Writing That Works, 3e_ How to Communicate Effectively in Business - Kenneth Roman [44]
The Russian tour was an absolutely great experience for the Choristers and we are now starting our season with a wealth of scheduled appearances. I am particularly excited about our October 17th Carnegie Hall collaboration with the Montreal Symphony, conducted by Charles Dutoit. The Brooklyn Youth Chorus Festival 2000 is shaping up to be a great event as well.
The Chorus continued to grow in many ways during FY 1999. We completed our strategic plan, increased enrollment, hired a Children’s Voice Specialist and an Associate Conductor, started individualized vocal and instrumental instruction, and opened a new Saturday chorus division.
During the coming year we will continue to expand enrollment, initiate the new Intermediate Chorus, present our Festival, support other choruses through our new Partnership program, and conduct a new series of teacher-training workshops.
How important is the quality of the writing? Very important, says Rosa, particularly in applications from educational programs. “Proposals filled with spelling and grammatical mistakes drive me crazy. How secure can we feel about your ability to teach kids if you can’t spell?” But, she concludes, more time should be spent improving the product than improving the proposal.
6. It need not be dull
A successful proposal, by the South-North News Service, to fund a world affairs newspaper and teachers’ guide for U.S. secondary schools, opened with an arresting image.
Oh, to be 14 years old.
The rigid antagonisms of the Cold War are crumbling. The white power structure of southern Africa is coming face to face with reality.
But survey after survey shows us that neither the 14-year-olds nor their teachers can find Vietnam or Brazil on a map, or tell the difference between Tel Aviv and Cairo, or label the Indian Ocean or Antarctica.
Put colorful detail in your proposal, like this successful one by the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College for a major exhibition, “The Age of the Marvelous.”
During the 16th and 17th centuries, European culture was marked by an intense fascination with the Marvelous, and those things or events that were unusual, unexpected, exotic, extraordinary or rare.
The first requirement is to get read.
9 Asking for Money: Sales and Fund-Raising Letters
Grumble all you want at the volume of your mail at home, made up of catalogs, brochures, or letters asking for money for some product or service or charity. It’s unlikely to abate, as long as there’s evidence that direct marketing works. People do respond — to the right appeal.
The remarkable growth of direct mail was triggered by sophisticated computer models, improved targeting of mailing lists, credit cards, 800 numbers, plus changes in lifestyles and shopping habits. Now the Internet is spawning e-mail pitches (some unsolicited, some requested by customers) which are faster, cheaper, and often get better response than postal mail. Direct mail on steroids, as some describe it.
While changes in technology have been a large part of this revolution, what hasn’t changed is what to say to people (or how to say it) to get them to respond and send money. Studies show that many successful mailings use techniques that have been around since the 1930s — the same basic elements (letter, brochure, reply card), the same kind of offer (something for nothing, or a discount), a bill-me option, long letters even to busy people who supposedly have no time to read.
The principles go back even further — to the Grand Bazaar in ancient Turkey, suggests British direct marketing guru Drayton Bird. He draws an analogy to contemporary media:
Why are so many big advertisers firing blanks on the Internet? Because they think it’s an advertising medium. It isn’t. It’s a marketing channel; a direct marketing medium. All Internet transactions are direct.
Like the Turkish Bazaar (“they don’t just show, they sell”), direct marketing is a retail medium.