Email and Fundraising
Sending email to thousands, indeed millions, of recipients has become common for for-profit business and non-profits organizations. A few things to consider when deciding how important an email strategy is for your organization and its constituency follow:
1. How current are your records? Do you have emails on 25% of your donors and prospects email addresses? If so, you have a good starting point. If you’re short on addresses in your database, you may want to consider email appending and other strategies to enhance your data.
2. How large is your audience? Are you trying to reach a few hundred people or many thousands of prospects and past supporters? With small counts, only email campaigns make the use of color and other exciting visuals possible. With larger audiences, the savings associated with email campaigns relative to direct mail campaigns are enormous.
3. How effective are you at reaching your base through direct mail, by phone and in person? Should you use all mean available to cultivate and prospect and steward donors? Because your constituents can receive email any time, and because its use is ubiquitous, effective use of email can only assist use of the more traditional methods. Email campaigns can stand independently or lift response supporting other appeals.
4. How can direct mail, phonathons and personal visits help you enhance your efforts related to social networking? Can all three techniques combined, do as much as either email or text messaging independently? No, they cannot. The immediacy of data and subscription links within email and text messages make these services stand above more traditional solicitation techniques because we can control and promote our social networks. I will encourage text message marketing in future issues of this publication.
5. Email marketing can boost your existing efforts. It likely deserves a higher percentage of your current resources than it receives. Its relationship to social networking means that the longer you wait to fully engage in email marketing, the further behind you are relatively to your peers and competitors.
If you would like to talk about ideas you have regarding the use email in your work, please drop me at an email at brian@brianlacy.com or giving me a call at (860) 478-9291. Lots of my best ideas are free for the taking.
Sincerely,
Brian