Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Should You Put the Next Dollar on Brand Building or Direct Response?

The answer is $.60 on brand, $.40 on direct response. Why? Because, as the curve below shows, that 60:40 split produces the optimum long-term benefit. The most financially beneficial, long-term effects are about growth, defined as profit and market share, not volume growth which is often a short-term activity delivering little to no improvement in […]

Learn More September 21, 2020

Seize This Digital Day

The Agitator firmly believes that as the economic and psychological pandemic fallout grows deeper and darker, so grows the need for greater and greater understanding and use of evidence-based testing and research. This is especially true in all things digital. If ever there were a time for disciplined testing, reporting and sharing of online fundraising […]

Learn More September 18, 2020

Cluster F****: Part Two

Our initial, Cluster F*** post wasn’t written with a sequel in mind but today’s example presented itself and thus a sequel was born. The most important part of the prior post and of this one as well is that the variables chosen to create these statistical clusters are all-important in creating (or avoiding) the garbage […]

Learn More September 16, 2020

Why Does Wikipedia Keep Doing It Like This?

For years now, as part of the donation request, Wikipedia informs us that most don’t give and acknowledges that most will ignore this request. As a behavioral scientist, I’m puzzled why they keep using this message and if they’ve ever tested it. Behavioral science is now very popular – maybe too popular for its own […]

Learn More September 14, 2020

Let’s Play A Game

Here’s a game for you, the professional fundraiser. Below is Wikipedia’s solicitation. It has been floating around for a while now, and, as a behavioral scientist, I wonder why they haven’t changed it yet. Can you spot the issues with this request? Tell us in the comments section what they are and what suggestions tied […]

Learn More September 11, 2020

The Great Telemarketing Comeback

In yesterday’s post, The Great Fundraising Comeback, I opined that in order to meet the future “we will need to start over”. I don’t mean begin from scratch—much of our knowledge and experience will prove durable and improvable– but I do mean we’ll be forced to look at first principles which means challenging virtually every […]

Learn More September 9, 2020