Award Winning Blog - Agitator

50 Ways To Increase Direct Mail Response

The Target Marketing Group is offering a webinar on April 24 titled 50 New Ways to Increase Response. Cost is $79. The session is specifically focused on commercial direct mail, package components, etc., but many of these tactical best practices will probably apply to DM and online fundraising offers and presentation as well. I can’t vouch […]

Learn More April 4, 2008

Are Women Served By The Web?

Diane Mermigas, editor-at-large of MediaPost and a self-described "professional boomer with four children," has written this interesting critique of websites branded as "for women." She says most of them are missing the mark in terms of style, content and relevance. Her favorite "for women" site seems to be WowOwow.com, which "bucks the predictable by providing […]

Learn More April 3, 2008

Where Do You Begin?

This post from Seth Godin — Where do we begin? — got me thinking about copywriting. I’m using "copywriting" expansively here — a direct mail letter, email appeal, web copy, press release, note to major donor, cover letter for your resume. What do you assume about your reader? What does he or she know about you, […]

Learn More April 2, 2008

Top Celebrity Resuscitates Cause

By far the biggest buzz at this week’s Association of Fundraising Professionals conference concerns the landing of Ted Danson as the spokesperson for the Flehner-Lathrop Syndrome Foundation. Says FLS Foundation director Paula Brooks: "Before this, the closest thing we had to a celebrity afflicted with FLS was a cousin of Al Jarreau’s. Obviously, this is […]

Learn More April 1, 2008

AFP and the Most Popular Girls in High School

The annual migration in our trade is underway. The Association of Fundraising Professionals opened its annual conference yesterday in San Diego. Consultants wooing clients, printers, envelope salespeople, new media application service providers … all there wooing everyone in sight, along with 1/3 of the attendees looking for new jobs and wearing their best smiles. Unfortunately, I can’t be […]

Learn More March 31, 2008

Is This “Just A Phase”?

Yesterday’s NY Times included an important article on the news habits of young Americans. Here’s the bottomline for us aging Boomers, and any communicator in a nonprofit … Voices of authority — in the sense of informed, seasoned media intermediaries who help us discovery what of importance is going on in the world … and […]

Learn More March 28, 2008