The scream pierced the house! Next thing I knew, Barbara rushed into the house telling me to go look at what was in the back yard.
What on earth was going on?
Some of you will know that while we live in the middle of suburbia, we back onto National Park. So we get lots of wildlife including echidnas, our own “pet” wallaby complete with joeys, brush turkeys and huge amounts of bird life.
But in the almost 8 years of being here, we’d never seen a snake. Until a couple of months ago!
Barbara was out the back hanging up some washing and noticed some of the wood holding bird netting in place had been moved.
She automatically reached down to move it back, did so, and that’s when I heard the scream! She came rushing back and said there was a snake down there and refused to go back. Well, to say she’s not fond of the critters is putting it mildly.
So yours truly went down to have a look and sure enough there was what I assumed to be a green tree snake, firmly entangled in the netting.
Poor thing didn’t look happy at all – and we wondered how long it must have been there and if it was dead or alive. So I gingerly poked it and it moved, so next thing was how do we get it out.
Not knowing anything about snakes and certainly not wanting to find out the hard way, we thought, “Who’re we gonna call?”
Ghost busters wasn’t an option – so WIRES was the next best thing.
We rang them… someone would come out in a couple of hours – and in the meantime, could we shelter it from the sun? Sure thing.
An hour or so later, a volunteer from WIRES arrives, complete with his hessian bag.
Well he wasn’t a happy chap. Laid a big guilt trip on us about using netting in a bush setting etc. Anyway, it took him about 15 minutes to free the poor snake, which he duly put into his bag.
We asked what would happen to the poor thing. “Well, it’ll be taken to a vet and if it’s fine it’ll be released. If not, it’ll be put down.” Oh dear – more guilt.
Anyway, that’s the last we heard about the snake – but we do wonder if it was okay.
So what’s this got to do with marketing, I hear you ask…
Ever since the episode, we’ve received regular mail (about once a month in the real post) from WIRES talking about the work they do, the fact that the Government only funds 2% of their costs and that they are totally dependent on their volunteers and donations.
And their mail is not some badly written junk you want to throw out. It’s extremely well written, highly emotive, direct response copy which I suspect works gangbusters!
The latest missive arrived a couple of days ago. I opened the envelope and saw this…
“Close your eyes, Rashid. Listen hard. You'll hear the traffic outside, maybe children playing, or the neighbours next door.
Listen. Just listen. No matter how hard you try, the sound you won't hear is the silence of extinction. Imagine a world without the sound of magpies, without cockatoos screeching, without any other bird calls. Imagine a world without the sound of animals rustling through the forest.
One by one. Species by species. Animal by animal.
Silence is the sound of permanent, irrevocable extinction.
You won't hear them go. No-one will hear them go. But it could happen as Australia has the worst record of any country for extinction over the past 200 years.
The thylacine, the broad-faced potoroo, the lesser bilby, the paradise parrot and so many species of hopping mice. No-one heard them go.
And now the spotted-tailed quoll is on the brink of extinction….”
And so it goes on… It’s a double sided piece – with colour photos of a Quoll – a pretty cute looking marsupial. Quite obviously written by a professional copywriter, it’s in a very conversational style, emotive and draws you in. We learn about the poor old Quoll who’s lost its habitat, lives with us and finds itself being eaten by your friendly (or not so friendly to it) neighbourhood pooch or feline.
And of course WIRES is here to help, but they need your support to keep going and save animals. The last bit of course asks for a donation – and not just any donation, but a specific amount. Brilliant stuff.
You can download a PDF of the actual letter, postcard and response mechanism. Do yourself a favour, read and learn from them. They are one of the best pieces of emotional copy I’ve seen in a long time.
Go on… download and read it now!
You back?
So what can we learn from all this?
Charities do a few things really well. They know how to use emotional triggers to get us to take out our wallets and donate. The call centre staff are generally exceptionally well trained. They tell us stories about how the money will be used. Who it will help. All designed to evoke a feeling of “I want to help too”.
And they also know that consistency and timing is everything.
We get at least 2 – 3 calls from different charities every month. Many times we politely decline. But every so often we go, “Well we haven’t given anything for a while, so yes, I’ll help you out”.
We don’t have a particular favourite charity – so it’s luck of the draw for them. The person who contacts us at the right time (for us) wins.
Think about this in terms of your own marketing. Whatever you’re selling, you need to be out there in front of your prospective audience regularly. Yes, it takes commitment and discipline. Yes, you may keep reaching out and get no response.
But one day, someone responds, and you get a new client. Do it enough and you’ll never go hungry.
Rashid.
P.S. If the thought of how you can constantly keep in touch with your audience fills you with dread and you have no idea how to go about it, we can help. Call me on (02) 9499-7958 for a confidential discussion.
P.P.S. Talking to a client yesterday, I gave him one idea that will create a full year’s worth of monthly contact material from stuff he’s already doing! He thought it was a brilliant idea! I’m sure we can do the same for you.
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