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| Re: Appeal letter salutations
Posted by Ruth Terry  on 4/15/2008, 2:31 pm, in reply to "Appeal letter salutations"
Message modified by user Ruth Terry 4/15/2008, 2:34 pm
I use to manage the local Planned Parenthood's annual campaigns. At our affiliate we ALWAYS used first names, unless we were sure that people preferred to be called something else (e.g., "Dr So-and-so", a nickname). Preferences were tracked in our database.
The rationale behind this is that we wanted fundraising letters to be perceived as personal correspondence. One could argue that older donors might prefer formality. However, older donors also remember the days when people actually sent personal letters to each other.
Something else that connects to this topic: If you decide to go the "informal" salutation route, make sure your appeal package also reflects the personal nature of the correspondence. Windowed envelopes, metered postage, etc. will make your appeal look like a bill. And nobody of any age wants to open bills....P.S. My personal pet peeve is "Dear Friend"
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