Almost everything you need to write better

« Stupid misconception about the inner lives of children | Main | The right way to experiment in fundraising »

11 June 2012

Almost everything you need to write better

Here's a possibly exhaustive list, at Copyblogger, of 48 Elements of Persuasive Written Content:

Anxiety
Authenticity
Authority
Boxes
Breaks
Bullet Points
Buttons
Catch Phrases
Catchy Headlines
Color
Commas
Common Language
Contractions
Dashes
Depth
Email Addresses
Emotional Response
Extras
Eyes
Facts
Fluency
Guarantee
Images
Instructions
Locality
Logic
Meat
Opinions
Paragraphs
Periods
Phone Numbers
Phrasing
Polish
Post Scripts
Presence
Questions
Quotes
Rationale
Seals and Stamps
Short Introduction
Short Sentences
Signature
Social Connections
Spacing
Testimonials
Texture
Tone
Voice

Go see the post for detail on each of these things. It'll help you write better.

Posted by Jeff Brooks on 11 June 2012 at 06:37 in Writing | Permalink

Technorati Tags: fundraising

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a0120a59ccea7970b0163064fb4e3970d

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Almost everything you need to write better:

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Is the title a witty joke?

Posted by: Tim | 11 June 2012 at 11:30

The comments to this entry are closed.

What this blog is about
The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It's not about any technology, medium, or technique. It's about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It's already here. More.

Subscribe with the reader of your choice

Subscribe to this blog's feed

About the blogger

Jeff Brooks, creative director at TrueSense Marketing, has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 20 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you'll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff.brooks [at] truesense [dot] com. More.

Blog policies

Podcast:

Instead of talking at donors, TrueSense is proving it's smarter to listen. Asking donors how they prefer to give. Because we’re about creating relationships and building trust and communicating honestly and powerfully. One to one. Want to talk fundraising? Drop me a line.

Read the book!

At last, the book you really need to read about fundraising. I wrote it for you: All the stuff you wish you (or your boss) knew about fundraising that motivates donors to give, give frequently, and give joyfully.

Some of what you'll find here may seem contrarian. It's not. It's proven, tested, real-life stuff that actually works. If you care about fundraising, about your donors, and about supporting your cause, you need to read The Fundraiser's Guide to Irresistible Communications by Jeff Brooks.