Award Winning Blog - Agitator

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

E-Commerce Spending Up

comScore reports that e-commerce spending in the US was up 10% in the first quarter of 2010 over the same period in 2009, the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth, after four quarters of declining e-commerce spending. A total of $34 billion was spent online in the 1QTR, excluding spending on autos, travel and online […]

Learn More May 24, 2010

Donor Insights From Fenton Communications

Fenton Communications has just released its latest survey of donor attitudes and behavior, looking at 1000 nationally representative US donors who have given at least $20 in the past year. Plenty of interesting findings to chew over here regarding giving plans for the coming year, attributes of nonprofits that donors find most important, most trusted […]

Learn More May 21, 2010