Comm 310: Advanced Writing, Public Relations
Exercise: Direct Mail Letter

Your job is to write an appeal in the form of a direct mail letter, based on the facts below. Remember: that first sentence must be strong enough to attract readers to the rest of your letter! Don't forget to tell readers what you want them to do ("call to action")! Try a few points of entry. A headline. Careful about spelling and grammar. Facts: Your group decides the best way to help its cause is by soliciting people's help and money directly, through the mail. You have purchased a mailing list of 10,000 people in the region sympathetic to your cause.

Your group, the Campaign For Lower Tuition (CFLT), It’s a state-wide student-run group. You want to bring down that high tuition at the state universities, fer sure.
To do this, you need to persuade taxpayers in North Dakota that lower tuition is, indeed, worth having. You eventually hope to do this through an advertising campaign, billboards, TV spots, and other projects, but to do that what you need now is money. Money and volunteers for the campaign. This is what you will be asking for in your direct mail letter.
"Lower tuition helps everyone in North Dakota," says Bill Lowe, state CFLT president, based at NDSU in Fargo. (He’s a sophomore in communication, by the way.) "Higher education means better adults working in better jobs for more money. This means a stronger economy for the state, and better brains ready to face challenges of the future."
Lowe says your group would like to see tuition cuts of at least 25 percent. "People should not look on this as an added cost," says Lowe. "It's an investment in North Dakota's future."