About once a month I fly off somewhere to give a one-day workshop on writing for the web.

For part of the day, I invite the group to take part in a series of short tasks. In one of these I ask people to write or rewrite a web page headline, using words of two syllables or less.

What’s the point? Well, the idea is to make people think. It’s often tempting to write with long, complex words. Perhaps it has to do with how we were taught at school. And sometimes we use long words simply to sound clever.

Before you know it, you end up with something like this, which I found on a CRM site:

“Our Internet support infrastructure automatically collects information from the user’s system, facilitates effective communication between support personnel and users, and enables self-healing and automated problem resolution.”

Do you know what they are trying to say? I don’t.

Two things happen here. First, the use of long words makes it harder for the reader to process the meaning of what you are saying. This is an issue with all writing, but even more so online, because we have to read on a screen.

Beyond that, I think the use of long words is a symptom. It’s a symptom of a writer being lazy. It’s a symptom of someone in a rush, someone who won’t take the time to sit back and think through what it is they are really trying to say.

Once you are clear in your own mind, and really know what you want to say, it becomes a great deal simpler to express yourself in short, simple words. And when you do that, you’ll write in a way that people can grasp very quickly.

Should you always write with short words? Of course not. But try it from time to time. Above all, try it when you find yourself writing in a way that goes on and one, with one long word tripping over the next.

And yes, in case you haven’t noticed, except for the word ’syllables’, I wrote this entire piece in words of two syllables or less.

(The purpose was not show that it’s a simple thing to do, or that I’m so very clever. The idea is to show how easy it is to read a block of text when the words are short and simple.)

Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocat of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his Excess Voice site. You’ll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at his Freelance Writing Success site.

Writing Online In Two Syllables or Less Updates

If you’re hunting for a good freelance copywriter and have never done it before, or if you have but find yourself needing another for the first time in a while, I don’t envy you. This “brave new” e-world has turned your once straightforward search of a neatly stacked file of brochures and introductory letters into a bothersome wade through a mucky world of half-baked online listings and search results which only seem to list those freelance copywriters who are experts in SEO, or at least know what the heck it means (search engine optimization).

You: “I just need a good freelance copywriter to write this product launch brochure who’s not going leave me hanging or make me ask for another round of financing.”

Google: “Results 1-10 of 44,700 for brochure copywriter (0.17 seconds).”

And that’s not even a very popular search term. Yet, with 44,700 doors (or thousands more depending on your search) to choose from, what are the chances you’ll click the one that leads to:

? A freelance copywriter who plays nice with designers and doesn’t charge a first-born child

? A freelance copywriter who knows when and where to offer their expertise on how to communicate a message

? Creative, cliché-free, differentiating, success-enabling copy that is turned in clean and on deadline

It’s probably better than a 1-in-44,700 chance, but you’re still more likely to fall short than be wildly ecstatic about your freelance copywriter decision unless you add a few points of structure to guide you through the online chaos:

1. Look at freelance copywriters further down the list. Unless you’re specifically looking for an SEO copywriter, how high a freelance copywriter or a link to a freelance copywriter ranks in search results is not indicative of how good that copywriter may be. Search engines rank web sites according to formulas of keyword saturation in site copy, meta tags, links and other places. Not how well a freelance copywriter’s work achieved his client’s objectives. Spend some time at this. There is more to the marketing, branding and advertising worlds than the Internet, and there are many worthy and successful freelance copywriters who work in the offline world, but have only a token presence on the Net. Go ahead and look at the top-ranked freelance copywriters, but investigate the others as well. Look at who their clients are, the work they do, the brands they’ve worked on, what their site is like and testimonials from past and current clients. That should give you a good gauge. Or if you like the advertising a specific company do a search for “CompanyX AND copywriter.”

2. If you want quality, steer clear of “bidding” sites. There’s too many of them already, and more seem to be popping up all the time. The online auction is a great concept for your old fishing equipment or clunker on cinder blocks, but not for a good freelance copywriter, designer, photographer or any other “creative service” professional. Sites like Elance.com, Guru.com and their many cousins allow service providers to whore themselves out for projects in a reverse auction where the lowest bid wins. Unfortunately, there really is no winner. The freelance copywriter (or whoever) gets a fraction of the fair market value for their work and the client, unless they’re extremely lucky, will be stuck with a student, green amateur or someone who might not even speak English well-to say nothing about the copy they’ll write.

