Episode 3: Making the Case for Email Marketing for Nonprofits and Foundations

by Gretchen DeVault | February 12, 2019

On this episode, we make the case for email marketing for nonprofits and foundations. Email marketing is one of the best ways to connect directly with your audience. It’s extremely cost effective and it’s measurable! Forget the print newsletters or print event invitations (except in some cases, of course) and consider email marketing!

Email marketing is a direct line to your audience

Social media is less effective
Direct mail gets thrown in the trash

Email marketing is more cost effective

Is print worth the money?
- Print: design + writing + printing + mailing service + postage = how much in donations?
- Email: initial design template + writing = how much in donations?
Easy to segment your lists
Easy to update your email template (versus print changes)

Email marketing provides valuable analytics

There is so much you can track in email including:
- Open rate
- Clicks through
- Time of day
- Who exactly opened it
- Number of unsubscribes and who unsubscribed
Use this data to make decisions about what content works and how often to send. This is an ongoing process.

Email marketing helps build a case for support

Think of your email efforts as building a case for support for your nonprofit or foundation on an ongoing basis. Think of email as starting a dialogue.

BEST PRACTICES

Cadence + Consistency

Create a cadence for email content
- Example: Story > Program > Ask > Story
- Keep your emails short. Do not make me scroll. Think one topic per email. IMAGE > A COUPLE PARAGRAPHS > CALL TO ACTION. This way you can test the content of the email too.
- If you do go the route of email newsletter, it needs to be professionally designed, otherwise it can be visually overwhelming.
Create an editorial calendar
- Process is everything. Planning and managing your content will help you run like a well-oiled machine.
Be consistent and get those emails out on a regular basis
Figure out how many emails per month you should send out. There is a fine line between engaging and overwhelming. You may need to test out frequency.

Grow Your List

Collect emails at events, on your website, wherever your nonprofit organization or foundation is represented.

Tool Recommendations:

Gretchen is an experienced web/graphic designer and marketing strategist with a whip-smart aesthetic and solid work ethic. She values intuition and a design process where strategy and human interaction intersect. With more than 15 years of experience working with a wide variety of boutique businesses, corporate and nonprofit clients, she has an established record of creating awesome for her clients.