Found 26 topics tagged ‘Advocacy 101’

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...

SPOILER: it’s not good. Sure—you know you’re writing an email to 5,000 people. But your task is to make your reader feel like you’re writing only to them. When ‘broadcasting’ language slips into our writing,...

How can you simultaneously meet the needs of both long-term and fledgling supporters in ways that don’t patronize or confuse anyone? Let’s apply common ground messaging theory to answer this question. Triggers: Long-term supporters value long-term...

For several years, I drove a strategy at Animals Australia to send ‘thank-you’ emails to action takers that were jam-packed with followup asks. This is not an uncommon approach. And on the surface, it’s easy to...

Whether your call to action (CTA) is a button or a link, don’t get too clever. Speak directly to your supporter and tell them exactly what you want them to do. In our tests, this always increases...

I’m not saying don’t do heroic things. Keep that up! But when you’re telling your supporters a story of injustice, there’s only space for one hero—and it’s not you. Let me explain... Every story...