In direct mail (and sometimes email), the PS is the most important thing you write. It's one of the most-read parts of your message. It's worth spending some time on to make it really sing.
Here's the P.S. from a fundraising letter I got the other day:
P.S. None of our acheivements could have been attained without the sustained and dedicated support of contributors like you.
The sentiment is good: "We can't do it without you."
Everything else about this P.S. is broken:
- It's abstract -- not specifically about anything, just the idea.
- The writing is stilted and awkward. Read it out loud: It's almost a tongue-twister.
- It looks like they used a thesaurus to pick the longest possible word in every place they had a choice.
- Even though it's aimed at donors, it's also self-focused bragging. It's good that it's aimed at donors, but it should also have a call to action.
Who knew one 18-word sentence could make so many mistakes?
Think you could do it better? Let's see your work in the comments!
