Why the boss can’t read your fundraising right

From Tom Ahern’s newsletter, a checklist you might want to give your boss or that meddling board member who’s bent on taking all the life out of your fundraising: Why does good direct mail sound so weird?

Here’s what I think may be the main point, the reason reviewers have a tendency to get things so terribly wrong:

We write (and review) these letters at 1 mph. Readers, though, read at 100 mph. Things that are said just once tend to be overlooked. When you read direct mail at 1 mph (listen up, reviewers!), it can sound choppy. That choppiness disappears at 100 mph.

In fact that “chop” is what makes it possible for people to understand what they’re reading at that speed. If you wrote in a way your reviewers found smooth and pleasing, you’d lose readers — and revenue.

Get Tom’s list and make your reviewers read it!