Email marketing is an ever-reliable avenue of keeping potential contributors engaged, but if done incorrectly, it will cost you time, money, and the interest of potential donors and volunteers. As initiators of numerous successful email marketing campaigns, here are some suggestions you might want to incorporate into your emails.
Design
Make Your Emails Click-Friendly
Emails perform better when designed with mobile in mind. Using buttons instead of in-line text, writing clear calls to action, and designing emails to be mobile-optimized increases unique clicks by 15%.
Don’t Include All the Information
It may seem counterintuitive to leave information out of an email, but it actually entices potential users more than giving all of the information away. After all, the purpose of the email is to get people to take further action. Entice readers with headlines, and if they are interested in learning more, they will click through your email.
Segment Your Audience
People are less likely to open or read through an email if it is not personalized or relevant. Segmentation involves dividing your subscribers into categories based on demographics, such as age and gender, as well as behavioral demographics, like if they’re a new/frequent donor/volunteer, or an unresponsive subscriber, etc. Sending these categories of subscribers different, tailored emails makes them more personal and increases click-through and conversion rates.
Sign-Ups
Create Consistent Methods of Subscribing
Make it a priority to create consistent and accessible methods of gaining subscribers. Putting QR codes at the end of every social media post, having a pop-up banner on your website with a text box to enter their email into, and putting QR codes on events your nonprofit hosts are just some of the avenues you can take to make your email marketing easy to subscribe to.
Offer It Everywhere
Ensure your emails are easy to sign up for by placing the option to subscribe in easily accessible spots. People will not look for it if it is not easily accessible, but do not put it everywhere, or it will annoy people.
Get a Flow of Sign-Ups
Save for your nonprofit’s most loyal contributors, most subscribers will eventually lose interest in your emails, so it’s important to create a consistent flow of new subscribers so you don’t lose more subscribers than you’re gaining.
Retention
Use Nurturing Sequences
When a new subscriber subscribes to your email list, immediately bombarding them with donation requests will put them off the idea. Start with a welcome email and follow with educational and engaging emails to warm them up to your cause before asking for donations.
Keep It Relevant & Important
People will lose engagement if the content of the email is not relevant to the mission and actions your nonprofit is taking. Don’t fill your emails with fluff content. Your content should be informative and meaningful to your subscribers.
Remember Your Die-Hard Supporters
A common rule in email marketing is the 80/20 Rule, which states that 80% of your engagement comes from 20% of your subscriber base. Do not neglect these die-hard supporters, and keep them engaged so they can help your nonprofit when it needs it most.
Analytics
Archive Unresponsive Recipients
If you have subscribers that haven’t opened or engaged with your emails in a year, it’s time to let them go. If you let uninterested subscribers remain in your list, it creates a vanity metric that obscures how many people are meaningfully engaging with your content. It also messes with your unsubscribe rate, since if people are not engaging with your emails at all, they probably don’t care enough about them to unsubscribe.
Keep Track of Important Metrics
- Open Rate: A high open rate indicates that your subject lines are attention-grabbing and your subscribers are interested in your content. A good open rate is between 15-25%.
- Click-Through Rate: A high click-through rate shows that your audience is interested enough in your content to interact and engage with it. A good click-through rate is between 2-5%.
- Conversion Rate: A high conversion rate means your audience is following the actions you intend for them to take. A good conversion rate is between 2-5%.
We Know Email Marketing
We’ve helped over 60 nonprofit organizations create impactful and successful marketing campaigns, and we can help you, too. So don’t wait…
