Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

How to Deliver the Sun

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Sun cookie

Your writing can deliver the sun!

All right, I’m taking a poll here.  You receive a newsletter in the mail from someone with whom you do business.  Which of these opening paragraphs makes you want to read the rest of the newsletter?

Choice #1:

We are constantly striving to improve our service to our customers and our referral partners. This is a tough industry and it is hard to define good customer service when providing an extremely regulated, highly technical and complicated service.

Choice #2:

Recently, some of us were lucky enough to be sent on an award trip to the Four Seasons in Palm Beach by our parent company.  One of my coworkers was teasing one of the pool folks that it was their job to deliver the sun–moments before a sudden shower drove her back to her room. Fifteen minutes later there was a knock at her door and she was presented with oranges sliced into sun shapes and lemon cookies with a note that said, “I told you, you could count on me to deliver the sun” signed, Chris, assistant pool and beach manager.

I’ll bet I know which one you chose.

Choice #2 wins hands down, right?  But why?

  • It grabs your attention.  “Palm Beach! Why doesn’t my company send me on trips like that?”
  • It tells a story.  There’s a calm starting situation, a challenge (“deliver the sun”), a setback (the rain shower), and a triumph.
  • It takes the point about good customer service that Choice #1 buries in bureaucratic prose and brings it front and center.

So why do so many of us go with Choice #1?  Look at your own newsletter, or appeal letter, or even the last email you wrote.  Be honest.  Are you bringing them oranges and lemon cookies sliced into sun shapes, or are you making them trudge through a long stretch of shifting sand before getting to the point?

Someone once said that the key to writing a good book is to write what comes to mind and then throw away the first two pages.  When you are writing for your organization,  consider throwing away the first two paragraphs.

Do whatever it takes to bring them the sun.

Your Board is Not Your Audience

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you picked the wrong loverDoes your Board love your newsletter, website, blog, or social media?

That might be a bad sign.

Your Board includes some of the people who care most deeply about your organization.

Your communications should appeal to the people who have taken an interest  but don’t love you yet.  Woo them.

Your Board knows your organization and its programs really well already.

Your communications should touch people who don’t remember your agency’s name…but care about the difference you make.  Tell them stories.

Your Board may obsess about whose name is mentioned, whose face is in the photo, or whether you write in paragraphs.  Or sentence fragments.

Your communications should ignore those issues as much as possible.  Be useful to the people you want to reach. 

If you inform, educate, and entertain your audience, they will know, like, and trust you.  They will become your loyal supporters.  They will give time.  They will give money.  And that’s what your Board will really love.

 

Do You Know What You’re Writing About?

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writing topic

How do you find your topic?

Articles have titles. Email appears under a subject line. Newsletters use headlines. Each is a way of answering the readers’ question, “What are you writing about?”

Answer that question well and your readers will stick with you. Leave them wondering and they toss that newsletter into the trash or hit that delete button on the keyboard.  You might as well never have written anything!

How do you ensure that your readers know at a glance what you're writing about? Share on X

Topic first

Knowing what you’re writing about–your topic–is the first order of business for your readers. But you, the writer, may start with a topic…or only discover it at the end.

Some people write on a schedule. (I publish my blog every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, for instance.) If you do, you will find it useful to have a communications calendar. Write down at least the general topic for each day, ahead of time. That way, when you sit down to write, you won’t be staring at a blank screen, waiting for inspiration to strike.

Plug the topic on your calendar into the title, subject line, or headline, and your readers will know what to expect. But you’ve made them a promise. After your first draft, check what you’ve written is what the title says it’s supposed to be!

Topic last

Whether or not you plan your writing ahead, sometimes you write something unexpected. Inspiration strikes, or a news item springs up suddenly that you just have to address.  In those cases, you may have a sense of what you want to say without yet knowing exactly the point you want to make.

I’d still suggest putting a general subject line or title at the head of the piece. Consider that a placeholder. Write your first draft to discover what it is you’re writing about. Then, and only then, settle on the topic you want to present to your reader–and go back and use that instead.

Topic best

Give as much thought to your title as you give to all the rest of the article. Share on X

On average, your readers will take three seconds to decide whether to bother reading what you wrote. What can they see in three seconds?

  • Photos and captions
  • Text in bold
  • Subheadings, and, most of all…
  • Headline, subject line, or title

Make sure your readers can see what you’re talking about–and what’s in it for them. When you start writing, when you finish, or possibly both, take all the time you need to make that title sing.

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