Email marketing for charity organisations A quick guide to planning your email campaign
Contents 01 02 03 04 05 06 08 09 10 11 Why email marketing? Setting a plan Growing your list Structure, design and content Deliverability tips Email layout explained Testing and improving Evaluating success The legals The 10 email marketing commandments
Why email marketing? Not-for-profits need to generate as much revenue as they can to stay on track whilst working with increasingly tighter purse strings. Email is a great tool for charity fundraisers and marketers because of the low cost nature and the reporting it provides. It can also be easily integrated into your existing strategies. According to the Direct Marketing Association, for every 1 you spend you will receive 42 in return. Email marketing can also provide tangible results for your charity; such as a list of email addresses of people who have clicked on a specific campaign, event or news item. Permission-based email marketing can work wonders in helping you build donor and volunteer relationships, retain advocates for the long-haul and cross sell your services and products (lottery, shop or other revenue-generating method). For more information about using email marketing for your not-forprofit organisation, please contact the little green plane team at info@littlegreenplane.com or call 0845 862 0144. 01
Setting a plan You ve decided to embark on a programme of email marketing but where do you start? We would advise looking at your charity s fundraising and marketing objectives to assess what you are trying to achieve over the next 12 months. How can email marketing help along the way? Try using some of the questions below to create an email marketing strategy: How regularly are you planning to send your email campaigns? Who will be responsible for your e-shots? Can you segment your audience? What tone will you use? What content and incentives will you offer in your emails? How will you grow your database? Over the next few pages, this guide will provide some ideas on all of the points above to help you get your email marketing for your charity underway. 02
Growing your list You may already have a list of email addresses of subscribers or may be starting from scratch. Either way, you ll probably be striving to grow your database in order to increase donations, manpower and support. Data is king in email marketing. To get the best out of your campaigns, ensure you are using email addresses of people who have opted-in to receive your information in the first place and keep it up-to-date. You can grow your list in several ways: Put an email sign-up form on the home page of your website (and a tick box under any data capture form) Create a specific sign-up form page and put a link to this on your email signature. Include a Forward to a Friend link on your email campaigns Circulate a sign-up form at any event you are hosting or speaking at Create a sign-up tab on your Facebook page Created an automated direct message on Twitter for new followers with link to your sign-up page 03
Structure, design and content What are you going to put into your email marketing campaigns? Why not try: A weekly or monthly e-newsletter of your latest news and developments Specific campaign-focussed e-shots such as a corporate e-newsletter Event information, registration and follow ups Guides: Setting up Payroll Giving, Leaving a Legacy Email surveys to service users Vacancy alerts Sponsorship form submission reminders Video introduction to your latest annual review from your Chief Executive The main tips in terms of content are to keep it simple, keep it short, use the most important news snippet first and make sure you have a strong call to action. The idea of email marketing is to drive traffic to your website where you can covert enquiries into new volunteers, donations and support. 04
Deliverability tips So you ve grown your data list and carefully crafted the content of your email marketing campaign. Now all you ve got to do is make sure it hits the inbox of your recipient and not the spam folder. You can do this by: Creating good content and using clean data Using the pre-send spam tests provided by your email marketing provider Making sure you include an unsubscribe mechanism Reviewing your delivery stats on a regular basis Avoid: Repeatedly using phrases like click here! or once in a lifetime opportunity! Exclamation marks!!!!!! USING ALL CAPS, WHICH IS LIKE YELLING IN EMAIL Colouring fonts bright red, or green Sloppy HTML coding Using one big image, with little or no text Using a noreply@ email address 05
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Email layout explained 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 From: a real person To: only one recipient Subject: direct and below 49 characters Charity branding and name prominent Call to action Breif description of what the charity does and supports Unique calls to action for alternative donations Supporting text for donations Further interaction at the bottom of the email Unsubscribe mechanism 07
Testing and improving If you ve been sending email marketing campaigns for your charity for a while and are not getting the best open or click through rates, they may have become stagnant. Why not try testing and varying the following to see if it makes a difference on your donations and enquiries: How you are targeting your demographics (by age, sex, location) The time you are sending your campaigns (hour, day, month, seasons, holidays) Personalisation: do your campaigns work better with or without? The subject line; from questions, facts, to commands Tweak the length, layout and call to action location of your design Frequency are you sending too often or too infrequently? Try changing the name and email address of the sender (sex, seniority, info@ versus real person) 08
Evaluating success You can evaluate success by looking at the reports of each campaign and by benchmarking your original objectives as you go. There are many Key Performance Indicators you can set and monitor. Here are just a few examples: By campaign Number of opens Number of click-throughs Number of bounces Number of complaints/unsubscribes Number of opens vs clicks Link popularity Geographical opens Forward to a Friend numbers By objectives Total number of hits to your charity website over the campaign period Number of volunteer enquiries Number of donations obtained from your campaigns Number of new subscribers obtained month-on-month 09
The legals Email marketing is governed by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations of the Data Protection Act 1998. This states Any commercial motives must not be hidden You must provide a valid unsubscribe mechanism You must list your company details on your emails You must not use competitions to gather email lists unless participants have also said they are happy to receive updates If you are collecting data you must explain how you will handle it AND provide user access, ideally in a Privacy Policy (see blog) You must also be aware that by using the Forward to a Friend feature, you may be liable if this is forwarded to someone who complains. Due to the Data Protection Act, no email provider will be able to give you specific data on Forward to a Friend apart from the number of people it has been circulated to. 10
The 10 email marketing commandments That s it! You should now be well on your way to creating effective email marketing campaigns for your not-for-profit organisation. Please find below our 10 email marketing commandments to ensure you are adhering to email marketing best practice at all times, and receiving the best possible results: 1. Thou shalt refine your subject line 2. Thou shalt use a prominent call to action 3. Thou shalt give value to your subscribers 4. Thou shalt use an opt-in approach 5. Thou shalt grow organic data 6. Thou shalt segment your data 7. Thou shalt set objectives 8. Thou shalt test 9. Thou shalt not spam 10. Thou shalt be legal 11
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