We’re more than halfway through the year, and it’s time to assess your goals, how far you’ve come, and how much work you have to do in the second half of the year to reach your goals.
According to a report by the Blackbaud Institute, online giving grew by 21% in 2020 alone. Not only is online giving growing, but 26% of online donors say email marketing is what inspires them to give. Email is a critical tool for reaching goals, including fundraising goals. Whether your goals are programmatic or monetary, they can be aided by an email strategy. However, according to Techsoup’s Nonprofit Digital Marketing Benchmark Report, 70%of nonprofits do not have an email strategy. What good are goals, if you don’t have a plan to reach them? Here are a few reasons why you need an email strategy:
Stay connected to your audience
Your audience actively chose to get updates from you. They proactively told you they want to receive notes from you and stay informed on what’s happening in your organization! You need to plan out your emails so you have a good balance of content, share relevant information, and make a variety of asks. The more emails you send (as long as you give them something worth reading), the more you keep your organization top of mind and increase brand awareness among your audience.
Email is measurable
With email, you can track delivery rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, click-through rates, and donations or actions that come in with each send. This data allows you to really understand your email program and your audience, which messages resonate, what you can modify, and which email concepts are worth repeating.
Email is affordable
It’s unlikely that you’re calling or texting your entire donor list every week, but you could very easily email the bulk of your list once a week with an affordable price tag. Email is inexpensive, scalable, and takes less staff time than phone calls or printed mail. Many email tools provide cost-effective or even free email options (Mailchimp, for example, allows you to send up to 12,000 emails a month for free). Especially when you are just starting out and trying to grow your audience, email is one of the most affordable options to reach your list regularly.
Email is consistently used by (almost) everyone
In 2015, it was estimated that 91% of consumers checked email at least once a day on their smartphones. In May of 2022, 91% of U.S. consumers still use email every day. Besides calling and texting, checking emails is one of the most popular uses for smartphones. The good news if you lead a nonprofit is that nonprofit emails get an open rate of 36.15% — this is the highest among all the industries that Get Response analyzed.
Almost everyone uses email and it’s both an efficient and cost-effective way to stay connected to your audience. With every passing year, online giving continues to grow in share of total giving, and email giving grows with it. No matter what your goals are, email can help you get there, but you can’t do that without a dedicated strategy.
If you need help developing or implementing your email strategy, use this link to book a free strategy call with one of our experts and get started today.
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