To Whom Do You Wish to Speak?

One time my mother got a wrong-number call. The caller, hearing a voice he hadn't expected, paused for a few seconds then said in a rough, gravelly voice, "Uh ... who is this?"

My mom, in her very proper way, said, "To whom do you wish to speak?"

The caller, clearly nonplussed, cleared his throat and blurted out, "Sorry lady, I got the wrong number. I don't know nobody that says whom!"

Now my mom was a formidable presence in the best of circumstances. So this poor guy only needed a few words, expressed in a certain tone, to know that he had just dialed the wrong number. He was in the wrong universe.

As fundraisers, we know that addressing the right people in the right way is critical. But sometimes, especially in acquisition, what we know about the audience we're writing to is very general, e.g., older women, people who support law enforcement or whatever.

Actually, though, there's a lot more information at your fingertips than you might think. Enter the datacard — the copywriter's friend.

Datacards are the one- or two-page crib sheets your account executive and list broker use to determine which lists to test. After the initial testing, those lists that have been most effective become control or continuation lists, i.e., lists to which acquisition control packages continue to be mailed.

These continuation lists are the ones that matter to you as a writer or art director. Here's how:

Let's say you're prospecting for a health care organization that serves cancer patients. In the first phase of testing, the account executive and list broker test a lot of relevant lists. After results have been tabulated, they pare them down to a reliable group of continuation lists that have been rolled out into general acquisition.