Cover to cover
Howard Lake | 11 June 2009 | Blogs
Outside of work, family, and football my passion is for music. It means I subscribe to more magazines than I ought to, but it does also mean I get occasional post that is not (a) charity appeals, (b) charity newsletters, (c) bills, or (d) financial services offers. Of these, in all honesty, I read some of (a) and most of (b), eventually (c) and none of (d).
And it is the newsletters I receive that got me thinking. Purely because, like the music magazines I get, some come with a cover letter and some don’t. But of all of them that I receive, I realised that I now actually look forward to reading the cover letter that comes with the Word magazine. In fact of all the newsletters and magazines I get, it is the only one that I categorically know comes with a cover letter.
It dawned on me that I always read it before I even open the magazine. I realised what I liked about it was that it didn’t tell me what was in the magazine, but seemed to credit me with the intelligence to work this out for myself (or assumed as a subscriber I would choose to read it). Either way, the letter is a personal communication and it is interesting, opinionated, thought provoking and conversational. There is nothing predictable about it, and it always comes from the same person. I’m sad enough to admit I enjoy reading his letters.
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I went back and checked what I had received with my charity newsletters. The cover letters weren’t bad by any means, but they didn’t do what the letter from the Word did – they were much more predictable than that. Sadly, some were pretty much interchangeable with others, which has got to be pretty bad!
I’ve also done a lot of research with donors of different charities about what they think of the newsletters they receive and I’m pretty sure they think there is room for improvement. Too many get it, skim it and forget it, or put it to one side for later (if that ever comes) or simply pop it straight into the recycling pile.
Just a thought, but if you looked at the last few cover letters that went with your newsletters how many would you call genuinely interesting, opinionated, thought-provoking, or even conversational?
Given the world we operate in, I don’t think it would be too difficult to achieve and wouldn’t it be a great thing if your supporters looked forward enough to receiving your newsletter to open it immediately just to find out what you had to say before getting to the newsletter.
Worth a try?
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.