3. Seek out freelance copywriters with online portfolios. Find freelance copywriters who have some kind of online portfolio. Go through it in detail. Try to get an idea of the communications problem the freelance copywriter had to solve and get a grasp on the talent and thinking that went into creating the finished copy. Then ask yourself, “If I was in the market for something like this, would this make me more interested in learning about this product or want to buy it?” The work of a good copywriter will be obvious.

4. Judge by the work, not the product. You may have a great new product that everyone’s going to want, or an old product that everyone already has, but with a new feature or something. Now, your first instinct in finding someone who’s going to write copy to sell this product is to find someone who, if you’re selling underwater titanium door hinges, has written copy for underwater steel or plastic door hinges. Yes, too many marketers think if a freelance copywriter has only written for X and not Y, that they can’t write for Y. This kind of thinking is misguided. Again, go back to No. 3 and look at the portfolio. Gauge the talent. If they did a great job communicating something about X, you can bet they’ll be able to do the same for Y. A freelance copywriter isn’t defined by the product. He is defined by how he writes about that product.

These guidelines, along with a little “buyer beware” mentality, will help you wield the Internet as the powerful information tool it’s purported to be. You will find a good freelance copywriter.

Adam Barone is a freelance copywriter from the Boston area, who writes results – generating copy for such clients as The Timberland Company, Bank One, TJ Maxx, and other clients and ad agencies.

Visit him at http://www.adambarone.com. Subscribe his e-newsletter, CopyTHINK at adambarone.com/mailinglist/?p=subscribe .

©Adam Barone 2005. All rights reserved.

Reprint rights granted as long as the article is published in its entirety, including links.

Freelance Copywriters on the Internet: How to Tell the Difference Between Heaven-sent and Hack Information

Where can you find out about freelance technical writing pay? Is there a place where you can go and find out where you stand? As with any field, pay is determined by several things, not just because you can do the work. Instead, it is about how you work, what type of work you do and how well you work with other people. It is often said that you cannot get experience without experience. That is true when it comes to these jobs as well. But, if you want to know about technical writing pay, then look at the characteristics you possess first.

Here are some basic things to consider about yourself before you go looking for the pay that you believe you should get.

• How experienced are you? Yes, we mentioned that sometimes it feels that you need experience to get it, but have you had any employment in which your skills were utilized?
• In your completed work what type of reference do you think your boss would give you? It doesn’t even matter if this is something totally unrelated to your current employment position. Will your boss say that you were a hard worker, dependable, and honest? These qualities go a lot farther in some cases than your resume can.
• What types of work have you done? Are you willing and able to write in other realms in order to get some experience?

There are many things that will determine the pay that you will receive. In many cases, vacancies are only filled by qualified individuals, but you can change this situation when you present yourself in a qualified manner. When you take a look at yourself to determine your worth, you will have a better understanding of what type of pay you should get.

Visit http://www.FreelanceWritingResource.com for more Articles, Resources, News and Advice about Freelance Writing. Copyright © FreelanceWritingResource.com. All rights reserved. This article may be reprinted in full so long as the resource box and the live links are included intact.

Freelance Technical Writers – How Much Are You Worth? Updates

All the world’s a story. Video games have storylines; newspapers report stories; country music lyrics tell a sad tale.

At a quick glance it would appear that fiction writing and copywriting are two mutually exclusive disciplines. But it just isn’t so.

Fiction and copywriting share the same heart: emotion.

What’s the goal for a fiction writer? I mean a slam-bang Harry Potter series type fiction writer? To write best-selling novels.

And what’s the target for a copywriter? To write best-selling controls, of course.

There are three fiction techniques that can pump up the drama in your copy:

• Imagery
• Tension
• Release

Let’s look at them one at a time.

