How mistakes can make you more money

Do you live in mortal fear of making typos? Don't. Sometimes mistakes are the best things that can happen in your fundraising. Most people who've been in our business for a few years have can tell stories of mind-blowing errors that drove abnormally strong fundraising performance. My theory: Many readers, on encountering an error, become very much more attentive. They're looking for more errors. As a result, they pay a lot more attention to your message. That's why the mistakes that have the most positive impact are the doozies -- the terrible typos that fill our hearts with fear. A minor misspelling buried in a paragraph somewhere is seen by few readers. It can't do that magic. Some errors really will kill you: a broken link online. A wrong phone number or PO box in print. That's why you can't just be sloppy and hope for the best. But those crazy errors that are so embarrassing -- yet don't keep people from responding? Those can be your friends. You might have to do them on purpose from time to time. (This post first appeared on January 8, 2015.)

from Future Fundraising Now https://ift.tt/2zTGLkp