Right Brain or Left Brain Marketing: You Need Both!

According to left-brain, right-brain theories, the right side of the brain excels at creative, emotional, and intuitive responses while the left hemisphere of the brain is well equipped for tasks such as logic and analytical reasoning. An interesting read in this area is the bestselling book, My Stroke of Insight, by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist who suffered a massive stroke that disrupted her left-brain circuitry.

What can planned giving professionals glean from discussions about right-brain vs. left-brain functioning? Quite a bit, actually. It helps to know that your donors may favor one or the other mode for processing and viewing their world. For instance, some donors may prefer looking at your organization through a lens of intuition and emotion. Other donors may need to assess logically what your organization offers in terms of hard figures and data of proven results. To successfully reach the full range of donors, you need a whole brain approach to your marketing plan.

Marketing Tips for Planned Giving Materials:

Right Brain

● Include Donor Stories

Stories that promote the worthiness of your cause appeal to donor emotions. Through these stories, potential donors can empathize with those touched by your mission. Reading these stories, donors may feel passionately that giving to your organization is the right thing to do.

● Share Your Mission

Be sure to communicate in a meaningful way what your organization cares about and why. Give illustrations that demonstrate why your organization stands apart from the other nonprofits and why donors matter to your mission. Donors will feel good knowing that their planned gifts to your organization are making a difference in the world and leaving a lasting legacy.

● Incorporate Creative Visuals

Engaging photographs and bright colors also work to communicate on an emotional level. Pictures of children, pets, patients, nature, artwork, students, or innovative buildings all communicate a nonverbal message. Such visuals can spark a positive emotional response about your organization.


Left Brain

● Educate Donors on Gift Options

Even for donors who base decisions on an emotional reaction, most still like to know what gift options will best meet their financial and personal objectives. Here’s where marketing information on tax advantages, life income gifts, and bequest language serve your donors’ need for logical reasoning. Make sure donors know that the gift they select is a smart philanthropic decision.

● Charts and Graphs

For donors who primarily think in analytical terms, you can convey complex data in easy to understand graphs and charts. For example, if you want to communicate varying gift annuity rates by age, a chart can simplify that information. If you want to show trends in giving, you might opt for a graph. These illustrations speak clearly to the left-brain hemisphere that craves logic.
● Communicate Results

Be sure to communicate how gifts to your organization are put to practical use in meeting your goals. You can show through organization success stories ways in which donor planned gifts worked to achieve specific results.

At Pentera, we design sophisticated marketing materials that strike a balance between right brain (emotion, feelings, and intuition) and left brain (logic and analytics). We use state-of-the art designers as well as planned giving experts to effectively communicate your organization’s message to all potential donors.

Contact us today to learn how our marketing communications can help you get the results you desire.