6 Steps to a Flawless Fundraising Email
Fundraising email campaigns are essential when it comes to engaging with your supporters and generating donations. But, in order to do this, it’s important to understand the basics of how to build out a campaign that will not only appeal to supporters but cause them to donate. Check out these 6 tips below on how to build the perfect email campaign for your next fundraiser.
1.) Create a Targeted Audience
First things first, who do you want to reach? It’s important to understand your audience of supporters and how they support you. Are they members? Past donors? Volunteers? Donors who haven’t donated in the past year? These are all questions that need to be addressed when creating your email lists. DonorView gives you the ability to create and filter targeted email lists and add them to a constituent’s profile.
You can even target and send an email to anyone who has donated over $1,000 in the past 5 years by using the filters provided in DonorView’s grids. This is a great way to really reach those audiences and possibly rekindle relationships with donors who gave a generous gift in the past.
2.) Find the Perfect Time
Once you know your audience of supporters, you can better understand their lifestyle, relationship with your organization, email usage and how that will affect your email’s performance. This step will require some trial to see what days and times work best for your audiences. DonorView simplifies this for you by providing built-in email analytics where you can see open, unopened, unsubscribed, bounced emails. You can also see who specifically did these actions, the time they opened the email and the number of times they opened any links.
With our new Email Monetization feature, you can even see who took action by donating specifically through your email campaigns.
3.) Create an Appealing Subject Line
This is where you have to engage your supporters so they’re more inclined to open your email and take action. But, the catch is you only have about 6–10 words to really cause this action. Email subject lines have to be short and concise so viewers have a full understanding of what the email is about in just a few seconds. Get creative and appeal to your audiences by:
Asking a Question:
- How will you make an impact today?
- Are you looking to support a good cause?
- Can you help us?
Creating a Sense of Urgency:
- Last day to make a difference!
- Time is running out!
- We’re SO close to our goal!
Highlighting the Importance of the Email
- Find out how you can be a hero today.
- Open to make an impact.
- Discover how YOU can change lives
4.) Keep Your Brand Consistent
Anytime you put content in your emails, website, blog, social media posts, this is a reflection of your organization’s brand and how it is perceived by others. It’s important to include your organization’s logo, colors and fonts within your email to make sure your brand and communication elements are always recognizable to your audiences. The visual design of your email is just as important as the content within it. You can create your own email right in DonorView’s software or choose from over 200 templates, which are all customizable to suit your brand.
5.) Share the Impact a Donation Can Make
Let your supporters know the impact a simple donation can make for your organization through the power of storytelling. You need content that will cause donors to empathize and feel inspired by your organization. One of the best ways to do this is by sharing the experiences of those who benefit from your organization’s services. There are many ways you can get these stories across.
- Write a story after interviewing someone who is impacted by your organization and share their responses with photos.
- Record a video interview and post it into your email campaign
- Have a parent, friend or loved one speak on behalf of how much the organization has impacted their loved one and write a story.
- Record a compelling video of what your organization provides and how it impacts the people you work with on a daily basis.
DonorView lets you drag and drop as many pictures and videos as you need directly into your email campaign so you can get your message across in a visually appealing way.
6.) Don’t Hide Your Call to Action
Make your fundraising email stand out with one bold and creative donate button. It’s easy to want to flood your emails with other calls to action like social media buttons, websites, volunteer sign-ups, etc. However, you want your fundraising email campaigns to remain with just a donation button so the action is loud and clear.
