1. Plan Ahead

Instead of acting on impulse, to succeed in fundraising through email, think in terms of four-to eight-week campaigns, and then be realistic about how many campaigns you can successfully execute in a given year. Have a strategy session with your colleagues and key volunteers to discuss how email can help support your communications and fundraising campaigns. Consider the capacity of your organization and fundraising department and make sure that you create a plan that you can execute on.

As outlined in the social media and direct mail chapters, it’s key that you create a communications calendar, also known as an editorial calendar, that outlines all of the emails your organization will send so your marketing, advocacy, and fundraising emails don’t get crossed or undermine one another. The last thing you want is a donor receiving a fundraising appeal the same day he or she receives an e-newsletter or request to call his or her congressman.

We’ve talked about an editorial calendar in multiple chapters now, which speaks to how incredibly useful they are to underpin your communications strategy across media—if at all possible, integrate your various editorial calendars into one master document, so you can ensure a strategic approach to all outbound communications. This will enable you to coordinate both the timing and messaging of everything you send out, giving fundraising appeals the space they need for action before another message is sent out, regardless of medium.

2. Build Campaigns

Avoid sending one-off emails; instead, create email campaigns centered around a particular story or topic with a timeline and goal attached. A typical email campaign consists of at least three emails over six to eight weeks. Start with a launch email that tells a quick and appealing story, efficiently explains the need, and asks for a donation to your cause. Be sure to identify a specific amount you need to raise, so you can follow up with update emails saying how you’ve progressed toward your goal. You can send weekly follow-up fundraising emails if you have the capacity, as long as you’re careful to segment out those who have already given (more on this in point 6, below).

As discussed in Chapter 14, especially when it comes to youth, peer influence drives behavior. But no matter what the age of your base, it’s always effective to use statements like “In the last 24 hours, 326 supporters have donated $12,539, moving us past our halfway mark!” Use testimonials and personal stories from beneficiaries of your work to show the impact of donations; facts and statistics can also be powerful in moderation. Ultimately, your goal is to ensure people that their investment in your work truly makes a difference.

Miller also talks about the importance of what she calls an “engagement email.” The idea is simple: use email to ask people do something other than donate. Perhaps it’s an appeal to call their local congressperson or sign a petition if you’re running an advocacy campaign, or to share information with their social networks if you’re crowdfunding. Almost always, there are things people can do to support your campaign besides—or hopefully in addition to—donating. And when engaging youth, remember that the pinnacle of engagement for Millennials isn’t donating; it’s sharing your good work and leveraging their social capital (more on this in Chapter 14).

Finally, don’t be afraid to declare victory! To close out your campaign, be sure to send a thank you email to your entire list to let them know you hit, or ideally exceeded, your goal and remind them of the difference their donations and support will make.

3. Build Your List

You can’t raise money through email if you don’t have a robust list of email addresses to market to. And as you might imagine, the bigger your list, the more money you’ll raise, but in fact, there appear to be some diminishing returns as you grow your database.

According to M+R’s 2015 Online Fundraising Benchmark Study, an organization with a 50,000-person email list raises an average of $6,000 per fundraising email; organizations with 250,000 email addresses raise about $13,000; and larger organizations with million-person lists raise $25,000. So gathering email addresses is critical. Collect email address through your website, at events, through social media requests, and any other ways you can think of—a short brainstorming session can deliver many great ideas to build your list. Beyond contemplating where to collect emails, think about how to motivate people to sign up, too. At the very least, you should entice people to join your list by letting them know about the valuable information they’ll receive: volunteer opportunities, advocacy updates, and stories of the impact their support has on your cause.

One important note when building your list: sending unsolicited email—spam—doesn’t work and reflects poorly upon your organization. Make sure people “opt in” to your email list, meaning they sign up and give you permission to market to them. It’s simple: don’t send communications to people who haven’t given you their email addresses, and make sure those who do know that you’ll be emailing them over time.

