Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Direct Mail Package 101

An experienced direct mail copywriter, with a proven track record, can command thousands of dollars for creating a direct mail package. But of course that investment can — should — pay off in spades when the returns start piling up. Especially for prospecting packages that survive as controls … sometimes for years. [I’ve often wondered […]

Learn More April 29, 2011

Ghosts Of Fundraising Past And Future

Fundraisers, unlike practitioners in most other sectors, mostly navigate their way forward by steering through the rear view mirror. Off hand I can’t think of any other group, with their future so dependent on the economy and other key events, who live by the “past is prologue” mantra. In today’s world, that dependence can deliver […]

Learn More April 28, 2011

Online Personalization Builds Loyalty

About nine months ago, The Agitator noted the online approach taken by CARE International in the UK. There, with mycarezone.org, personalized online reporting of the charity’s results connects donors with the specific projects they initially joined to support. This approach cut attrition amongst face-to-face acquired donors in half. The same agency behind that strategy, Bluefrog, […]

Learn More April 27, 2011

More Direct Mail Test Results

I love testing! Every marketer/fundraiser should have an addiction to testing built into their genes. Here are some tests reported on SOFII by Willis Turner, senior copywriter at Huntsinger & Jeffer. His examples — all dealing with direct mail acquisition packages — cover … Two-color vs four-color carrier Short vs long letter Mailing labels gift […]

Learn More April 26, 2011

Direct Mail Test Results

The Agitator has been featuring various A/B tests as reported on Which Test Won? So far their tests have all been of the online variety. Here’s their first example of a head-to-head direct mail test … in this case, centered on the offer. The test was conducted by Nebraska’s NPR station, and we have heaps […]

Learn More April 25, 2011

Two Online Campaigns We Like

Our content has been pretty heavy the past few days. This is a bit lighter. Just two campaigns we’ve noticed and like. From Greenpeace, a Facebook campaign, targeting Facebook … Unfriend Coal. Read about it in this article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Over 80,000 comments in 24 hours … possibly the Facebook world record. […]

Learn More April 22, 2011