Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Rules Are Made To Be Broken

Rules are made to be broken! Or are they? A longer version of this aphorism is attributed to General Douglas MacArthur: “Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.” There are two sides to this. On the one hand, our colleague Kevin Schulman at Donor Voice […]

Learn More November 4, 2013

‘I’ versus ‘You’

Which is the more effective word in a marketing/fundraising communication — ‘I’ or ‘You’? Our favorite curmudgeon Denny Hatch gives his answer in this rant about a letter he just received as a longstanding and — until then — satisfied customer of Network Solutions. Whenever Denny decides to pick apart a letter, ad or other […]

Learn More November 1, 2013

What Do You Want Me To Do?

Too many marketing communications leave the potential respondent asking: “So, what exactly do you want me to do?” Too often the communication takes too long to get to that point (or, in the worst cases, never gets there!), or offers too many choices (overwhelming and confusing — and therefore — paralyzing the prospect), or is […]

Learn More October 31, 2013

Re-Publish: 30 Brilliant Bits Of Online Fundraising Wisdom

NOTE: The Agitator website’s hosting service ‘malfunctioned’ last night, so we’re re-publishing our last post. Sorry about that … and thanks for the alerts we received from readers. Tom & Roger How long have we been raising money online now? I mean, seriously. I guess I would track it back to 1999/2000, when serious software […]

Learn More October 30, 2013

30 Bits Of Online Fundraising Wisdom

How long have we been raising money online now? I mean, seriously. I guess I would track it back to 1999/2000, when serious software tools began to appear from Convio and GetActive. So that’s a bit shy of 15 years. So I confess to being a bit skeptical when this white paper — 30 Brilliant Bits […]

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Selling Potatoes

What if your job was selling potatoes? Literally. Over at the US Potato Board. Do you think you’d be bored? I’ll come back to potatoes in a moment, because I just saw a potato marketing campaign and website that blew me away. But I’ll admit that I’ve never met a french fry (‘chips’ to our […]

Learn More October 29, 2013