The BEST fundraising offer won't make a difference if the formatting of your letter obscures it. The FORMATTING of your direct mail appeals is critical.

And here's the great news is: it's more of a SCIENCE than an art. We have formulas for this stuff. 😉

You and me chat today about how to organize a piece of direct mail to ENSURE the skimmers (80%) and the readers (20%) see exactly what you want them to see... in just a few seconds.

I ended up giving you like 17 tips and reviewing 6 appeals from my mailbox.

Not my intent to go wild. Tips are high impact and easy to implement. And backed by research since the 70s.

A few things you and I look at:

✅ leading with the lede

✅ how to encourage people to read the next page

✅ emphasizing the right text

✅ those darn pronouns

My hope is that this helps you create a short list for yourself. You can reference it when talking to your graphic designer or formatting your appeal personally.Give me your thoughts!

What did I miss? I had to shut myself up, I could go on and on about this stuff.