IMAGERY

Imagery is defined as ‘mental images’ or ‘figurative language’. What it does is create pictures in a reader’s head through words.

The best way to get an image across is to find some common ground with the reader. That’s where similes and metaphors help. While some might think that this kind of writing has no business being in direct-mail copy, I’m here to disprove that.

Here’s an example for organic tranquilizer we’ll call Calm-All:

Take Becky: When she learned that Robin had won the award she rightfully deserved, she lost it. Came unglued. Threw Robin’s staplers and boxes of paper clips.

We’ve all, at one time in our lives, probably felt like Becky. And that paragraph gives us a visual image of how she’s feeling. But what about Robin? How about this:

Take Becky: When she learned that Robin had won the award she rightfully deserved, she lost it. Came unglued. Threw Robin’s staplers and boxes of paper clips — the ones that were all lined up — just so — like soldiers on a battlefield.

The addition of 14 words, ‘the ones that were all lined up — just so — like soldiers on a battlefield’, added depth to the scene and gave us a mental picture of Robin without fully describing her. The soldiers on the battlefield simile sets up the tension.

TENSION

Tension can manifest itself in lots of forms. There are tension headaches, tension rods, and tension in fabric. One of the best tools a writer can have is the ability to create tension in a storyline.

Now, this does not have to be the cliffhanger from Dallas — it can and should be more subtle than that.

It could be just a line.

That’s it, right there. The line right above where you are now — a one sentence paragraph — creates tension all by itself simply by disrupting flow. That’s where you want something memorable, disturbing, thoughtful.

How about Becky and Robin? What was the simile about the boxes of paper clips? That they were all lined up — just so — like soldiers on a battlefield.

The tension started in two places in that phrase: ‘just so’ and ’soldiers on a battlefield’.

• ‘Just so’ — Sure, I could’ve made it longer, explained about distance between the boxes or described how each box end matched the next one perfectly. But that would’ve been too long. “Just so” describes Robin’s anal compulsiveness without being wordy.
• ‘Soldiers on the battlefield’ — Not only does this visual give you an idea of the kind of precision Robin demands, but the “battlefield” states in one word the atmosphere in that room.

The icing on the tension cake is a line you haven’t seen yet:

Take Becky: When she learned that Robin had won the award she rightfully deserved, she lost it. Came unglued. Threw Robin’s staplers and boxes of paper clips — the ones that were all lined up — just so — like soldiers on a battlefield.

She even wrote on the walls.

Now, by itself, wall writing isn’t that big a deal. After all, you probably did it when you were a kid or during that stint as a graffiti artist in San Francisco.

So what makes it more? The fact that it follows the paragraph where Becky lost it, had a meltdown, when postal. And it makes you wonder just what she wrote. It creates tension because its behavior you don’t expect from a rational adult.

Why?

Because society tells us that when an adult is angry and hurt writing on walls isn’t acceptable. It’s something a child would do and we can’t be seen as having so little control.

Okay, now Becky’s a psychopath because she wrote on some walls. The reader will hold her breath on several levels with different emotions:

• Whoa! What a psycho = shock
• Whew! I’d never be like that = relief
• Wow! Wish I could unleash it all like she did = desire and envy

With 21 words, your direct-mail copy for Calm-All caused your reader want to order to make sure she never reacts like Becky did.

And when she’s held her breath long enough, you let her go.

RELEASE

This is the point in a work of fiction where the writer lets go of the reader’s throat and lets her come up for air. And it’s the thing that keeps readers turning pages whether they are bound in a book or enclosed in an envelope.

Here’s Calm-All’s release:

Take Becky: When she learned that Robin had won the award she rightfully deserved, she lost it. Came unglued. Threw Robin’s staplers and boxes of paper clips — the ones that were all lined up — just so — like soldiers on a battlefield.

She even wrote on the walls.

Hey, it’s okay to make a scene sometimes. It’s all right to get rid of pent-up frustration.

It’s just not your fault.

The last two paragraphs following the tumult of Becky and Robin make the push for Calm-All a slam dunk:

When you’re on your very last nerve, reach for Calm-All.

