🚨 Another email subject line 🚨
You’ve seen it with generative AI the quick fix for mass blast emails or social media posts; emojis dropped in to make content look exciting. Red alarms, sparkles, flame icons. It’s meant to cut through the noise, but more often it just feels like noise itself.
The problem isn’t the emoji—it’s what it suggests: quick, surface-level content that feels automated, when what people are craving is something real and considered.
If you want others to invest in your organization, you gotta show the effort behind the words. Show me there’s a person who took the time to understand what matters, who knows the work is slow, hard, but totally worth it.
As Seth Godin puts it in this short video, nonprofits exist to work on the toughest problems of society—the ones that don’t have quick fixes. That reality deserves communications that feel equally thoughtful and human, not dressed up with 🚨 sirens and 🚀 “takeoffs” promising a miracle. I mean, how many emergencies can you really trot out each year?
What actually gets people’s attention? The human touch. A real story. Showing a glimpse into the effort you’re putting in. That’s what gets my attention at least.