Email marketing is a tool that non-profit business organizations can use as part of their overall marketing strategy. Non-profits need a way to stay in contact with the people who support their organization or who have an interest in it. Emails are a perfect option.
Why Is Email So Beneficial to Non-Profits?
Email offers certain benefits that non-profits find attractive:
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It is cost effective. Compared to direct mail and telemarketing, email marketing is cheap. Non-profits are on limited budgets, so being able to save here and there is very imperative.
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It has an immediate impact. Unlike direct mail, email recipients can see the message within seconds of you sending it.
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It gets responses quickly. Most responses to these emails go out within 48 hours of first receipt.
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It offers insights into who has an interest in your product and who does not. You can track who has opened the emails and who is clicking through to your website.
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It allows for targeted messaging. You can segment your contact database so you send specific emails to a targeted subset.
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It allows for testing new messages. You can send out two versions of an email to your database of contacts. You can test which message has the best response.
Nonprofits of all sizes can benefit from integrating email marketing into their overall strategy. Whether you are a small local chapter in your community or a large, national-scale non-profit, email marketing is an exceptional tool to help you acquire support, volunteers and donors.
How Can You Use Email Marketing to Send Out Your Messages?
Making email marketing a part of your organization's efforts requires three basic steps.
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Creating/Enhancing a Contact Database - You start by gathering email addresses from regular donors, volunteers, family, friends, and neighbors. Those addresses go into a database along with pertinent profile information about the person to whom that email address belongs. You can use an opt-in form on your website to allow interested people to sign-up to receive your emails.
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Creating a Campaign - You need clear goals for the campaign and emails to communicate your needs to the target audience. You can target emails to a specific portion of the people profiled in the database. For example, if the goal of the email campaign is to urge past members to renew, you want to target people who were past members, but no longer have an active membership.
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Sending the Emails and Measuring Response - Next you send the emails out and measure the response. Who opened the email? Who responded? What was the click-through ratio? That data measures how successful the email was and who you want to target next.
Questions and Final Thoughts?
Has your non-profit thought about email marketing before? Do you know of any other free or inexpensive tools to take advantage of?
