Award Winning Blog - Agitator

7 Words To Remember

According to direct marketer Denny Hatch, these are the seven emotional hot buttons that cause people to act: Fear – the most powerful of all Greed Guilt Anger Exclusivity Salvation Flattery In a disturbing article about fear, Denny talks about Merck's use of fear in its marketing of a vaccine for cervical cancer … efforts […]

Learn More February 14, 2007

Do The Math

Abny Santicola of Fundraising Success recently filed a useful series of stories on channel integration … using direct mail, telemarketing and online channels (as well as other “customer touches”) to optimize donor retention and value. Nowadays any nonprofit fundraiser worth her salt should be integrating. But marketing creativity, good intentions and good theory too often […]

Learn More February 13, 2007

$1 Billion – The Ultimate Matching Gift?

Or a political scam? I'm delighted President Bush has acknowledged that maintaining America's national parks requires an investment of $3 billion over the next ten years, the run-up to the 2016 centennial of the park system. Just as I was delighted last year when he created the largest protected marine reserve in the world. Clearly, […]

Learn More February 12, 2007

Best Ever Direct Mail – National Psoriasis Foundation

Here from Catie Coman at the National Psoriasis Foundation is a “best ever” fundraising appeal to current donors. Catie says: “This pulled an amazing 18% response rate from our active donors. Its one of the most successful direct mail pieces in the history of the organization.” Two small observations about this letter. First, it offers […]

Learn More February 11, 2007

It’s The Headline, Stupid!

So warns marketer & blogger Lewis Green, pointing us to a very useful article at CNET News on the crucial importance of headlines in driving web traffic. With a huge proportion of web browsing driven by the use of search engines, headlines should — and can — be written adroitly to appeal to the search […]

Learn More February 10, 2007

Five Rules Of Viral Marketing

Sean Carton of web strategy and design firm idfive offers some useful insights on viral marketing. We'd all like to come up with the irresistably clever online video, gimmick or other message that rolls up a million views in a month for our cause at virtually no cost. But it's not so easy … and […]

Learn More February 9, 2007