Return to Sender

“Not a known member.” “Undeliverable.” “Deleted.”

These e-alternatives to the old postal pain-in-the-neck message “Return to Sender” can be annoying at best. At worst, they can signal a sad state of affairs in your e-mail files that can waste your organization’s precious time and money — not to mention eroding delicate donor relationships because your advocacy, fundraising, educational and thank-you messages, etc., simply aren’t getting through.

As e-mail is given a larger chunk of space in the fundraiser’s toolkit, organizations are learning that you can’t just hit “send” and hope for the best. Even more than that of physical postal addresses, the e-mail universe is a fluid, soupy milieu where inhabitants can change identities on a whim and contact information has the lifespan of a snowflake in August.

That said, there’s more to worry about when it comes to e-mail than just the fickle nature of the people behind the screen names. Even if you get that right — your lists are clean, up to date and relevant — you still have to do something to ensure that what does get through actually means something to the people it gets through to. It has to mean enough to avoid the dreaded “delete” or “mark as read” fate.

Every e-mail has to present a pleasant reading experience, as well as allow the recipient to do what it is you’re asking her to do, and to do it effortlessly and painlessly.

Here, Jordan Ayan, chief executive of Illinois-based e-mail marketing service provider SubscriberMail, lists the 10 things an organization needs to do and/or have to make the best possible use of its e-mail address files.

1. Content relevancy is king.
The most important thing any nonprofit organization needs to think about before it hits the “send” button is its content’s relevance. Not from its own perspective, but from the perspective of the recipient. Everyone receives a large volume of e-mail, and unless you can make sure that what you’re sending is going to be meaningful, timely, interesting, non-intrusive and in some way rewarding to the reader, you shouldn’t even think about hitting “send.”

Never look at e-mail as the way to quickly achieve a goal. (“We’re short of a goal. Quick! Send out an e-mail!!”) If you do, you’re abusing the relationship. Think about your e-mail as a long-term relationship tool that requires relevant information and quality communication, or you’ll rapidly see your opens decline and your unsubscribes increase.

2. Protect your reputation.
Delivery is critical in the e-mail game, and delivery depends on reputation. Make sure that you’ve built a list that is permission based. This means people must have specifically opted in to receive e-mail from you. Also, make sure that your list is kept clean by immediately removing people who unsubscribe — it’s the law — and that bad addresses (bounces) are cleaned off.

Finally, hang out with the right crowd. If you’re using an outside e-mail service provider, make sure that you’re either on a dedicated IP address or, if it’s shared, that you’re in a pool with a small group of organizations that have a very similar profile to yours. Many of the major Internet service providers (AOL, MSN, Yahoo!) block all mail from an IP if any incoming mail is perceived as spam. If you’re on a shared IP and something one person does is wrong, everyone’s blocked. Bad reputation by association.

3. Proofread.
Sounds simple enough, but the number of companies that send off e-mails with typos is amazing. If you don’t have anyone in house who can do your proofreading, there are companies that will do it for you. Proofread Now, for example, will do the proofreading and turn it around in a short time frame for a reasonable price.

4. Test.
E-mail offers an incredible opportunity to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Every time you mail, consider testing something. Even if it’s just the subject line, try to figure out how you can increase your open rate, click-through rate or whatever action you’re looking for. It’s a lot quicker and less expensive than testing your physical direct mail, so why not take advantage of that?

5. Check your links.
There’s little that’s more frustrating to a potential donor or supporter than receiving an e-mail asking him to take action, then clicking on the link and finding that it takes him nowhere. Test and retest all links right up to the moment you hit “send.” Then make sure no one in the IT department changes them or deletes them for a long, long time — e-mail messages can have a long shelf life.

6. Send test messages.
Set up a test group of people on different mail clients (AOL, MSN, Gmail, other company accounts, if possible) and ask them all to check the message after you’ve sent it to see if it looks correct to them. Remember that not all e-mail clients will display the message the same way. This is important. HTML coding for the Web and coding an e-mail message are two different skills. Don’t let an agency or freelancer with little or no experience in this area create an e-mail without testing the final product extensively.

7. Check the text version.
Remember that some people will receive what you send in a text format. Double-check the text version to make sure that it looks good, too.

8. Choose the right lists.
If you have multiple lists, make sure that you select the correct one. And if there are people you want to suppress, make sure your suppression selection is in place.

9. The page should be fully functional.
If you’re driving people to a specific landing page, make sure the page is fully operational, and that all of the links on the page work properly.

10. Check the results from your last mailing.
Does everything look right? If the open rates look suspiciously low, if there’s something askew, don’t hit the “send” button again before calling your e-mail service provider and asking it to help you take a closer look at your data. There might be some issues you don’t see, and you might be able to stop the same mistake from happening twice.

Jordan Ayan can be reached via www.subscribermail.com.