I recently received a form letter that was not personalized in any way – in fact, it wasn’t really a letter, just a photocopied piece of paper. It was headlined:

 IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!

Straight to the recycling bin, right? But no, this insistent but uninformative heading came from a client, so I skimmed down the page.

It turned out that my client wanted me to sign up for direct deposit. No, not wanted. It required me to send in the form with my bank routing information. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get paid.

Can we think of better headlines for this communication? Maybe something along the lines of

SEND IN THIS FORM OR YOU WON’T GET PAID

Or even

NEW VENDOR PAYMENT SYSTEM

No bold, underlining, or exclamation points would have been necessary to get me to pay attention.

The lesson: Put the most important information up front.

News professionals have followed this precept for a century. Woe be to the would-be media release writer who does not lead with the 5 Ws. That release probably won’t get picked up, because the editor has to go to the trouble of finding the important information and putting it first.

Too many writers seem to feel that they have to lead up to their point. Therefore too many communications start off with . . . oh, it doesn’t matter: interesting facts or inspiring ideals or anything other than “why you should read this.”

Yawn. Recycling bin!

Put the most important information up front.

If the point of your communication is to get people to do something, then put what you want them to do first.

  • If you want them to donate, solicit up front  –  starting with what they will get (not what you will get) for their money.
  • If you want them to buy, make the offer up front. Emphasize how the product or service will fulfill their needs.
  • If you want them to attend an event, invite them up front. Be sure to tell them what it is, when, and where.
  • If you want them to volunteer, ask them up front  –  again starting with what they will get out of the experience.

Direct marketers  –  the originators of junk mail  –  have ways to make their pitch before they even start talking to you. Decades of testing have shown that people are more likely to respond if you put a teaser on the front of the envelope and reinforce the message in a Johnson box at the very top of the page, before “Dear So-and-So.”

We may not like direct mail, but it is hard to argue with proven results backed up by statistics. Direct marketers use techniques that work. Maybe nonprofits and small businesses (and even my Fortune 500 client) should try them.

It’s what’s up front that counts.