Kevin’s post on Getting Your Copy from Good to Better focuses on improving and optimizing direct response copy—generally understood by most fundraisers as the body copy of a direct mail letter or a digital appeal.

Today’s post spotlights the most neglected—yet in many ways the most valuable—part of a fundraising appeal: The Response Form. Know also to the Digitalrati as the Landing or Donate Page.

Most serious copywriters spend somewhere between 35% and 40% of the total time devoted to the entire fundraising package on the response form alone.  For good reason. It’s the final point at which you either win or lose the gift.

In the words of Malcolm Decker, one of the all-time great copywriters, “Whether digital or print, give the order mechanism more time and effort per square inch than any other element of the promotion.  It’s time well spent.  It’s the net that secures the trout, so it can’t have any holes in it.”

Judging from the reams of direct mail and digital appeals I receive and the donation pages and response forms I see most are likely to turn a masterfully crafted banquet of fundraising communication into little more than a frozen tv dinner.

So, without laboring through a lot of detail here’s some advice on response forms taken from experts who honor this part of the copywriter’s art with the seriousness it deserves.

Jerry Huntsinger

“So here I am today still hating the reply device.  Not so much because I don’t feel that I really do a good job with it.  But, you see, prospective donors have this irritating habit of reading my captivating copy and lingering over my full-color graphics and examining the pretty little premium with one hand, while wiping a tear from their eye with the other hand.

“Then the pretty little premium is tucked away in a drawer and the rest of the package is heartlessly stuffed into the nearest waste container—that is, everything except the reply device.

“This tiny innocent little slip of paper is put into a stack of ‘bills to be paid.’ Then, a week, 10 days, two weeks, a month (?) later, it’s check-writing time and the little slip is there to remind the donor of the emotional turmoil provoked by the original letter.  But darn it, how can a tiny slip of paper with a sterile headline rekindle the emotional dynamics of the original package.

“It can’t.”

Jerry goes on to offer these observations on the failings of most response forms:

• Response forms are generally too small. Mere slips that fail to mirror the essence of the appeal let alone spell out in detail the benefits accruing to the donor.
• Most surrender to bureaucracy “and let the financial disclaimer provide the only visual excitement.”
• Too many crammed boxes to check “set in type that requires a magnifying glass.”

Jerry sets forth his ideal of an effective response form: “…an 8 ½ X 11” sheet with the donor’s name and address setup prominently at the top, a series of headlines and sub headlines, a choice of three gift items, photographs on the left, the offer on the right, and instructions on what to do with the completed form on the bottom.

Those serious about direct mail response forms will want to dig into the detail contained in Jerry’s Tutorial 45: why I still hate the reply device found along with all his other dd tutorials in a special section of SOFII. Thank you, Jerry.  Thank you SOFII.

Denny Hatch

No copywriter I know has analyzed more winning direct response campaigns than Denny Hatch.  You’ll love his feisty, iconoclastic and detailed take on the best and worst of our craft.  On the issue of Response Forms enjoy this recent post from Denny titled MAKE IT EASY TO ORDER…OR ELSE!

Tapping into the wisdom of other direct response stars and his own experience Denny includes in this post his “Ultimate 19-Point Checklist” for “A Flawless Ordering Process”.  You’ll want to print this out and keep it handy.

Here a few tasty tidbits from among the 19 (but you gotta read the whole list):

• The order form should contain absolutely nothing new. It should stand on its own feet and crystallize everything that’s gone before it.
• Beware of lawyers and bean counters mucking up your offer and order form with a barrage of disclaimers and footnotes in gray sans serif mouse-type causing your customers to say, ‘The hell with it.’
• Give [the donor] the final vote. The response form must be simple, clear, direct and –if you can possibly imagine it—foolproof. Use the combined talents of your most clever people to write it, but make sure even a fool can understand it.

Treat yourself while boosting your bottom line; read Denny’s entire post.

Next After

Some of the worst response forms –donation pages or landing pages—come flooding into my email inbox or can often be found on the web.  An excuse I often hear is “well, our CRM limits what we can creatively.”  Nonsense.  That’s really just sloth talking.

Fact is there’s lots that can be done digitally –a lot more than in mail, print adverts or broadcast. I continually wonder why, in a world where many organizations—particularly the smaller and mid-sized ones—rely so heavily on digital that their donate pages are so lousy.

One resource I often turn to is the digital research and massive amount of testing conducted by NextAfter and the NextAfter Institute.  Research and testing they make publicly available, free of charge.

So, for some practical and valuable advice on digital   response forms I recommend you dig into this piece from NextAfter:

7 Donation Page Secrets To Instantly Optimize Your Fundraising!

Here’s some catnip of tested, proven tips from the NexAfter team on getting the most from your donation page, aka response form. Savor their full post here.

• Optimize the header of your donate page. Keep it simple in appearance…remove all navigation links…remove the donate button. You don’t want folks navigating away from the donate page itself. (NextAfter notes this quick and easy fix resulted in a 195.1% increase in donations.
• Don’t use the same header on your donate page that you use on your website. Do use a good background image—one that communicates who or what the donor benefits and the positive results of making a donation. (NextAfter notes that by selecting the proper background image donor conversion rates jumped by 19.8%)
• Make things easy to read and avoid distracting donors from giving a donation. Keep it simple. (See NextAfter’s various tests on design and why the superior design received a 85.1% rise in revenue.)

I’ve summarized but a few of NextAfter’s tips.  Again, read the full post –including the part of copywriting—here.

Here’s hoping you’ll find some good stuff for your response forms and donation pages in the resources I’ve summarized.  Absent the proper copy, design and execution an all-purpose template or slapped together response form comes across as little more than  a plea to just “Gimme Your Money”.

Roger