4. Craft Killer Emails

OK, now you have a list, a communications plan, and a campaign (or several). How can you ensure your emails will be read and drive people to action? Sending email is very different from writing a letter, so always remember these three key things to make your messages pop:

• Keep it reader-centered: Most people are inundated daily with too many emails. It’s not the Sunday paper; people go through their inboxes quickly and decide whether they will delete, keep, or take action on an email. To keep your message out of the trash, you need to grab them with a compelling subject line that’s personally relevant and to the point. Experiment with the length of your subject lines, but make sure that you have at least a few attention-grabbing or highly relevant keywords within the first 30 characters, and then get your message across quickly and efficiently.
• Make it a fast read: People want to understand your email and get your message as soon as they open it—you have about three seconds to grab their attention. They’re likely only skimming the content; use tight headlines, two- or three-sentence paragraphs, and bolded key points to communicate your message. Your one call to action must be focused, explicit, clear, and repeated two or three times; don’t bog your message down with competing asks. Ideally, include a graphic, such as a prominent donate button that’s surrounded by white space.
• Keep it easy on the eye: Many emails are modeled after website templates, but this simply does not work. Unlike a website, your message has to scream through an email. An ideal email uses only one font, only one column, and has no sidebars. (If you do have a sidebar, use it only for links.) And remember, according to Marketing Land, over 60 percent of emails are opened on a mobile device, so your design needs to work on screens of all sizes. (See Chapter 18 for more on mobile fundraising.)

5. Leverage Data with A/B Tests

If you have the capacity, it’s a best practice to do A/B testing on your emails, especially important ones like annual appeals. (See Chapter 10 for insights on A/B testing with direct mail.) Instead of “spraying and praying,” take a few small random samples of at least 1,000 emails each from your list and run a test campaign. Send different versions of your email to each segment, testing three key elements: subject line, copy, and imagery.

Instead of guessing which subject line will get folks to open the email and read further, test out a couple of options. Whichever generates the highest “open rate” (what percent of people open your email) is your winner. It’s equally easy to test copy and imagery—again, just send different versions of the email with only the copy or imagery changed, and then use the click-through rate (the percent of people who click on one of the links) to determine the winner. Finally, after you test each element, put the optimal combination of the three elements together, blast it out to your entire list, and watch the results roll in!

6. Use Today’s Technology

There’s nothing more annoying than receiving a request to do something you’ve already done. This makes people feel like you aren’t paying attention, or worse—you’re incompetent. Either way, it undermines your ability to effectively engage supporters in the future. As such, it’s critical that during email campaigns you carefully suppress people from subsequent emails who have already taken action during the campaign (and if someone slips through the cracks and complains, be sure to reach out and apologize). It is possible to circle back and invite people to step up and support you once again, but those messages have to be carefully and gracefully crafted, clearly communicating that you appreciate what they’ve already done.

Having a database and sophisticated email marketing platform like Constant Contact, MailChimp, Vertical Response, iContact, or Campaign Monitor makes this easy and automatic. (See Chapter 6 for more about managing donor lists through technology.) Using an email platform will also help you easily craft professional emails without a graphic design expert on staff, process and collect donations, ensure your messages are responsive to readers who view email on mobile devices, and immediately process any unsubscribe and communication preference requests.

7. Pay Attention to the Numbers

Like any fundraising strategy, email marketing requires both careful analysis of your efforts, plus an ongoing refinement to your approach based on what you learn. The good news is that, since email is a technology-based medium, if you’re using a platform like those just mentioned, this process is easy and intuitive and will help ensure you maximize your success. Keep a close eye on statistics like open rates, click-through rates, and “response rates.” (What percent of people take the action you request on the back end, that is, donate, sign a petition, share information, etc.?)

According to M+R, an ideal open rate is over 20 percent, a good click-through rate is at least .5 percent, and a good response rate is 3 percent. To analyze the effectiveness of your email program, use these numbers and the industry standards from the studies listed in the Resource Review.