Just for fun, here’s Becky and Robin as a scene from a novel:

Becky lost it. Did exactly what her parents had warned her never to do:

DO. NOT. MAKE. A. SCENE.

Wisps of dirty blond hair stuck to the sweat on her face. Fury pounded her into the production room, all sense of business decorum lost.

Finding Robin’s things, her tools, Becky decided to destroy them as Robin had destroyed her. First was a wide tipped Magic Marker and next the graffiti on and over Robin’s desk. Robin’s boxes of paper clips ? all lined up just so like soldiers on a battle field — were cast all over the floor. And the stapler, pitched at just the right angle, shattered the glass on the frame of Robin’s Ad Age Award.

The award that was rightfully Becky’s.

The imagery is found in the third paragraph where we can actually see what Becky looks like at the point of explosion. The tension comes in the paragraph after that and the release is the last sentence.

CONCLUSION

Direct-mail copy’s story is told through the needs and desires of a reader for an offered product or service. Elements of fiction — imagery, tension, release — can enhance direct-mail copy and make the sale.

Remember:

Fiction does something To the reader

Copy does something For the reader

About The Author

Victoria B. Rosendahl
Copywriter
P.O. Box 280
Urbanna, VA 23175
804-758-3013–voice
804-758-3107–fax

mailto:rosendahlwrites@yahoo.com

Overnight delivery address: 118 Mill Pond Road, Warner, VA 23175

Three Steps To Pump Up The Drama In Your Copy Updates

Most salespeople have great ideas, but when it comes to putting those ideas on paper for their prospects, they ramble on for pages and quickly lose their readers’ interest. Why do brilliant salespeople often have such a difficult time writing effective sales materials? Quite simply, these professionals haven’t mastered the 5 rules of effective written business communications.

Unfortunately, few salespeople receive formal training on how to write. While they may have taken a few writing courses in college, such courses don’t adequately prepare people for real-world business writing. But with the proliferation of e-mail and sales-oriented web sites, writing skills are of paramount importance in today’s business landscape. In fact, when your written documents get to the point quickly and effectively, you will turn more prospects into clients, thus increasing your bottom line.

Following are the 5 rules of written sales communications that all salespeople need to know. Master them and watch your sales figures soar.

1. Know the specifics of your audience.

Just as you would tailor your message depending on whether it was going to employees versus prospects, you also need to tailor your message to your clients’ demographics. For example, if you’re writing promotional materials for your product or service, and the majority of the people who do business with you are older, well-established professionals, you’ll want to highlight the product or service’s safety features, reliability record, or guarantee. However, if your main clientele were younger Gen Y types, you’d want to emphasize product or service’s trendy image, quick results, or easy to use/understand features.

Do a survey of your most loyal customers to determine which demographic gives you the most business. Also, keep track of those who visit or call your business, even if they don’t buy from you. Really get to know who walks through your doors, find out what’s important to them, and then tailor your message appropriately.

2. Organize your material according to the way your reader thinks about the subject.

Realize that not everyone thinks like you. So just because you want your message to be organized one way does not mean your customers would agree. For example, one company created a free informational booklet about their product and organized it so that the product’s most popular features appeared first. When customers still called with questions that were clearly answered in the text, the company was stumped as to why their customers weren’t reading the booklet. After interviewing some of their customers, the company discovered that their customers found the booklet confusing. They wanted to see the features explained alphabetically, not in order of most popular.

The better you know who your clientele is, the better you can organize your information to meet their needs. Get inside their heads and discover how they think about your product. Do they typically want to know bottom line price first, and then want to know the features and benefits? Do they tend to think testimonials are more important than facts? When you understand how your customers think about your product, you can more easily present your information in a way that’s logical to them.

3. Write to express, not to impress.

The more successful a salesperson is, the more often he or she thinks that big words and long documents impress people. In reality, just the opposite is true. People who try to write with the hopes to impress others with their knowledge only accomplish one thing-they lose the reader!

