Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Dumb Luck?

Can you “make” luck, or must you be content with waiting for it to happen? And why does this matter to nonprofit marketers and managers? Let me start with the latter. Most of the biggest marketing breakthroughs are just that … breakthroughs. They happen because someone applies gut instinct against the grain. Not shooting from […]

Learn More December 13, 2006

Mythological Brands

Writing in his blog about “mythological brands” like Apple and James Bond, Seth Godin got me thinking about the existence – or not – of such brands in the nonprofit world. To set the stage, Godin advises: So, if I were trying to invent a mythic brand, I'd want to be sure that there was […]

Learn More December 12, 2006

Macaca – Viral Video Case Study

Remember “macaca” in the Allen v. Webb campaign? Thanks to Colin Delany at e.politics, here is a case study underscoring that not all viral communication successes just happen. Delaney, reporting on a presentation by Webb campaign manager Jessica Vanden Berg, describes the old-fashioned media hustling that made “macaca” a household word … at least in […]

Learn More December 11, 2006

Picture Worth A Thousand Words

Confess! Do you ever do this? We saw this on Seth Godin's marketing blog. As he captioned it: “Not my job!” From cleaning out the office fridge to cleaning up someone else's dirty data or their “not-quite-there” draft, we all side-step responsibility from time to time. But let's resolve to do it less! PS: Don't […]

Learn More December 10, 2006

E-mail Experience Here

The E-mail Experience Council is an affinity group for e-mail marketers, mostly folks from the commercial world as best we can tell. They're worth checking out if you're doing any e-mail fundraising. Is anybody NOT?! In particular, they have a growing “white paper library” of articles, case studies, stats submitted by members (it's free to […]

Learn More December 9, 2006

Why Agitate?

Way back in August, in a post called Why the Smorgasbord?,we talked about the raison d’etre of The Agitator, saying in part: We believe the “empowered consumer” is now also the “empowered donor” and the “empowered activist.” And non-profit marketers — whether raising money, seeking activists, or trying to get a message out — will […]

Learn More December 8, 2006