineQueenTutorial.com/

Affiliate programs are a great way to earn extra money or even a good living if you do things right. But unfortunately, there are alot of people out there that know this and will do everything they can to swindle you into selling their products while not having to pay you a dime. There are some merchants that view affiliates as a source of free traffic and free marketing.

Here are a few things that should draw up a red flag when you come accross an affiliate program:

No Contact Information
If they don’t post their contact information on their site then you should not bother with them. To me this tells me they are trying to hide something.

Commission To High
Yes, it is great when we find affiliate programs that pay high commissions. But you also have to be careful that they are not just trying to draw you into their affiliate program by using big numbers. It wouldn’t be good to earn alot of money just to get scammed. If it is to good to be true then most likely it is. A merchant will never pay more on a commission then they would get for the sale. It is just not business smart.

No Replies To Your Emails
If they do have their email address on their site and you send them an email but they never reply then you should drop them like a hot rock. If you can’t trust them to take one minute to give you a reply then you shouldn’t trust them to spend a few more minutes cutting and mailing you a check.

Returned Affiliate Payment Checks
If they do send you a check and your bank returns it then this would be another reason to draw up the red flag of being scammed. Of course you should always contact the merchant to try to resolve the issue, it could be an honest mistake. But if it happens in conjuction with no email replies and lousy affiliate support then I wouldn’t waste anymore of my time with them.

The bottom line is that you should always use your gut feeling when dealing with affiliate programs. If you are not sure about an affiliate program then search the search engines for the merchants name. If they are known for scamming affiliates you are sure to find it in the search engines and affiliate forums.

About the Author

Chet Brzezinski has been in the affiliate marketing and affiliate management industry since 1997. View more affiliate program related articles at any of Chet’s sites below:
http://www.affiliate-program-review.com
http://www.proudmedia.com

Year-End Fundraising Letter Appeals: 10 Tips to Give Them a
Boost.

If your non-profit organization is like many others, you receive
half or more or your contributed income at the end of the year
as part of what used to be called the “Christmas Appeal.” In
recent years it has come to be known as, in politically correct
North America at least, the “Year-End Appeal” or “Seasonal
Appeal.”Which means your year-end appeal letter can make or
break your year, financially speaking. Here are some tips on how
to craft a winning year-end fundraising letter appeal
package.

1. Keep it simple

One non-profit ministry that I shall not name mailed their
year-end appeal letter in a poly bag along with their donor
newsletter. They had been late in getting their newsletter in
the mail and so, to save on postage, they mailed it along with
the seasonal appeal letter. The campaign bombed, and bombed big.
Donors, as far as we could tell, read the full-colour newsletter
and ignored the letter that came with it. So my advice is this:
keep your year-end appeal simple and focused on one goal:
securing a year-end donation.

2. Be creative

You will be competing with other organizations in the
mailbox. Every charity sends an appeal at Christmas. So stand
out by mailing something creative. When I worked with Doctors
Without Borders as their fundraising letter writer, they mailed
a Christmas card to donors that donors then signed and returned
to the organization with their gift. Doctors Without Borders
forwarded the card to a volunteer doctor or nurse who was
serving overseas, and whose name was on the card. The cards were
greatly appreciated by the volunteers (many of whom were
homesick at that time of year). The cards also involved donors
in a way that warmed their hearts and motivated them to
contribute.

3. Look back with thanksgiving

Use your year-end appeal fundraising letter as a way to
thank donors for their support during the past year. Don’t list
the names of every staff person you hired or promoted, or go on
at length about happenings at head office. Instead, tell at
least one heart-warming or compelling story that illustrates in
vivid terms how your donors’ gifts changed lives. Use quotes
from the people that you serve wherever possible. They add
credibility and human interest to your letter.

4. Look
ahead with anticipation

Also use this Christmas appeal letter to present your vision
for the coming year. Show donors how their gift this “Holiday
Season” will make a difference next year for your organization
and the people you serve.

5. Use a seasonal theme

Try to tie your appeal to the season. Giving, presents,
exchanging greetings, snow, “goodwill toward man” and other
themes are popular at Christmastime. If you can tie your appeal
to an emotion or sentiment that is already prevalent at the end
of the year, and do so in a relevant way without being overly
sentimental, do so.

6. Accentuate the positive

Please don’t appeal for donors to get your books out of the
red and into the black. If you have a negative cash flow at
year-end, don’t ask donors to correct it. They will see your
predicament as your fault. Donors are not motivated to eliminate
debt (unless it’s Third World debt). But they are motivated to
change the world through a gift to your organization. So present
your appeal as an opportunity for the donor rather than a rescue
operation for your chief financial officer.

7. A special
word for Christian charities

Avoid the “God gave us an unspeakable Gift and so should
you” approach in your Christmas appeal letter. Instead, show in
concrete terms how you will use a donor’s gift to further the
work that your Christian donors care about, using a biblical
theme if possible.

©2005Sharpe Copy Inc. You may reprint this article online and
in print provided the links remain live and the content remains
unaltered (including the “About the author” message).