The Agitator

We often write about the importance of storytelling as the path into donors’ heads and hearts. Here, courtesy of fundraiser Fraser Green, is one more exclamation mark on the point! Says Fraser: “The ‘magic moment,‘ as I call it, is when the audience stops being an ...  Read more

I like this advice from copywriter Ivan Levison, presented in DirectMarketingIQ. It’s simple, specific, and testable. He’s talking about the proven efficacy of the lift letter in direct mail, and offers these tips: Keep it small Fold it Stick to one point Keep it personal Have it ...  Read more

The latest data suggests that Twitter has stalled out at 17 million users. Here’s a good analysis. Personally, I take this as a welcome sign that there is still some semblance of substance and sanity on the planet. If someone in your nonprofit is trumpeting the urgency of getting on board ...  Read more

From a recent post by marketing maven Seth Godin: "…someone’s worldview, how they feel about risk or other factors, is beyond your ability to change in the short run. Sell people something they’re interesting in buying. If you can’t leverage the worldview they already ...  Read more

I noticed this post in email Insider regarding effective marketing emails. Here’s the kernel: "Studies show that subscribers will spend just eight seconds on most messages before clicking through or navigating away. Your emails will drive the most dollars if you take on the ...  Read more

Responding to our Boomers Reinventing 50  post, Sarah Spengler commented: "Tom – interesting that you should talk about AARP and their advertizing campaign:  I just received some materials from them, having joined. very recently.  Among their offerings are discounts on ...  Read more

Direct marketing guru Denny Hatch was so enthralled with The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande that he updated his own direct marketer’s checklist. Denny’s checklist is 58 items long, so it’s pretty comprehensive. For example, here’s #2: Does your copy contain some or all ...  Read more

Here’s a brief article from the McKinsey Quarterly on "behavioral economics" … or why people make certain spending decisions and how they approach them. Each of the four principles/examples given relates to how a product is presented or priced in a retail context: 1. Make a ...  Read more

Direct marketing pro (and publisher of Target Marketing) Denny Hatch, who’s seen it all, distilled a ton of experience into this article on direct response copywriting. I’ll summarize some of his takeaways here, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t taste the ...  Read more

Roger has been systematically working us through the "who, what, when, why, where" of nonprofit fundraising fundamentals … with only "where" yet to go (coming next week). I hesitate to interrupt the flow, but we received a response from Fraser Green at FLA Group that ...  Read more