The Agitator

No, says e-marketer Loren McDonald. Here’s an abridged list of what Loren says the successful email marketer really needs to know [with my comments from the peanut gallery]: 1. Email strategy — know how to create an email marketing plan and program that maximize the channel’s ...  Read more

Convio is brandishing a new "fundraising calculator" that claims to compute the future value of your integrated direct mail, telemarketing and online fundraising stream. Says Jordan Viator of Convio: "The tool allows nonprofit organizations to estimate their online fundraising ...  Read more

In this mini-debate from DMNews, three approaches to measuring loyalty are advanced: 1. Lifetime value — the person who buys (donates) the most over the longest period. 2. Share of wallet — the person who devotes the largest percentage of their spend (or donations) in your category to ...  Read more

Here’s an article from Fundraising Success that I set aside awhile back to reflect upon. I’m glad I did. Written by fundraising consultants Tiffany Neill and Lynn Mehaffy, it’s a useful little gem … kind of a "nuts & bolts" Modeling 101 for fundraisers ...  Read more

My vote goes to Pareto’s 80/20 rule — 80% of the value or activity tends to come from 20% (or less) of customers, or whatever the active universe. The rule is confirmed in marketing scenario after scenario, including fundraising. Most recently, a Harvard Business Review study ...  Read more

Here’s another prediction of the death of direct mail, as reported on frogloop. Says research firm Borrell, spending on direct mail will decline by 40% over the next five years. Get a move on direct mail fundraisers! In five years your medium will be dead. Just like radio. Forget this ...  Read more

There’s probably no one out there who is not a "member" of some sort of loyalty program sponsored by a commercial merchant. From airline miles to stickers recording return visits to your local coffee shop, everyone seems to have some sort of program to encourage repeat business ...  Read more

Much has been written about candidate use of online tools in the 2008 election. But here’s one of the best pieces I’ve seen regarding sophisticated use of the internet for issue campaigning. The focus was California’s Proposition 8, which sought to ban same-sex marriages ...  Read more

Consultant Robert Weiner recently presented a webinar for Fundraising Success, called "Understanding and Maximizing Your Donor Database for Fundraising Success." As reported here, Weiner included a discussion of  "ten mistakes nonprofits commonly make" when choosing a ...  Read more

We were going to write a shameless plug for direct fundraising maven Mal Warwick’s new book, but then we got this promotional message from Mal himself. He does a better job than we could. Just click here for his nifty presentation. Oh, the book. It’s called Fundraising When Money Is ...  Read more