Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Report To Me

I was reading this article on effective email messaging, the gist of which was … make it relevant via personalization. Now there are a variety of ways to personalize, especially in (but not limited to) the online environment — using the donor’s location to tailor content, keying off of actions taken (completed a survey, signed […]

Learn More June 2, 2010

Managing Your Online Reputation

This report from Pew Research on managing personal online profiles is timely as a follow-up to our posts regarding donor privacy last week (here and here). As Pew reports, individuals are becoming increasingly aware of and sensitive about their online profiles, with many restricting access to personal data and/or editing material posted by others. Pew […]

Learn More June 1, 2010

Get A Lift (Letter)

I like this advice from copywriter Ivan Levison, presented in DirectMarketingIQ. It’s simple, specific, and testable. He’s talking about the proven efficacy of the lift letter in direct mail, and offers these tips: Keep it small Fold it Stick to one point Keep it personal Have it signed by an “authority” Good points. Read the […]

Learn More May 28, 2010

Facebook Privacy Woes

With so many nonprofits working Facebook into their marketing strategies, it behooves us all to keep an eye on their privacy controversy. Here’s an excellent report on the matter from Bloomberg. It notes that Facebook, now at 519 million users, shows no sign of slowing growth. Traffic was up nearly 5% in the week after […]

Learn More May 27, 2010

Two Most Important Donor Questions

Roger made an off-hand comment in his recent keynote presentation to the Fundraising Success Virtual Conference & Expo. He noted what he thinks are the two most important questions donors ask of a nonprofit: 1. Will my contribution make a difference? 2. Did my contribution make a difference? With respect to #1, what result(s) are […]

Learn More May 26, 2010

The Canary In The Data Mine Shaft

Last week, in a piece entitled Is Your Favorite Charity Spying on You?, the Wall Street Journal’s “Smart Money” column set off a mini-firestorm in our trade over the use of data mining for prospect research and donor analytics. Among the tidbits of raw meat tossed into the WSJ piece: “When your favorite nonprofit isn’t […]

Learn More May 25, 2010