Developing a good email marketing program has become crucial to building a fundraising department that is reliable and generates revenue for your non-profit.
Whether you’re designing one-time campaigns to encourage giving around certain holidays or creating introductory email series for your new supporters, email marketing is an ideal way to show your donors that you are thankful for them with engagement that is consistent, interesting, and valuable.
Why Invest in Non-Profit Email Marketing?
There are many benefits for non-profit companies that invest in email marketing. From saving time and money to increasing donations and further engaging with supporters, all the benefits of email marketing for non-profits are closely related to increasing overall giving and saving money.
Email Marketing for Non-Profit Saves Time and Money
Many non-profit organisations operate on a tight budget and with little resources.
When it comes to encouraging donations and fundraising, many strategies to engage with and get the attention of potential donors can be very costly. Sending flyers and postcards can come with a huge printing bill, for example, while ads on TV might reach a large audience but will cost you thousands to get there.
On the other hand, there are lots of great email marketing platforms to choose from that are either free of charge or at least, very affordable.
For the price of a small monthly or annual fee, you will get everything that you need to design, write, schedule, and send professional and engaging emails. The best part is that email marketing has a very high return on investment, with studies showing that for every one-thousand marketing emails sent, organisations raise almost £60.
Email Marketing for Non-Profits Increases Engagement and Donations
Making a digital donation is easy and accessible for most people, and email marketing is an ideal medium for promoting this type of engagement from donors. All that interested donors need to do to show their support for your non-profit financially is click a button and choose the options that they want to give.
Email marketing is a great way to increase engagement. It helps donors avoid all the hassle of giving cash, cheques, or money orders to the non-profits that they want to support since all they have to do is click on a link and they can make the payment online.
Reports show that online donations are on the rise, growing by around 20% in 2020 and over 32% since 2017. Right now, with more people working remotely and spending more and more time online, it’s no surprise that the number of online donations is likely set to increase even more significantly over the coming years.
Types of Email Marketing for Non-Profits
It is clear to see that email marketing is a crucial part of engaging with donors and encouraging more support for non-profit companies, but what types of marketing emails are best to send? For non-profits, some must-send email types include:
Newsletters
Email newsletters are a must for any non-profit since they are the best way to keep supporters updated and educated, raise awareness of the cause, highlight anything that is of interest such as particular donors, volunteers, and staff, bring attention to important stories, provide statistics, and give donors more resources.
A good email newsletter should be structured and simple while offering consistency in formatting and branding. For the best results, send it at the same date and time each month.
Fundraising Campaigns
Whether it’s for an annual fundraiser, special circumstances, holidays, or specific days, sending emails with the main goal of raising more money for your non-profit is essential. You can send emails that include countdowns or keep your donors updated on how much money you have raised so far with this specific campaign.
Place an emphasis on urgency and use the emails to tell interesting and compelling stories about the beneficiaries of the donations, to encourage an emotional response that is likely to compel people to take part and give.
Automated Emails
Your non-profit should also consider setting up automated email series for several different situations. This can help you save time and boost donor engagement without having to give it a lot of thought.
For example, designing a welcome email series for new subscribers can be an ideal way to introduce them to your mission, programs, work, impact, and different ways that they can engage with your organisation or donate to it.
Or, you could set up automated thank you emails for donors who have donated over a certain amount so far, which can demonstrate to them that they are valued, appreciated, and noticed, and that you are grateful for their support.
Thank You Emails
Often, the emails that you send after you have successfully gotten somebody to donate through your email campaigns can be even more than the ask itself. When people give, even to a great cause, they will always be more inspired to give again and continue supporting the cause if they feel appreciated.
Thank-you emails are simple, but very effective when it comes to engaging with your donors and keeping them on your side.
Along with simply sending an email to thank your donors right after they give, you can also send thank you emails periodically to keep them updated on all the good things that their money is helping with.
Best Practice Non Profit Email Marketing
When using email marketing strategies for your non-profit, there are some best practices to keep in mind to help increase giving and build the relationship that you have with your donors. These include:
Build a Strong Email List
Before you get to setting up email campaigns, it’s important to make sure that you have a healthy and solid email list in place. This will help you maximise your return on the time and effort that you put into your strategies.
Lead magnets are a good way to incentivise new supporters to provide you with their contact information and join your email list. This refers to a free gift in return for opting into receiving emails and could be resources, content, eBooks, worksheets, or something else.
Wait Before Asking
It can be quite tempting to get right into asking for donations – after all, that’s the main point of your email marketing campaign, right?
However, getting an immediate email from your non-profit asking for money straight after singing up can be off-putting for any potential donor. Instead, send supporters a personalised welcome series going into detail about what you do, what your non-profit has achieved so far, and introductions to staff members and volunteers.
Get Consent
It’s important to get the consent of the people who are added to your email list, as if you are emailing people who had no interest in hearing from your non-profit in the first place, then it’s not likely that you are going to get good engagement rates or any donations.
Along with this, sending marketing emails to people without first getting their consent might also be in breach of data protection laws like the GDPR, which could land your non-profit with fines.
Along with this, if you’re sending emails to supporters who do not want to hear from you via email, then you are running the risk of having messages marked as spam, which can ultimately harm your ability to reach supporters who are interested in getting your emails.
Email Marketing for Non-Profit Organizations – Strategies to Encourage Giving
Your marketing emails should tell a story that is relevant to the recipients and compels them to support your non-profit with a donation. To achieve this, there are several strategies that you can use including:
Send Targeted Messages
When it comes to email marketing, one size doesn’t fit all. Avoid sending the same email to everybody on your email list, and instead divide them into segments depending on donor demographics and preferences. You can easily do this using most email platforms.
Use Insights
Data insights and metrics that you collect from your email marketing efforts so far are crucial for coming up with an effective strategy that will help you increase donations.
Most email marketing platforms will provide you with basic metrics on things like click rates, open rates, or click through rates along with information on the length of time people spend using your emails and the most popular days and times.
If you are starting or already running a non-profit, then it might be time to reconsider how you contact donors. Rather than writing one-time emails, consider if there is a better way to use your time, allowing you to reach larger audiences, save money, and increase engagement and donations.
For non-profits, it is definitely worth investing in a great strategy for email marketing, and it can make all the difference when it comes to the success of your fundraising department.
There are several affordable and user-friendly email marketing tools that you can get started with to transform your donor engagement and support, coupled with some best practices.