Examine each marketing piece you write and distill its core message or purpose down to one or two sentence. If you can’t do that, then your piece is not focused. If that’s the case, then go back to each paragraph within the piece and try to condense each down to one or two sentences. String those new sentences together, and then pinpoint your marketing piece’s purposes. That’s the core message you want to express! Rewrite the piece with the core message in mind, using common, everyday language. Remember, true genius is when you can explain your idea in such a way that a five-year-old child can understand it.

4. In messages containing both good and bad news, give the bad news first.

At some point, every salesperson will have to deliver bad news to a customer. Whether a particular feature isn’t available in their favorite product or the customer’s interest rate will be higher than expected, occasional bad news is a fact of life. Whenever you communicate bad news in writing, state it first, and then counter it with a bit of good news.

For example, in a follow-up letter to a prospect you could write, “After checking with our warehouse, I discovered that the Widget 2000 doesn’t come in red. It does, however, come in the larger size you requested and you can have it delivered by Friday.” By ending with the good news, you take the sting off the bad news and leave your reader with a positive image.

5. Write colloquially when appropriate.

People like to read documents that sound as if the message is coming from a real person, not a formally trained Ivy League scholar. If you write too formally, you’ll quickly lose your reader. Have you ever reread your own writing and said, “It sounds all wrong!”? That’s because the tone of your writing was likely wrong. Determining your tone is important, because a follow-up letter should not have the same tone as web copy. Most salespeople try to use an excessively formal tone in all their writing as a way to show their expertise. But realize that excessive formality often comes from a writer who is insecure with his or her authority. By using an overformal tone-complete with many large words, long sentences, and technical terms-the writer attempts to mask his or her insecurities. Most prospects don’t want to do business with someone who is insecure, so keep the tone of your writing colloquial and approachable.

Writing for Profits

The more effectively you write, the more business you’ll gain. So no matter what you’re writing, whether it’s a sales letter or a brochure, always keep the 5 rules for effective written sales communication in mind. Remember, your ability to write clearly and succinctly will make your sales pieces stand out, and will enable you to win the deal.

About the Author:
Dawn Josephson, the Master Writing Coach?, is President and founder of Cameo Publications, LLC, an editorial and publishing services firm located in Hilton Head Island, SC. Dawn empowers leaders to master the printed word for enhanced credibility, positioning, and profits. She is the author of the book Putting It On Paper: The Ground Rules for Creating Promotional Pieces that Sell Books and the co-author (with Lauren Hidden) of the new book Write It Right: The Ground Rules for Self-Editing Like the Pros… Contact her at dawn@cameopublications.com or at 1-866-372-2636.

5 Rules for Effective Written Sales Communications

Most people with an online presence will have to regularly deal with the issue of coming up with an appropriate headline. The problem is that most people do not take it seriously enough. Many do not realize that the headline is so important that no matter how good the content is, it will never get read if the headline does not beckon surfers to it.

The power of a headline In the offline world of the tabloid press, one headline can sell a few hundred copies while another in the same publication, can sell several million copies. Online headlines are even more important as quite often somebody will not have an opportunity to leaf through, like they do in a print publication. Quite often, even a summary will not be available and all the prospective reader has to go on, is the headline.

Most of us forget that we are motivated to read almost everything that we read online through the headline. Open any news page and you will only click on the headlines that you find interesting. Even on a page of search engine results, you will tend to go for a lower ranked page with a better headline.

What this clearly means is that every little tiny headline that you place on every small piece of content is important and will have an impact on how often that item gets read. Ultimately every little headline will contribute towards the success or failure of your site.

And what makes things even more difficult is the fact that you will be competing with many other excellent headlines online, most of them the work of professional copy writers working for leading websites.

Come up with your headline when the content is done The most effective way of writing good headlines is to come up with your headline only when you have finished reading the content. Not only is it easier to come up with a much better headline when the content is done, but you also be able to come up with different headlines covering different aspects of the article. You can then decide which is the most attractive aspect of the article to base your headline on.

This has become a harder decision to make in recent times because you have to consider other aspects like keywords with search engines in mind and balance this with the most captivating headline that will result in most people clicking on it to read the contents.

