Top 4 Strategies to Engage New Supporters Through Email

Do you have a stated email acquisition and conversion strategy? It should include multiple touch points to grab attention and connect with people emotionally. It should also include steps to acquire emails; build interest and engagement once you’ve connected; stay top of mind and sustain engagement; and convert prospects to donors. 

If you need help with any — or all — of these steps, here are the four email strategies to get your best fundraising results.

1. Use a Lead Magnet to Acquire

Before you can email people, you need their contact information. If you want gifts, give them. What might you give people to entice them to give their email in exchange? 

Your gift shouldn’t be tangible, as spending money flies in the face of your social benefit mission. New contacts are apt to think that if you can afford a tangible gift, you don’t need their support, which is why a good nonprofit lead magnet is a helpful gift of content.

This content needs to be unique to you and so interesting that it stops people dead in their tracks. In other words, it shouldn’t be easy to pass up. How do you create the right lead?

Consider the types of people you want to attract. Those most likely to invest in or donate to you. Then create the type of lead content that would draw these people in. Among the ways to accomplish this are to:

• Learn your nonprofit’s most commonly asked questions from your receptionist.
• Locate which web pages are visited most often and/or have the longest time on site via your IT team or Google Analytics.
• Find out which programs are most popular from your volunteer coordinators.
• Discover which links are most often clicked in your e-newsletter and/or blog from IT or Google Analytics.
• Identify the social posts that are most often liked, commented on and/or shared from your social media staff.

Once you know what gets folks to engage with your nonprofit, you’re ready to create some useful content. Make sure it really speaks to your track record and expertise. It should be something they couldn’t easily find elsewhere.

Most nonprofits stick with a simple “Get Our Newsletter” call to action as a way to get new emails. I’d suggest you make this an ancillary benefit to downloading a valuable piece of relevant content that showcases your expertise. 

It might be a checklist, e-guide, white paper, research results, podcast, how-to video, recommended reading list or even a recipe. Get creative! For example: “Sign up to get our free newsletter + free checklist: How to Keep Seniors Safe at Home.”  

2. Create a Nurture Sequence to Build Engagement

Your best bet is to create an automated series of emails that will be immediately triggered as follow-up emails when people first encounter you — whether that’s joining your email list, downloading your lead magnet or donating to your cause.

Acquisition. When they join your email list or download your lead magnet, send a spaced-out welcome series. This should:

• Thank them for what they just did.
• Deliver a new piece of helpful content to arouse greater interest and curiosity.
• Send information about your services should they, or people they know, ever need assistance.

Donation. When they make a donation — but after they’ve been directed to a donation landing page to reinforce their “feel good,” — send an automatic email series. This should:

• Thank them immediately. 
• Share a story a week later of someone their gift has helped 
• Share another emotion-packed story two weeks later. In each case, append a list of upcoming free events and volunteer opportunities.

These emails should be written in such a way they really feed the people who engaged with you. Consider who they are, why they engaged, and what they may be looking for. 

Typical emails or letters that welcome new customers after a purchase fall short of delivering anything of value. Boilerplate “Welcome to the XYZ family” messages are disregarded as junk. Why not seize the opportunity to provide your newly acquired customers great content to use and share? Bonus points if you customize the content to what was purchased. 

For example, “Thanks so much for the emergency donation to resettle Ukrainian refugees. Here’s a recipe for chebureki from Olga K., who says it reminds her of home. Make it in her honor?” 

When I worked at a human services agency, we consistently included a recipe link in our monthly e-newsletter. The recipe might be from a client or staff member, or something related to what was top of mind for our constituents (e.g., holiday dishes). This consistently had the highest clickthrough rate.

3. Consistently Email Your Entire List to Sustain Engagement

Beyond the nurture sequence, which is short-lived, you should have a year-round calendar of planned emails to your full email list. Most nonprofits don’t email enough. Relationship building is a discipline that can never stop. This keeps people interested. The adage, “Out of sight is out of mind,” is true.

The best emails are short and simple, with something concrete the recipient can do, such as attend an event, complete a survey, sign a petition, send an advocacy alert, download a helpful piece of content, make a donation or share the email with their networks. 

It’s best to segment your list to assure you create the most meaningful content. Simple is organization-focused, such as new donors versus ongoing donors; members versus clients or buyers of services; and volunteers. 

More sophisticated is to segment by individual donor identity, such as cat versus dog lover, children versus seniors advocate, and research versus direct service promoter. Sharing a heart-warming story related to what the donor made possible through their support is always welcome. The folks at Vida Joven do this beautifully — every single month and sometimes on holidays, too.

Click to enlarge. | Credit: Vida Joven

4. Develop Special Calls to Action to Convert Prospects to Donors

Now that you’ve done all of this lead work, you need to close the “sale” to make change happen. There’s a continuum from awareness to interest to engagement to investment. Your job isn’t finished without doing something active to drive investment. 

This is easy, provided you consider what’s in it for your prospective donor if they do what you want (e.g., respond to your call to action). What will they get out of it? Perhaps it will be solving a problem that keeps them up at night. Perhaps it will be fulfilling a religious or moral obligation. Perhaps it will be attending a cool-sounding fundraising event where they’ll meet like-minded people. Perhaps it will just make them feel good and like themselves more when they look in the mirror.

Here are a few different approaches for your call to action:

• Problem-solving. “Feed a family of seven Thanksgiving dinner.” Or, “Resettle one of 35 refugee families that need your help.”  
• Feel good. “Double your donation before Dec. 31!”  
• Feel good and fear of missing out (FOMO). “Last Day: Don’t miss your chance to double your donation!” 

An effective email strategy is a powerful magnet. It requires a paradigm shift from expecting people to somehow find you and act altruistically to understanding supporters must initially be captivated and then nourished. It’s a virtuous cycle of reciprocal care and feeding.

The preceding blog was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.