Email is a marketing communication tool that helps you reach a wider audience and track them. It enables you to engage the audience and, if well utilized, reach more donors. Here are a few effective ways to use email for your nonprofit;
Create a design strategy
The first step is to create a design peculiar to your company. Your newsletters and all other email campaigns should be readily designed. Potential customers should easily read the email campaigns. Designing email newsletters, fundraisers, welcome emails, thank-you emails, etc., might seem easy, but floppy campaigns have generated a 15% decrease in your subscribers. You can employ an email designer; it will be worth the penny. Check larger non-profit organizations and how they design their emails. You could also add video features to your emails that contain links to the actual video content to boost the activity of your subscribers.
Stories for newsletters and fundraising appeals
The newsletters and fundraising appeals sent to your audience emails should contain stories. While your newsletters can have one to four stories, your fundraisers should only contain one story. Newsletters serve as reminders to your audience about the activities going on in your organization. Your newsletters should have links that lead to the full stories on your organization’s website. This will inspire the audience to donate, follow you or at least sign your petitions.
Use a ‘Donate’ button
While sending your newsletters to your audience, there should be a space for a button for donations. Also, links to social media handles should be included. This will enable the audience to contact and reach your page when necessary directly
Send more emails
This does not mean you should spam your audience with too many emails. But if you’ve been sending emails once in four months, that can be increased to twice, and you can increase it with time. If you’ve been sending emails twice a month, you can increase it to four times. Research shows that 68% of organizations send newsletters, allowing the audience to give, donate, get involved in their activities, and sign their petitions. It also shows that the best time to send emails is around 10 am on Tuesdays. However, study your audience and figure out when to send emails because if everyone sends emails on Tuesdays, ultimately, it becomes a bad time to send emails. This is because no one wants their inbox stuffed with emails.
Make your email messages personal
When writing an email for your nonprofit, use catchy sentences. Your short line is what captivates your audience and determines if they’ll open your email or not. Address your audience by using their first names.
Use a ‘thank you for subscribing’ page
Use this when new subscribers subscribe to your channel and newsletters. Saying ‘thank you’ is part of email marketing for non-profit. After new people subscribe to your newsletters, they should land on a ‘thank you’ page to encourage them to participate more in your activities.
Schedule a welcome email
Welcome emails help your new subscribers maximize their activities in your organization. Although this might seem insignificant, subscribers expect welcome emails, especially when they’re well-structured to capture their attention. Such emails can contain videos, fundraising appeals, etc.
Segment your subscribers
To ensure effective usage of your emails and reduce cost, delete unengaging subscribers. An unengaging subscriber can be because the emails are sent to spam, or they are uninterested. This can affect your overall email effect. The chances of your email landing in spam will increase. To figure out unengaged subscribers, send an email to re-engage them. This can be a popular topic. Send a fundraising appeal the second week and if there is still no engagement, delete such subscribers.
Email list priority
An email is a cost-effective tool and powerful communication tool. Create a social media promo graphic and add a pop-up ad to your website.
Conclusion
To reach a larger audience and increase their activities, it is crucial to understand how email works. Email is a good marketing tool that connects you with your audience and increases your chances of getting donors. To receive more marketing tips, follow us @socialsrunway on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter.