E-Mail is Core to the Nonprofit Marketing Mix
By Jono Smith
Like many people, following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, I went online to make a donation. I knew I wanted to contribute to a secular, non-governmental, humanitarian aid organization, so I did a search through Network for Good, found a great match, and made an online contribution. I’m reminded of this because I got an email appeal from this same group yesterday. What’s amazing is that it’s the first time this charity has contacted me by e-mail since 2004. I’ve gotten several direct mail appeals from them through the U.S. mail over the years, but never an email.
So what’s the big deal? This is a great example of the importance of knowing your audience, and providing information to your audience in the format they prefer. By making an online donation to this charity, I expressed an implicit preference that I prefer to use the Internet for charitable giving. And yet the more I ignored their direct mail, the more this charity spent their hard earned marketing dollars trying to cultivate me through regular mail--for 3 years. Of the ten or so appeals I’ve received from them in the mail, I can’t remembering opening or reading a single one. But I read their e-mail yesterday word-for-word because it was relevant, personalized, and delivered in the format I prefer (email).
Despite concern over spam and email fraud, email marketing remains an important and relatively inexpensive way to cultivate relationships with donors, and solicit contributions. But building an email relationship takes time and attention to detail. Here are three ways to use email to drive donor response:
- Timing: Deliver your emails when the donor is most likely to make a donation.
- Relevance: Are you sending broadcast, mass emails or personalized email campaigns? Make sure your messaging reflects your donor’s unique values. Engaging your audience in more relevant communications will increase your fundraising results more than broadcast mailings.
- Personalization: Make sure your email is tailored—either aesthetically, contextually or conceptually—for the recipient. Research shows that personalized emails have lower opt-out rates and higher response rates than broadcast emails.
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