Spend more time on the headline and come up with various options Professional copywriters usually spend much more time on the headline than they do writing they content. It is important to come up with several headlines before you settle on your final choice. It is a good idea to regularly test different headlines for the same articles and see which one attracts the most hits.

About the author: S. Rosendahl is a Technical Executive Writer for Website Source, Inc. http://www.websitesource.com. Her established writing skills coupled with experience in the website hosting industry have provided internet professionals with marketing, product and service ideas for many years.

Your Article Headlines will Make or Break Your Business Updates

You can turn your $200 fee to write a press release into $2,000 to carry out an entire PR campaign simply by convincing clients to invest in campaigns, instead of individual assignments. Campaigns achieve better results and cost less in the long-term for clients, compared to individual assignments. And, of course, as the freelancer, you get paid much more for turning out a succession of assignments that assimilate a successful campaign.

Here’s how to multiply your writing sales by convincing clients to invest in long-term campaigns, instead of short-term individual assignments.

? Know the short-term and long-term view results. A client approaches you to write a brochure. He may or may not know that his product can also benefit from other types of promotional pieces, such as ads, direct mail, news releases, websites, and so on, to sell his product or service. Your job is to educate the client. The brochure may be the first promotional piece in a consortium of promotional pieces. Here, you must know the short-term and long-term view results of the brochure.

The short-term view results are the results the brochure will achieve for the client; and the long-term results are the results the brochure will achieve/contribute for the entire campaign. It answers the questions, “How do the results of this brochure fit into the entire campaign?” and “How can these results be strengthened with other forms of promotional materials?”

Show the client how a campaign that’s comprised of a succession of assignments can achieve – and exceed – his expectations and outsell and outdo the performance of a single assignment.

? Use “tie-in” services. Whenever a client approaches you with a single assignment, ask yourself what tie-in services can supplement the single assignment. A news release achieves better results when it’s accompanied with a photo. And a press kit – complete with press releases, photos, brochures, and company information – can achieve better results than a single press release. All of these extra tie-in services can turn writing a single press release into multiple writing sales.

? Offer the “concept to completion” benefit. Instead of pitching yourself as a freelancer who can write newsletter copy, pitch yourself as a freelancer who produces newsletters, from copy to completion. You multiply your income by outsourcing parts of the job and delivering a finished product, not a piece of the product. You also can extend your “concept to completion” services by pitching yourself as a marketing consultant, in which you make recommendations to the client as to the best way to market the newsletter.

? Develop strong consultative skills. Besides selling your freelance services, also offer consulting services. Clients pay you to explain ideas, concepts, recommendations and turnkey solutions as to the best way to achieve the results they desire. Consulting with clients can lead to securing freelance work, since clients realize you have the skills and expertise to undertake the task.

? Know the future needs of clients. Clients come with present needs – and future needs. A client may hire you to write a newsletter now, but they’ll also consider you for future work if you know what their future needs are and how to fulfill them. The company may be ushering in a new product line, creating a new division within the company, sponsoring a charity event, or creating a website. All of these future events need a freelancer to do promotional writing and freelance work. That’s you. Your job is to show clients how you’ll address their future needs with solutions that’ll increase their profitability and/or productivity. This is usually accomplished with a proposal through which you pitch yourself as the freelancer who has the solutions to undertake the future tasks.

? Use proposals to secure work. Proposals are an inclusive persuasion tool to convince prospects that you can increase their profitability and/or productivity with your freelance services. Proposals specifically show the client how you intend to achieve the desired results, the time and costs involved, and why you and your solutions are the best choices to boost the company’s profits.

? Adaptations. Any of your freelance writing services can be adapted for websites, turning a single assignment into two assignments. Get paid to write a press release or brochure, and then get paid again to adapt the copy digitally.

? Add-on services, such as desktop publishing services, marketing consulting, compiling and selling media lists, and project coordinating can help multiply your work and your income.

About The Author

Brian Konradt is a former freelance copywriter and graphic designer, and founder of FreelanceWriting.Com (http://www.freelancewriting.com), a free web site dedicated to help writers master the business and creative sides of freelance writing.

