Many organizations are moving to actively using e-mail campaigns as part of their advocacy and fundraising programs. The approach is often centered around blasting out one e-mail to an in-house e-mail list using an internal listserv tool. From a tactical perspective this is flawed, but more importantly, from a strategic perspective this approach is also lacking.
When beginning your permission-based e-mail campaign it is fundamental that you have an e-mail campaign strategy in place that is integrated with your other programs. Otherwise, it’s no different than deliver lumber to an empty lot and then figuring out what kind of house you should build. Your e-mail campaign strategy is your blueprint that provides the framework for tactical decisions within your campaign. If your fundraising e-mail campaign is not integrated with you communications, advocacy or fundraising program you are limiting its effectiveness. Specifically, every fundraising initiative you undertake online should, whenever possible, be integrated with your offline messaging and activities. This means that internally, collaboration is needed not just from an information sharing perspective but from a creative perspective as well. When developing your e-mail campaign strategy it will help to remember the following:
- Strategically integrate your campaign with the strategic objectives of other programs
- Map out a path for campaigns as a tactical stream in your public engagement program
- Set your campaign strategic goals and objectives
- Be clear about your message and audience
- Determine what your success matrix will be
- Determine your campaign evaluation process
- Formulate an evaluation feedback loop into your ongoing campaigns so that these learnings are built into each progressive campaign
Now, from a tactical point of view you should be using an e-mail service provider to deal with issues of data collection, data integration, tracking, and most importantly, spam filtering issues.
- Develop a timetable and ensure that it is integrated with offline initiatives
- Select an e-mail service provider
- Determine your data capture perimeters
- Develop creative content that is end-user centric
- Test your campaign
Sending out one e-mail is not an e-mail campaign. E-mail campaigns typically consist of three to five e-mails. In the fundraising context, if you want to get ten donations, typically you will be sending out three to five e-mails to a list of 1,000 people and 250 people in total will have to open these e-mails, with 50 clicking on the donate link.
Understanding what the online medium can and can not do is essential to your campaigns. Understanding the culture of the Internet is critical. Online is a place we go to get information, exchange information, take action and connect with others. It is a culture of immediate gratification where you have three seconds to get my attention and take me to the next action. It is a place where, if I have to work to find my way around, I will abandon that path and move on. The Internet is a dynamic, self-authoring experience where connections are made through personalization of content, high accessibility and usability of content and tools, facilitated connections, and ongoing dialogue. It is unbounded in its viral abilities and a key channel in a multi-channel engagement program.
So, remember when you are contemplating your next campaign:
- Know the culture in which you are operating
- Understand the characteristics of the online medium
- Formulate your strategy
- Create your plan
- Create feedback evaluation loops to continually be effectively responsive to your audience
So as you can see there is a lot more to effective e-mail campaigns than sending out one e-mail!
Pattie LaCroix has provided strategic leadership in crafting integrated communications and fundraising strategies to nonprofits for more than a decade. As CEO of Catapult Media she is passionate about the power of storytelling in engaging your audience and building support for your work. You can reach Pattie at www.catapultmedia.ca.
