Reading Response Week #7
Appeal to Emotions: + Our brochure connects to the audience’s emotions in several ways. The phrases like “Celebrate Christmas with your Community!” and “Santa’s Nice List” remind people what the true meaning of Christmas is about. People will want to be on “Santa’s Nice List.” It also appeals to the audience’s emotions by explaining the purpose of the Christmas Day Dinner which is to provide a warm meal, presents for the children, and a place to be on Christmas day. The audience will feel this is very important because Christmas is usually spent with family or friends. The pictures also show the success of past Christmas Day Dinners as well as how much fun everyone is having – the volunteers as well as the community.
Be Professional: + Our brochure uses the logo of the Community and Family Resource Center and their logo for the Christmas Day Dinner. I think our brochure looks professional but could possibly use some improvements especially with one of the pictures looking a bit smashed in its placement.
Be Personal: + Our brochure is personal because it includes pictures of past events which allow the audience to see what they would be doing if they were to volunteer. The mail-in form also gives the option of donating money or writing letters of encouragement.
Achieve Readability: + Our brochure uses bullets to explain the different aspects of the Christmas Day Dinner. It also uses lines to separate the volunteer opportunities for preparations for Christmas and text boxes that are different colors which are easy to read.
Speak the Language: + For the most part our brochure doesn’t use technical language. Our audience is very broad and some have low literacy rates. We could probably take some parts out or make them more concise to accommodate our entire audience.
Lead with Benefits: - Our brochure briefly touches on the importance of volunteering for the Christmas Day Dinner but I think we could provide more incentive besides “give back to your community” or “celebrate Christmas with your community.”
Have a Single Message: + Our brochure focuses on volunteers for the Christmas Day Dinner. We put this on the front of our brochure and on the inside, we explain what the Christmas Day Dinner is and all the different volunteer opportunities.
Focus on a Product or Service: + The service we are focusing on is volunteering at the Christmas Day Dinner. We explain several opportunities for volunteering but the overall service is volunteering.
Make an Action Call: + Our brochure includes a mail in form for the audience to mark the type of volunteer work, donating money, or writing letters of encouragement to the local newspaper. We also provide contact information including the address and telephone and fax numbers. I would probably also include the website in our next revision.
Add Your Score: + = 8 and - = 1. I think we have a very strong brochure and with the comments from our peers, instructor and the CFRC, our final draft should be great!
Comments
Reading Reply
I think we did do a good job appealing to our readers. I think our phrases are catchy and will draw people in emotionally. On top of this our brochure does look professional. It doesn’t look like someone just slapped it down. I think it’s not only personal because of the pictures but the tone seems to also be personal. The colors also make it bright and eye catching. It is true we do say some benefits for the readers, but I also think we could add additional catchy phrases that would play on the reader’s emotion. I agree with your assessment, and I look forward to working with you to make it stronger.
Response
It seems that you and Suzanne are thinking of the same improvements. You both address how we should include more information to how a volunteer would actually benefit from their experience at the CFRC Christmas dinner. We do touch on this with the phrases that we have, but you are both right, we could include a bit more to persuade more people to volunteer. This is our main focus, so we should elaborate on it. Also, I agree with the point David made in his comment. The catchy phrases we added to our second draft not only make the language somewhat simpler, it appeals to the emotions and personalizes the text. So, basically, by adding these simple phrases we actually knocked out about four of the nine steps from the 5 minute brochure design trash test. The one different point I made on my evaluation was that our brochure maybe could have been a bit more professional, but we have talked about this in our group meetings, and we will be in a good position when we get together to finally polish the complete document up.
Reply
I completely agree that we need to focus more of our brochure to get people to volunteer. Being more persuasive gives the reader a reason why they are needed to participate in this event. Providing information about the CFRC Christmas Day Dinner is great because it allows people to understand all the details of the event. But actually giving maybe a bulleted list of the benefits of donating time or money to this event and how it will benefit the volunteers. Otherwise our brochure is great because it is attention getting, festive with the color choice, and provides plenty of information that will answer any questions the reader may have while reading the brochure. Just a few more changes, and our brochure will be set!