Are you agonizing over the copy for your season brochure? It’s hard to know the right tack to take when everything in your patrons’ world is in flux. You certainly can’t drag out the same copy you used last year. “7 Ways to Recession-Proof Arts Marketing Copy� will help. It’s an article ...

It’s been a busy week. Hard to believe it’s Friday already. Time to look at a few interesting bits on arts marketing and social media that you might have missed. ON TWITTER Listening to Twitter – In this TED talk, twitter co-founder Evan Williams notes how the use of twitter has evolved in une...

One of the problems I have with writing this blog is the tendency to be sort of scold-y and preachy. My thoughts on arts marketing strategies and tools are often prompted by efforts that seem misguided to me. It’s hard to talk about these issues without sounding all superior. There must be times w...

Yesterday I wrote a post inspired by Paul Boag’s piece in Smashing Magazine, called “ 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Web Sites .� His advice is just as relevant to arts nonprofits and small businesses as it is for large corporations, so please, go read the whole piece. I gave you my thoughts ...

Paul Boag in Smashing Magazine has a great piece entitled “ 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Web Sites .� (Hat tip to @KursaalTom .) Please substitute “corporate� for “arts nonprofit� and read some of his tough love. My favorites are numbers 4 (Your Website Cannot Appeal to Everyone) and ...

New York City Opera is doing something interesting. For those of you who haven’t followed this story… hmm, how can I make this short? Let’s see… The Metropolitan Opera is starting to thrive under the direction of Peter Gelb, who has introduced all kinds of forward-thinking changes. In a bid ...

I took part in a teleclass on Sunday. It was all about “About� pages. You know… that part of your site where you finally get to toot your own horn? (Oh, wait, is your whole site about tooting it? Uh-oh.) About “About� In her teleclass for The Kitchen Table, Havi Brooks said something I ver...

I love this. Donor Power Blog’s Jeff Brooks points to a post by The Fundraising Coach Marc Pitman. Marc runs some fundraising copy through the online tool, Wordle , to get a graphic picture of two organizations’ messages. For one, words like “care,� “safe,� and “learn� are the most p...

Yesterday I wrote about how you can use thank you notes to set yourself apart from the competition, because lots of nonprofits (1) don’t do thank you notes at all, (2) don’t do them very well, or (3) overlook easy opportunities to touch their donors’ hearts. Here’s another st...

Several nonprofit friends have forward me Daniel Gross’s column on the “Coming Charity Crisis” which appears in both Newsweek and Slate. Yes, it’s likely that charitable giving will drop because of the recession. If you think it’s already hard to raise money for your ca...