Top 5 Tips for Email Marketing During a Capital Campaign

If we are being honest, on most days our inboxes are buried under a barrage of email. Many of the emails are automated email newsletters from businesses or organizations that we support. Many get marked “read” without us ever opening them or reading them.

Really good email campaigns need to be cleverly written in order for them to be opened, read and shared. And they need to have a “call-to-action” in it to make it work for the organization that sent it.

If you are in the middle of a capital campaign, you need your emails to work more than ever. Here are five easy tips that you can put into play that will get big results.

1. Subject Lines Are Critical

The subject line has one job – get the reader to open the email as soon as they see it in the inbox. Stay away from generic subject lines like, “Update Week 2.” Instead, use something that will trigger them to open it immediately like, “Exciting Plans Announced at Campaign Kickoff.” Readers will want to open it to see why the plans were exciting.

2. Call-to-Actions Work

A very important part of every email message is the call-to-action. It can be text with hyperlinks or a button within the email, but it is asking the reader to do something. During your capital campaign, you could have calls-to-action that “Send More Information” or “Request an Appointment to Learn More” or even “Sign Me Up to Contribute.” You will get response if you make it easy for them to respond.

3. Say Cheese

Use photos and videos. People will click on them and view them. Readers love to see photos and videos of people they know in the community. Take photos at your kickoff and during planning meetings, use photos of building renderings and videos that show the people the funds will help, etc. Use the photos and videos to show the mission of your organization and to help tell the story. Research shows that emails that have photos and videos have much higher engagement.

4. Target Your Audience

You may have different groups of people that you want to send information to about your capital campaign. It is okay to do a different email with a different message to different groups. It may take a little longer to do multiple emails, but your return will be greater. Spend some time segmenting your groups and determining what the messaging is for each of the groups. Target marketing works!

5. Keep it Short

We read our emails in the palm of our hands now, on our smart phones. You have seconds, not minutes, to get your message across. Make the emails mobile-friendly (one column works best) and keep it short and to the point. Email newsletters will not be effective if they are too long. Less is more in email marketing.

From engaging your constituency to soliciting support to keeping your funders up-to-date, be sure to utilize emails effectively throughout your entire capital campaign to achieve maximum fundraising results.