Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Can You Use This ‘Found’ Time?

Stripped to the basics, fundraisers need to squeeze their messages into the smaller and smaller bits of time prospects have at their disposal to ponder anything. So I was struck by this factoid in a NY Times article about the future of Time Inc’s magazines: the average smartphone user spends 1.4 hours a day waiting […]

Learn More July 31, 2012

Simplicity Marketing

The mantra on advertising’s Madison Avenue these days is ‘simple’. This NY Times article headlines the point: Paring Down Marketing Messages to a Few Simple Basics. Columnist Stuart Elliott says marketers are reacting to three trends: “how busy life today seems, the growing complexity of technology and the increasingly complicated economic picture. That has encouraged […]

Learn More July 30, 2012

Oh, And While You’re At It

For all you one-armed paperhangers toiling away in (especially) smaller nonprofits, once again, Scott Adams hits a nerve. We might add another frame, with the caption … “Oh, and while you’re at it, could you also redesign our website and bring in a few bequests?” Tom

Learn More July 27, 2012

Direct Mail Hanging In

The Direct Marketing Association notes in its recently released 2012 Response Rate Report that direct mail response rates have dropped nearly 25% over the past nine years. Even so, direct mail pulls a better overall response than digital channels. The report also says that: Cost per order or lead for acquisition campaigns were roughly equivalent […]

Learn More July 26, 2012

Flat Earth Fundraising: Wasting Time By Exalting The Trivial

Within hours of our call for advice on content for The Agitators’ upcoming session at the 2012 Bridge Conference we received a generous and thoughtful outpouring of suggestions from readers. Thank you. One message in particular–from a clearly bright and equally frustrated fundraiser– got me thinking about why the “Winds of Change”, the theme of […]

Learn More July 25, 2012

Out-Execute Or Out-Strategize?

Seth Godin is making an important point about strategy in this post — Strategy matters more than ever — and that’s what he wants you to focus on. However, I want you fundraisers to focus on his first two sentences … “When everyone is playing the same game, your execution is critical. Your store is […]

Learn More July 24, 2012