A guest post from Superhuman.com
Maintaining loyal donor bases is crucial for your nonprofit, and doing so requires cultivating relationships with your donors. You’ll find email marketing is very helpful in this respect.
Despite being relatively “old” when compared to new channels like social media, email remains one of the most effective marketing channels on the Internet.
That’s partially because it gives marketers the opportunity to stay in contact with followers over a long period of time, giving them many chances to boost engagement.
Want to use this channel to promote your nonprofit? Keep the following tips in mind. They’ll help you use nonprofit email marketing to its full potential.
Personalize Your Content
No email campaign will deliver results if your followers don’t actually read the emails you send. Thus, it’s important to take steps which have been shown to boost open rates.
Simply adding a recipient’s name to an email subject line helps. Evidence suggests this may boost open rates by as much as 50%.
Segmenting your email list is also necessary. You want to make sure your followers are only receiving relevant content.
For instance, maybe you represent a large nonprofit that regularly hosts fundraising events in various spots throughout the world. You might use your email newsletter to promote them. However, not every follower will be able to attend every event.
Someone on the west coast of the United States probably can’t attend an event being held on the east coast with a week’s notice. An email about such an event would simply clutter their inbox.
Don’t let this happen.
When asking people to sign up for your email list, include a few short questions about the type of content they want to receive. Use this information, as well as basic data such as geographical location, to segment your email list. This is another way to boost open rates.
Have a Reason for Each Email
There are various reasons you might send an email as a nonprofit marketer. Again, maybe you’re promoting an event, or maybe you’re soliciting donations. Maybe you’re sharing information about a recent achievement.
Consider why you’re emailing your followers when creating content for each message you send. This has two purposes. One, it helps you create a more effective call-to-action. It’s easier to know what action you want readers of your email to take when you know why you sent it.
Two, deciding why you wish to send each email in your campaign prevents you from sending useless content that doesn’t offer your subscribers any value. You need to send valuable content to make the right impression.
Make it Readable
Did you know a person is more likely to check their email on a mobile device than via a computer these days? Remember this when designing your emails. You want to be sure the content is easy to scan on a small screen.
You can achieve this goal by:
- avoiding large chunks of text
- including images and video to break up text sections, and
- using formatting elements such as headers and bullets to generally organize your content.
Keep these points in mind when developing your email marketing campaign. They’ll help you make the right impression on donors. With a strong email marketing campaign, your nonprofit will be better equipped to do good than ever before.
