The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that leads us to overestimate the knowledge of our audience. If you allow this curse to infect your writing, you may unwittingly leave supporters feeling confused an alienated. To...

How does the past experience of people on your list influence their interest in receiving ongoing email from you? It turns out quite a lot. The measure of overall email list engagement is called list health...

You are not your audience. Five humbling words that explain why so many messages fall flat, emails flop, and web pages fail. Could you afford to continue investing time in something that wasn’t...

Bolding the odd word or phrase can help skim readers catch key ideas you don’t want them to miss. It’s also great for SEO. But in order to preserve impact, use bold words sparingly. It’s tempting to...

Quick read

(Not in that way). Do you ever find yourself staring at your screen, wishing the thing you are trying to write was done already? We’ve all been there. If you just about sent yourself to sleep composing...

Quick read

Think of digital pipelines as pathways that lead your supporters down progressively deeper levels of engagement. Without designing your pipelines intentionally, your supporters may still engage, take action, and donate. However, with intentional design, pipelines will help...