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Make your non-profit stand out using email marketing
Email marketing proved to be an effective solution. From donation drives to updates on your activities, email offers nonprofits an effective way to reach supporters while creating a personalized experience.
How to get started?
Before you launch your nonprofit’s email strategy, you need to make sure you have the tools to implement it.
With so many email marketing services to choose from, deciding which one is best for your nonprofit organization can be a challenging task. To help you in your research, here are some features that nonprofits should look for in an email marketing software:
- Email templates.These will make your life much easier. Instead of starting from scratch, you’ll have professional, mobile-responsive plans to customize for your organization.
- Register forms. This will help you to collect subscribers for your email list.
- Segmentation and personalization. You’ll want the ability to segment your lists based on your own criteria to target contacts with the right campaigns and messages. You should also be able to personalize the content within emails using contact data such as their name or donation details.
- Automation. Instead of impersonal campaigns, this will allow you to turn emails into contacts.
- Landing page builder. This will make it easier for you to create specific pages that your emails link to, with more detailed information to convert those who click.
- Built-in CRM. This will permit you to store contacts data within the platform, including details of personalised communications and the history of your interactions.
- Drag and drop editor. Creating email campaigns will probably take up a lot of your attention. Therefore, an intuitive, easy to use editor for customizing the format and layout of your content is essential.
Types of emails to include in your nonprofit’s email marketing strategy
Newsletters
So if you have been ignoring SMS, now is the time to get started. With the above in mind, it becomes clear that SMS will be a great addition to your omni-channel marketing strategy. Here are some tips that will help you out.
Welcome Email
When you acquire new email subscribers, it is essential to provide them with a warm welcome. Welcome emails not only help you show your best, but they can also increase the chances of receiving donations afterwards.
Welcome emails have significantly higher open and click rates than traditional emails. What’s most impressive for nonprofits is the fact that welcome emails result in eight times the transaction rate of a promotional email. In this light, the welcome email series is vital to securing donations.
Storytelling Emails
Whatever your purpose, stories are a central part of your nonprofit email marketing strategy because they emotionally engage readers. This approach makes people more mentally inclined to donate. Try not to get caught up in thinking about a story only in terms of text. You can also use images to tell a fascinating and emotion-driven story.
“Thank you” and informative emails
Simple “thank you’s” and updates are a great tool that can help improve donor retention. By opting in to receive your emails, subscribers are signalling that they want to be kept informed. Providing feedback keeps these advocates engaged with your organization and coming back to re-donate.
Some ideas you can use in your email updates include:
- Important milestones for your nonprofit, such as raising a certain amount of money or helping a certain number of people
- Celebrating your organization’s anniversary
- New programs, campaigns or initiatives your nonprofit is developing.
Emails based on number and statistics
To stand out in your subscribers’ inboxes can be a real challenge, but numbers and stats in subject lines are a way to catch someone’s attention right away.
Below are a few examples:
There are X million people worldwide without access to clean water.
One in five children does not have proper access to food on an annual basis in the United States.
You can incorporate these into the body of your email as well.
Questions and questionnaires Emails
When you’re competing with social media and chatbots, anything you can do to open up the lines of communication and make your emails interactive is a major advantage.
This is true in terms of keeping readers engaged and learning more about them for future emails. This is why surveys and question-based emails are considered a smart move.
“Success Story” Emails
Finally, don’t forget the need to share stories with your donors about the success of your organisation and how they have contributed.
Pointing out actual success stories or cases of someone who has been helped by your nonprofit offers solid proof of your organization’s work.
How diversified is your non-profit email strategy?
Nonprofits should do everything in their power to encourage readers to convert to donors. Differentiating your nonprofit email marketing strategy with these types of messages, as well as others, can help you achieve this goal.
Email marketing is an opportunity for nonprofits to develop a loyal base of supporters while maximizing time and resources. To achieve that you should make sure that you are using the right email marketing software and the proper content.
So instead of looking for new ideas, look within to see how you can start incorporating high-converting elements into your emails using the right tools and email marketing software.
