Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Calling all Copywriters

Your words matter. Anybody saying people don’t read copy hasn’t done a copy test to prove they do. Heck, we’ve done seemingly really minor copy tweaks and seen that matters. Subject line testing anyone? All copywriters know the copy needs to be simple and relatable. It should read like a personal letter or conversation. And […]

Learn More May 23, 2022

Do The Opposite?

Some might say I’m contrarian. Some might be right. In keeping with what some people think, try this on… Charities need, More debt Less revenue diversification Less leanness (i.e., they need bigger reserves) Higher overhead This isn’t contrarian for the sake of it. Consider that the opposite of what I’m prescribing is (more or less) […]

Learn More May 20, 2022

Time for a Money Revolution in the Board Room

Conventional wisdom in nonprofit board rooms, as best as I can tell, is that “in the midst of these uncertain political and economic times we should pull back”…”husband our resources”…”not be aggressive at a time like this”….and a thousand other cautionary excuses. Frankly, whether in good times or bad that’s usually the case because the […]

Learn More May 18, 2022

What Time is It?

Faces matter. Humans know this, intuitively. Babies process and understand faces at an almost adult level as early as four months. We automatically process expressions taking cues and altering our behaviors accordingly. And of course we see faces all the time. This almost constant exposure to faces makes us prefer inanimate objects that mimic faces. […]

Learn More May 16, 2022

Could Your Storytelling Use Some Help?

A story well told lights up the same parts of the brain as if we experienced it directly. That’s powerful. But telling me to use stories and showing lots of examples is like expecting me to pick up a foreign language by watching a foreign language movie. I need a lot more specific instruction and […]

Learn More May 13, 2022

Does Your Copy Feel Personal and Readable?

NextAfter has run and published more email test results than you can shake a stick at. What have they learned? More conversational and natural copy wins. A water is wet finding? Maybe, but there is a big difference between believing this or knowing it and having copy that does it well. Our sample […]

Learn More May 11, 2022