Nonprofit organizations face a lot of challenges when it comes to effective marketing. Expenses, for one thing, tend to be quite high when creating a marketing campaign — and if there’s one thing that nonprofits never seems to have quite enough of, it’s disposable cash. That’s why email marketing is such a great option for nonprofits everywhere.
Not only is the return on investment high, it’s also pretty easy to get started with an email marketing campaign! That means you don’t need to hire a specialist who will charge an arm and a leg per hour. You can get started with email marketing for your nonprofit today, all on your own! Check out these tips to benefit your nonprofit as much as possible using an effective email marketing strategy.
Build an Effective Strategy
Although you can establish a strategy on your own, it doesn’t mean you should simply write whatever you want, whenever you want. A successful email marketing campaign is the result of a dedicated, well-thought-out strategy that helps nonprofits to achieve success. An effective strategy can benefit your nonprofit, whether that means gaining new donors, higher donations or more awareness.
In general, this means you need to plan for the different stages of your campaign before taking action. These include:
- Gathering email addresses
- Understanding your supporters
- Sending out emails with a clear purpose
- Creating and sticking to a schedule
As you can see, it’s important to take some time to figure out exactly how you intend to attract subscribers. Once you have your subscribers, try to understand why they subscribed and what you can do to keep them interested. This will help you to create targeted emails that are always sent with a specific purpose in mind. Finally, send out your emails according to a reliable, regular and appropriate schedule that your subscribers can anticipate.
Create Quality Content
Everyone loves receiving emails that are creative, interesting or informative. This is true of your subscribers, and luckily it’s something that can be addressed fairly easily. When you’re creating emails with a purpose, as explained above, really think about the content that you’re going to include. Why not consider linking to a guide or a video created by your nonprofit that your subscribers might find interesting? Doing so will help keep your readers interested in your emails while also serving to strengthen your relationship.
Send Email Follow-Ups
Following up with your subscribers is an incredibly important step to creating a successful email marketing experience for them. The first follow-up to send upon reaching a new subscriber should be a welcome email. Thank your readers for subscribing and tell them a little bit about your cause and your campaign. Give them an idea about what they can expect to receive from you. Other follow-ups include those given to people who have donated, downloaded an offer or signed up to attend an event. These important follow-ups can typically be automated using your email marketing service.
Have a Clear Call to Action (CTA)
Every email you send should have a clear purpose and it’s important that you effectively articulate that purpose using CTAs. Calls to action are useful directives that rouse your audience to action and tell them where to go next. They’re incredibly important when it comes to creating an effective email marketing strategy, and that holds especially true for nonprofits.
Incorporate several clear CTAs in every email that are all linked to a relevant blog post, website or landing page. After all, it doesn’t help to tell someone they should help without giving them information about how to do so.
Segment Your Email Recipient List
Segmenting your email list is always a good idea. This is especially true for nonprofits, where individuals might be on your email list for different reasons. Make sure to have emails that are sent out specifically to donors that won’t apply to new subscribers. Likewise, the material you send to new subscribers is probably going to be different than what you send to donors. Taking the time to segment your email list can help greatly to improve reader engagement with your emails.
Email marketing strategy is a great move for nonprofit organizations. Since the ROI is so high, nonprofits can achieve a lot growth for very little investment. Use these tips to create an effective email marketing campaign and help your nonprofit gain new subscribers, donors and awareness.
