If you want your supporters to help your animal organization, you need to stop talking so much.
Many rescue groups, shelters, and animal welfare organizations try to say too much in their messages to supporters. While it’s easy to think that every communication should carry as much information as possible, the fact is, few people can or will absorb more than one request for help in a single message.
The next time you’re composing any kind of written communication on behalf of the animals in your care, start by writing down the answer to this question:
What do you want people to do after reading this message?
Your answer should be equally brief. Examples:
- Contact us about adopting this pet
- Give us money
- Volunteer for us
- Remember us in their will
- Bring blankets, food and other items to the shelter
- Attend our fundraiser
- Contact their representative about a funding or legislative issue that will affect animals
- Foster pets for us
- Help with transport
- Shop at our thrift store
- Follow us on Facebook, Twitter or other social media
- Visit our website
After you’ve decided what you want them to do, sit down and compose your message. After finishing it, go back and delete everything that isn’t related to that single, short description of what you want people to do.
It’s okay to have additional requests for action in the template of an email — for example, to have a “donate” button embedded in the right hand column of your email, or a request at the bottom to be followed on social media. The actual body of the message to your supporters, however, should be about only that one request for action, and nothing else.
Take a look at your adoption listings, too. Are they full of information on your hours, policies, and advice on the proper care of pets? Delete it. They should be about one thing only: getting people to contact you about adopting that individual pet.
The bottom line is this: No one should be in doubt after they read something your organization writes as to what you want them to do. To make sure you’ve gotten it right, ask a friend who isn’t involved in animal welfare to read what you wrote. Then ask them to tell you what you want them do to. If they’re not sure, or if they list several things or get it wrong — start over!