Sowing the Seeds of Opportunity: How to Multiply Your Freelance (Writing) Work News

How do you make your fundraising letters creative and fresh year after year when your needs don’t change all that much? I am not talking about new initiatives. I’m talking about the programs that you run year after year. The membership drive that you run year after year. The funds that you must raise to cover administrative expenses and salaries year after year. How can you request funds for these things over time without boring your donors into apathy? Learn a lesson from Jack Foster.

Jack Foster spent 35 years working in creative departments of advertising agencies in the United States. One of his challenges was doing the advertising for Smokey Bear. Here’s how he describes his predicament:

The first thing the writers and art directors had to do every year was come up with a basic poster.

The rules for the poster never varied: It had to be a certain shape and size; it had to feature Smokey; it had to be simple enough to grasp at a glance, clear enough for even a dunce to understand, and (if it had words) brief enough to be read in three or four seconds.

The mission of the poster never varied either: It had to convince people to be careful with fire.

In other words, every year we had to come up with the same thing only different.

And we did. Indeed, every year we came up with 20 of 30 different ideas for posters. Every year. For over 20 years. Over 500 posters, all featuring Smokey and all trying to do the same thing and not a one of them the same.

I faced similar challenges when I worked at advertising agencies as a copywriter, and as a freelance copywriter for direct response agencies that create fundraising letters for international non-profits. The work was tough, but I discovered that writers and art directors could indeed create original fundraising appeals year after year for the same clients who needed money for the same things.

Here are some lessons I learned along the way, tips that will help you present your case for support to your donors in creative ways over time. The secret is knowing where to look for ideas. Here’s where I look.

Challenges in the field

One place to look for original ideas is the field. If your charity is involved with child welfare, then your “field” may be the homes of your foster parents. If you are a small but international humanitarian organization, then the “field” for you is the towns and villages where you operate overseas. As you sit down to create a brand new appeal letter, look to your field and ask yourself what challenges you are facing. These challenges can often be translated into a compelling ask. Let me give you an example.

Doctors Without Borders is an international aid organization that sends volunteer doctors and nurses to places where no medical infrastructure exists, usually because of war or natural disasters. Since they never know where the next tsunami or civil war will strike, they need to have sufficient funds on hand at all times so they can respond quickly to a humanitarian crisis anywhere in the world. This means their fundraising letters must ask for funds for no particular emergency, but for emergencies in general. A tough challenge.

Doctors Without Borders has met this challenge year after year in creative ways. Here is just one. They realized that they often sent their volunteers into emergency situations that were created by water. Either there was a flood or there was a drought. Either there was too much water or not enough. In a brilliant move, Doctors Without Borders crafted an original fundraising package that presented this global need. They told their story in such a way that the need was obviously great, though not necessarily looming.

Donors who received the appeal understood that Doctors Without Borders needed funds on hand to meet the challenge of floods or droughts at anytime. But they also understood that their gift to the organization might be used to help victims of a cholera epidemic, or people displaced by a civil war. By looking to a challenge faced in the field, Doctors Without Borders created a memorable fundraising letter campaign that did nothing more than raise money for their general fund in a novel way.

Your frontline staff

Another source of creative ideas for fundraising letters is your staff, particularly those at the front lines of your ministry. The men and women who carry out your work face to face with the public have dozens of stories to tell about the needs that your organization meets and the people it helps. Many of these needs can be translated into an appeal, not for a special project, but a request for general funds to meet a given need. Here’s an example.

In talking with the staff of a ministry that works with inmates in Canada’s prisons, I discovered that most inmates have a problem with anger. Their tempers often land them in prison. And, while inside, they grow even more angry. As you can imagine, a compelling theme for an appeal letter would be inmate anger, and how a donor’s gift supplies the funds that this prison ministry needs to help inmates conquer their anger and lead productive lives upon release.

Milestones

Is your organization celebrating a 10th or 100th anniversary? Then you have the ingredients for a compelling appeal, provided you link past successes with your plans for the coming months and years. Have you just served your millionth meal? Or planted 500,000 trees as of this week? Translate your milestones into compelling proof that your organization needs your donors’ continued support, then put your proof on paper in the form of a persuasive fundraising package theme and mail it.

