11Oct 2005 by Bob Cargill

This Conversation Made Possible by Convio

Direct Marketing, Fundraising
Convio, the leading provider of software and services to help nonprofit organizations use the Internet for driving support, recently announced the release of Convio Tributes, a “constituent-led fundraising solution” that lets a nonprofit effectively leverage supporters and take, as the company says, “Internet fundraising to a new level.” With Convio Tributes, a nonprofit can provide its constituents with online tools to quickly and easily create their own highly personalized Web sites for fundraising in honor or memory of a friend or relative. Supporters also can use their Web pages to help recruit new constituents and put a personal face on the nonprofit’s mission. Although many nonprofits provide such tools to people participating in events such as walks and races, Convio Tributes lets supporters raise money, generate awareness and recruit others…
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10Oct 2005 by Bob Cargill

Everyone’s An Expert, Writes Seth Godin

Direct Marketing, Fundraising, Marketing, Public Relations
Seth Godin has just announced the release of his next free ebook, Everyone’s An Expert, which you can download here. The book, he says, “is for anyone who wants more online traffic, more revenue, more followers, more attention, more interest, more donations or more influence.” It’s a short book – you can read it in about ten minutes – about his exciting, new online company, Squidoo, and, as Seth says, “more important, about a new sort of online tool that might very well change the way you discover (and publish) information.” This new tool (which has to do with the development of a “lens,” described by Seth as a “a page, a single page, that highlights one person’s view of the Web – not the whole Web, just one tiny…
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23Sep 2005 by Bob Cargill

Yvonne DiVita’s Lip-Sticking

Blogging, Direct Marketing, Marketing
If you’ve ever read Yvonne DiVita’s Lip-Sticking, you know what I mean when I say it’s arguably one of the best blogs in the blogosphere. It’s a prolific, practical account of what’s what and who’s who in online marketing to women – and much, much more. Yvonne – as Jane, her alter ego – is able to provide her readers with almost as much humor as business insight and intelligence, and as she herself would say, what’s not to like about that? I was very fortunate – and honored – to have just been interviewed by Yvonne for a series of profiles she posts regularly of online marketing professionals. In this interview, Jane asked me if I thought that blogging could really be as personal as, say, a phone call,…
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15Sep 2005 by Bob Cargill

Blogging on Behalf of Women’s Legal Rights

Blogging, Direct Marketing, Fundraising
If you’re interested in monitoring the confirmation hearing of Chief Justice nominee John G. Roberts, you may be interested in monitoring NominationWatch.org. But that’s not the only reason to check out this relatively new blog published by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), a group dedicated to advancing and protecting women’s legal rights. NominationWatch.org is also an excellent example of how a nonprofit organization can use a blog to get the word out about its cause. Take it from Nancy Schwartz, editor and publisher of Getting Attention, a monthly e-newsletter that helps nonprofits succeed through effective communications. She’s just written and posted an insightful case study of NominationWatch.org called "Three Steps to Launching Your Nonprofit Blog." According to Schwartz’s article, “Ranit Schmelzer, NWLC vice president for communications, says that for…
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12Sep 2005 by Bob Cargill

A Great Opportunity for Shoestring Direct Marketers

Blogging, Direct Marketing, Fundraising
From the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), I recently learned about Word of Blog, a free service that “enables blog owners to spread ideas and influence throughout the blogosphere, promote causes or services that they believe in, recommend products and organizations they like, and create communities of like-minded blog owners, all through blog word of mouth.” To use this service, all a blogger needs to do is select any ad appearing on the Word of Blog site, then copy and paste the corresponding code into your template – like I did with ads for both The American Red Cross and Feed the Children, just two of the many organizations that are helping victims of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. On the other hand, if you yourself want to get the…
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12Aug 2005 by Bob Cargill

Donald Trump Has a New Blog

Blogging, Direct Marketing, Fundraising, Marketing
The blog has come a long way in just the last year alone, but with Donald Trump now waxing eloquently in the blogosphere, a good argument could be made that this revolutionary self-publishing and marketing platform has gone from the outhouse to the penthouse. Read all about it here in Information Week. Elsewhere…DIRECT magazine reports that DM hiring is on the rise. The NonProfit Times issues its 8th annual Power & Influence Top 50. FundRaising Success magazine weighs in on the state of online fundraising today ("From Buttons to Blogs" by Paul Barbagallo). Bob Bly pits blogs versus white papers in his most recent reader survey. Mike Westfall, on Annual Fund Inc. (August 11, 2005), shares some best practices for e-solicitations to college and university alumni. And finally, for the…
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04Aug 2005 by Bob Cargill

In Defense of Rubber Wristbands as a Fundraising Tool

Direct Marketing, Fundraising
In the latest issue of Details magazine (June/July 2005, p. 99), columnist Jonathan Sabin plays the devil’s advocate and argues that rubber wristbands – such as those ubiquitous yellow ones that have helped the Lance Armstrong Foundation raise so much money for such a good cause – should be banned. Who would have thought that one man’s solution to cancer prevention and survivorship would be another man’s problem with marketing and philanthropy? “Today nearly 50 million are looped around self-righteous wrists as the cheesy trinkets metastasize like the cancers they’re supposed to help cure,” writes Sabin, taking an unseemly, cheap shot – in my opinion – at not just one of the most popular charitable organizations going right now, but at the business of direct response fundraising as a whole.…
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21Jul 2005 by Bob Cargill

The Cure for the Common Headline

Advertising, Copywriting, Direct Marketing, Marketing
If you were a neighbor of mine, you’d know what I mean when I say my lawn isn’t going to win any beauty contests. It’s so thin, brown and malnourished, it’s embarrassing – especially during the dog days of summer. So when The Scotts Company wrote to me recently about growing a thicker, greener lawn, its timing – and targeting of me as a potential customer – couldn’t have been better. After all, like any other proud homeowner in this day and age, I need to be doing everything I can to keep up with the Joneses, no? Which reminds me of a direct mail package Scotts sent out a few years ago, bearing the words, “Now the grass can be greener on your side.” While these folks didn’t earn…
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14Jul 2005 by Bob Cargill

What Pauly Shore May Have Learned from Direct Marketing

Advertising, Direct Marketing, Marketing
I may not be a big Pauly Shore fan, but he scores big points in my book for putting his money where is mouth is and guaranteeing his new TV show, Minding the Store, (which is premiering this Sunday, July 17, at 10 PM EST on TBS). “I am so confident that my new series will make people laugh,” said Shore in a press release, “I’ve convinced the network heads at TBS to let me offer this special guarantee. It’s our way of saying we value people’s television-viewing time, and we know they’ll feel their time spent watching Minding the Store is well worth it.” Viewers who fail to laugh after watching the first episode of Minding the Store are invited to mail a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Shore, care…
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