3 Ways to Enhance Your Fundraising Email Performance

By Dale Knoop

In October 2013, email testing company Litmus reported that 48 percent of email is first opened on mobile devices. Then, this January, VentureBeat reported that 65 percent of email is first opened on mobile devices.

Sure, there are likely differences in the methodology of the two reports, but the trend cannot be denied. Mobile email open rates continue to climb, and there are major impacts of this trend on your nonprofit.

Here are three things this trend will drive your nonprofit to address should you want to continue to use email to engage and fundraise.

1. Responsively formatted emails
When you get an email from a source that has not taken the time to make sure the email is formatted properly for a phone screen and causes you to pinch and swipe to try to read the email, you likely get frustrated. Inversely, as your frustration rises with trying to read something not formatted for your phone, your interest in engaging further drops. This is how relationships suffer and end.

Make sure the email system your nonprofit uses recognizes the device opening the email and presents an optimized view. Same thing applies to your primary domain, but that’s another conversation.

2. Calls to action
Let’s say that your email renders well and is easy to navigate on a mobile phone. You’ve covered No. 1. But now you have a link in your email to a call to action to check out some content on your PC website.

Assuming you are like the majority of nonprofits and you do not have a mobile-optimized version of your primary domain like Google strongly suggests to protect your search rank, the experience of waiting, pinching and swiping illustrated previously is repeated. There is a wealth of research available that suggests people will wait in line for a burger longer than they will for your PC site to load on their phones.

Your call to action in this situation is very likely going to go unseen. The solution is a mobile-optimized version of your PC domain. With this you can solve the Google SEO issue and properly engage the population that opens your email on their phones first.

3. Donation processing
We have many customers now who place a “Donate on your mobile phone here” link or button and a “Donate on your PC here” link or button in all their emails. If they do this in an email like that suggested in No. 1, the email will be quick to load and easy to navigate, and the donate button intended for mobile email viewing supporters will be easy to see.

Many times giving is an impulse. Nonprofits need to make it very, very easy to fulfill that impulse via the device that’s with your supporters at arm’s length 91 percent of the time — their mobile phones.

Recognizing two paths to make a donation, PC or mobile phone, increases your nonprofit’s chances for a gift and maybe a new donor.

And again, the donation form has to render quickly and be easy to complete. Even better, donors can save their information securely, which makes repeat gifts spurred by your email ask happen in as little as 20 seconds.

Email, like direct mail, isn’t going away for nonprofits anytime soon. However, all nonprofits need to recognize that supporters and donors are now one with their mobile phones, and your calls to action and donation requests will be seen first most of the time on a mobile phone.

Just as it is in real life, how you treat donors who open your email on their phones is like making a first impression. A good one bodes well for the future, and the future will be all about how you treat your supporters with the experiences you offer them via mobile.

Dale Knoop is CEO of RAZ Mobile. Reach him at dale@razmobile.com or on Twitter at @DaleKnoop