Yesterday at the MediaPost Online Media, Marketing, and Advertising Video conference analysts declared that the starting point for campaign design must be research and testing. This is because the window has grown shorter in getting attention, developing commitment, and converting on your call-to-action. Themes, storylines, and next steps have to be quick, easy, urgent, and readily acceptable. So sort out the highest value concepts and propositions in a closed survey before you jump, so that you can proceed with confidence.

Before committing resources to particular milestones & objectives for a fundraising campaign that employs groups, events, and applications on Facebook, OpenSocial, and other platforms, test (AB testing) the relative appeal of various assets (themes, messages, actors, stories, text, images, video, wikis, audio, speakers) and tools for your campaign on a representative sample of your target audience/engaged membership.

Some set of elements fit together and perform as a whole better than others. Find out which combinations create the best results.

Once testing is complete, estimate: