E-mail

There are a lot of ways to write well. When you’re going for “beautiful but confusing,” think James Joyce. When you’re going for “clear and motivating”—as most of us are when writing copy for communications materials—"Ulysses" probably shouldn’t be your inspiration. So, what does good copy look like? Here are a few tips we Big…

Oh yes, I get excited about marketing charts. I like when they break a myth and when they prove one. Here, I take a look at four marketing charts from MarketingSherpa that explore consumer's preferred communication channels, subject lines, promotional email frequency and communication thoughts by age agroup. What does the data tell us about nonprofit marketing?...

Time and time again, you’ve been asked to prove the effectiveness and ROI of your organization’s marketing efforts—especially when it comes to email marketing. And email marketing is the king of the marketing kingdom, with a 3,800 percent ROI and $38 for every $1 spent. But email marketing’s reach goes way beyond ROI, which is…

As a marketer, you likely have attempted to use emails for various marketing objectives. And for good reason: Time and again, email marketing consistently is cited as the most effective form of online marketing in driving conversion. Moreover, it’s relatively easy and quick to execute. You can’t miss! Oh, but you can. As many as…

For several years now, Jan. 1 not only has meant the beginning of the new year, but also an opportunity to look at trends in year-end fundraising emails from nonprofit organizations. Back in 2011, I started collecting all the emails that nonprofits sent me during the month of December and reviewed what was in my inbox.…

Creating your year-end email appeals? Don’t forget these six key ingredients: 1. An obvious donation button. Your donate button should be big, bold and above the fold. When your donors want to give, it needs to be as easy as possible. They shouldn’t need to hunt for the link to your donation page. 2. A…

I’ve seen so many bad nonprofit newsletters. And some really good ones! What sets the good ones apart? For example, take Pesticide Action Network. Its newsletter is always interesting and always full of useful advice, even when the topic may seem dry or hopeless (like bee colony collapse). I’ve included an example from the Smithsonian e-newsletter…

Clearly, there are some major differences between political fundraising and other nonprofit fundraising (for starters, charities don't have the benefit of super PACs raising and spending unlimited sums of money on their behalf). But there are some valuable lessons to be learned from the way political fundraisers are using email. Here, we break down three of the big ones...

Roughly 87 percent of fundraising emails from political candidates are ridiculous—ridiculous as in hugely melodramatic, making up random fundraising targets (we are only $1,538.32 away from our midnight goal!), and doing just about anything underhanded or gimmicky to get you to pony up a couple bucks. And yet, these candidates almost never get called out…

Virtually everyone is infatuated with Instagram and Snapchat. Few of us can remember the days before Facebook and Twitter. But email is still the best way to drive sales. In fact, a survey we conducted revealed that nearly 60 percent of Americans prefer brands contact them via email, and email marketing continues to yield higher…