For Better Results, Talk about what people care about.

Bill Huddleston read the newsletter I sent yesterday and sent me an email with a link to this video. It's a great piece of advise, for me, and for everyone who is trying to draw volunteers and donors to help them do their work.

I'm not quite sure how I'll translate this into my communications because with this blog and my email newsletter I'm reaching out to a wide range of people, sort of a constellation of "everyone" who might want to do something to end the poverty that causes the media stories about violence, poor schools, corrupt government, etc.

Each person understands the problem of poverty and poorly performing schools differently, and cares about it differently. Thus instead of a single ad campaign, I need many versions, appealing to many different people.

When I was an advertising planning manager with the Montgomery Ward corporation, we sent out one corporate ad each Sunday, and another in the middle of the week. However, these ads have many variations, for big stores, small stores, cold weather stores, warm weather stores, etc. The size, and the merchandise, changed to reflect the interests of shoppers in different parts of the country.

If I could do it, my home page would change to reflect the visit pattern of each person who came to the site. We would "learn" from the browsing habits of each person so the next time they visit the site, it would show them a path of learning based on what they care about, to what they can do to help the people we care about.

Creating videos like the one I've pointed you to takes a lot of talent. Creating the type of web browsing experience I envision also takes a lot of talent. That costs money. Or it requires volunteers. Or both.

If you've read this far, I've said something you care about. Now can you help us.