Found 26 topics tagged ‘Advocacy 101’

You might know definitively that your call-to-action (CTA) is the single-most strategic thing your supporters can do today to help your cause. But don’t expect anyone to take your word for it. Make the effort to...

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...

To steal a mantra from our friends in journalism: don’t bury the lede. The idea might have started in newspaper offices but it applies anywhere we’re competing for our audience’s attention (so, the entire Internet)...

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,...

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...