Recent successes

Similar to milestones are recent successes. One organization I wrote for won the Nobel Peace Prize. That became a theme for one mailing. Another organization I know of retired their debt early, and announced the fact with an appeal for funds.

The key to keeping your fundraising letters engaging and a joy to read with each passing year is to present your work in new ways. As Foster put it, “to come up with the same thing only different.” And the best places to look for those creative ideas are your clients, volunteers and staff, and the challenges they face each day in carrying out your mission.

About the author
Alan Sharpe is a professional fundraising letter writer who helps non-profits raise funds, build relationships and retain loyal donors using creative fundraising letters. Learn more about his services, view free sample fundraising letters, and sign up for free weekly tips like this at http://www.fundraisingletters.org.

© 2005 Sharpe 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).

Fundraising Letters: Where To Find Creative Ideas For Your Appeals News

Did you know that jobs writing about food are available? These opportunities are available in a variety of areas. Employment in these fields is an exciting concept. For many, getting their foot in the door is the most important and most challenging first step. In order to succeed, a wide range of knowledge is needed as well as a good base of experience.

These jobs are available in all sorts of media. The internet is full of postings for good quality writers in a variety of fields. Some in this field write for magazines, newspapers, or even books. Others work right online. There are several avenues a prospective writer can take.

The first step in getting into any of these, though, is getting a good base of knowledge. There are courses that can be taken to give a good base of knowledge for the food aspect of the business. But, for the writing, grammar, and compiling of the articles and pieces, you will need at least a few years of schooling. Writing is the foundation of the work you will do, after all.

To start out in freelance writing though, you need to know how to get experience.

You can take your career to the next level by expanding your knowledge, getting your experience into a portfolio, and presenting yourself to the prospective employers. Try small, local newspapers to start. Or, submit an article to a magazine asking them to review it for consideration. Present yourself to the companies you want to start with, but always keep striving for other levels of opportunity. There are hundreds of companies that are looking for a new, fresh face in writing. You’ll find them throughout the internet posting on message boards and websites. Or, you can contact all of the organizations that you would like to get your start in by sending resumes and samples of your work.

You will enjoy a career with the freelance food writer jobs that you do get. You certainly will love the opportunities that are available!

Visit http://www.FreelanceWritingResource.com for more Articles, Resources, News and Advice about Freelance Writing Jobs.

Copyright © 2005 FreelanceWritingResource.com. All rights reserved. This article may be reprinted in full so long as the resource box and the live links are included intact.

How To Find Freelance Jobs – Writing About Food Updates

Your initial freelance writing assignments are the best way to present yourself to your client for repeated work. If you provide for them a good product, at a good price, they are likely to come back time and time again. The goal of any career, particularly as a freelancer, is to have steady business. Instead of continually needing new clients or another job to fill your day, why not utilize repeat business? When you make the most of your freelancing time you are helping yourself to gain more business and maintain that which you already have.

For many people getting that first job is the key to success. It is the hardest part of working because more and more people want quality providers and want to use someone who is proven and worth the risk. You cannot get these jobs if you are new. But look at it another way. When you do get to that point, it is important to make the most out of all assignments so that you get return business from that client. This could be any number of things, but should always focus on maintaining a strong working relationship with the client. Providing them with good work, timely work, and listening and meeting their needs will have them coming back to you time and time again.

There is another, even more important, reason to build your business like this. That is referrals. When you do an outstanding job for people, they return time and time again with more business. But, they also tell people about your talents. This can be an outstanding way to use the jobs you get to create more jobs for yourself.

Now, that is not to say that you can not search for new writing job vacancies in other realms as well. But, you must strive to maintain the employment that you already have. By building strong relationships with your clients, you can help them continuously meet their needs while building your business.

Visit http://www.FreelanceWritingResource.com for more Articles, Resources, News and Advice about Freelance Writing Jobs.

Copyright © FreelanceWritingResource.com. All rights reserved. This article may be reprinted in full so long as the resource box and the live links are included intact.

How To Take Your Freelance Writing Chances Updates