Have you ever been at a party and found yourself stuck in conversation with someone who can only talk about himself? You start off trying to be polite and make conversation, but as they drone on and on, your eyes glaze over and you find yourself racking your brain for a way out of the situation.<\/p>\n
Your donors feel the same way when you send a letter that focuses on your organization, a letter filled with statements like \u201cWe do this,\u201d \u201cWe accomplished that,\u201d \u201cOur organization is changing the world.\u201d The only difference is that your donors have an easy out \u2013 they can toss the letter the moment they lose interest.<\/p>\n
That’s why Bloomerang users can audit their written content (letters and emails) through a “You” test and a Reading Level test.<\/p>\n
The You test measures how many times you use words like “I” and “we” versus words like “you.” The Reading Level test measures the reading grade level of your letter. Ideally, you should use twice as many “you” words as “we” words. It should also read between a 6th and 8th grade reading level.<\/p>\n
Why is this important?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u201d and its variations (you\u2019d, you\u2019ll, you\u2019re, your, yours, yourself, and you\u2019ve) are like flytraps for your readers, calling out to them and making them pay attention to what you\u2019re saying. Using \u201cyou\u201d words also keeps your writing oriented toward giving the donor the credit for the good things they\u2019ve helped make possible, which makes them feel good. And donors who feel good about giving to you will keep giving to you.<\/p>\n
Reading level is also an important consideration.<\/p>\n
Your constituents are busy people, and frankly, they aren\u2019t looking to your letters and communications for long, rainy day, settle-in-with-a-cup-of-tea kind of reading. They want to understand what you\u2019re trying to tell them, and they want to process it\u00a0quickly<\/em>. Your goal, then, should be to give them something they can read through easily \u2013 if you don\u2019t, you might find they won\u2019t read it at all.<\/p>\n One of the best things you can do is make sure you\u2019re writing at the right grade level. The lower the grade level, the faster the read. Ideally, your donor communications should be between the sixth- and eighth-grade \u00a0reading level.\u00a0<\/strong>This isn\u2019t to say you should be talking down to your constituents. Grade level is not really about the topic, it\u2019s about the style of the writing. Newspapers, which cover topics ranging from the economy to movie reviews, usually come in at about the eighth-grade level. Popular novels can get down as low as the forth- or fifth-grade level, and we gobble them up with glee.<\/p>\n Other communications you should run the “You” test on:<\/p>\n So before you sit down to write anything<\/i>, remember: it’s not about me. It’s about the donor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever been at a party and found yourself stuck in conversation with someone who can only talk about himself? You start off trying to be polite and make conversation, but as they drone on and on, your eyes glaze over and you find yourself racking your brain for a way out of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":60214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"cause":[],"article_author":[],"webinar_host":[],"topic":[351],"class_list":["post-2717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","topic-marketing-communications"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNot Just Letters and Emails<\/h2>\n
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