You might be surprised to learn that online dating profiles, LinkedIn profiles and Dear Birth Parent letters have one essential aspect in common: they all benefit from marketing techniques.
It sounds cold even to me. Yet, when you take away its commercial associations, all marketing really comes down to is “connecting”.
With that in mind, I offer this third of five tips in the hope that it will help you better connect with the right birth parent.
Bring your life to life.
Don’t say that you have a beautiful home, describe it. Don’t say you live in a great city, say why. Don’t say that your wedding was the best day of your life, talk about the people, the food, the first dance instead.
In other words, be descriptive. Use anecdotes versus adjectives. I touched on this in an earlier post and now I’ll explain further.
Anecdotes have four benefits:
1) They demonstrate who you are much in the same way that actions speak louder than words.
2) They’re unique to you and, as such, distinguish you from your competition (again, I know how cold that sounds but you are in a competitive environment).
3) They make you come alive despite the digital environment and, in doing so, give your reader a sense of familiarity – an enormous advantage when trying to make a stranger bond with you.
4) They’re memorable. A birth parent reads a lot of letters and adjectives like “beautiful, fun, interesting” all become interchangeable from one letter to the next. However, a rich and emotionally resonant anecdote is more likely to make you and your “message” be remembered.
Your letter is out there among others who share many of the same interests, lifestyles and career choices as you. So, to stand out among them, you need to showcase the things no one else can claim – your life stories.
A final note about writing your Dear Birth Parent Letter.
It’s not easy to write your own narrative and it’s especially difficult when there’s so much emotion and hope attached to it. You’ve likely had quite a journey just to get to this point. Sp, instead of worrying about how well you market yourself, take the pressure off by considering my writing services for adoptive parents.
Whatever you do, I wish you all the best and, at the very least, I hope some of these tips help you.
