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...

Cognitive biases are powerful mental distortions that affect the way we think and behave. They are so powerful that they can lead people to act against their own best interests. If you understand them, you can...

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,...

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...

Let’s be honest, this stuff is hard. Never in human history has there been a communication medium more competitive than the Internet. Never has our collective attention span been more fleeting. As much as...

Sometimes, the purpose of an email can be simply to inform. But often, we’re trying to get someone somewhere. An action page. A donation form. A video... When your email has a destination, be protective of...