A recent survey carried out by Connect Assist highlighted how more than 70% of charities placed a high or very high importance on building relationships with its advocates, yet less than 20% of these charities effectively engage with their supporters digitally. Add the recent GDPR into the mix and many organisations are unsure on the best way to proceed online. However, with efficient and targeted email marketing to an consenting database, charitable organisations can deliver personalised messages to their current members and encourage their ongoing support and donations.
Unfortunately, due to the expanding marketing potential of the Internet, users are now overwhelmed by junk emails from a myriad of different companies. Therefore, your charitable organisation needs to stand out from the rest and convey to your email subscribers that your cause is worth supporting. Listed below are a series of helpful marketing tips which charities can easily and effectively implement within your pre-existing email campaign, in order to engage and motivate your subscribers.
Establish A Personal Connection With Your Supporters
According to a recent survey by Eduserv; 17% of British consumers would donate up to £15 more per month if charities provided a more personal approach via their website or email. Therefore, it is extremely important that you utilise your organisation’s email marketing to connect with your supporters on a personal level.
For example, make sure you update your supporters about your organisation’s recent and upcoming events because this increased awareness will motivate them to continue supporting your cause. If your charity can capitalise upon the potential of these motivational messages, your supporters will be more encouraged to become actively involved with your cause.
Provide Accessible Donation Options
The aforementioned Eduserv survey also revealed that 21% of UK consumers state that convenience is a strong factor in online donations. Therefore, if you integrate links within your charity’s email marketing towards online donation channels, your subscribers will be more inclined to donate. Charities, such as Oxfam, which operate a step-by-step donation process are much more likely to receive donations towards their cause; solely because their supporters can quickly and easily contribute to their campaign. Subsequently, if you provide accessible links to your campaign ideals and objectives within your emails, your subscribers will be able to quickly and easily learn about your cause and the ways in which they can participate in future.
Initiate Immediate Interaction With New Subscribers
Send welcome emails to all of your new email subscribers. Irrespective of whether it is online or offline; first impressions count. Therefore, if your new email subscribers are immediately welcomed and ingratiated within your organisation, they will feel personally valued and respected. Simple touches such as a welcome email which thanks them for subscribing with your charity will achieve this. Moreover, you can capitalise upon this initial welcome email by showing your new subscribers the numerous ways in which they can begin to support your cause, as well as automatically including relevant content depending on the interests they specified when signing up with your organisation. Charities such as Race For Life utilise this technique; thereby informing their subscribers of the fun and interesting ways in which they can fundraise. By emulating these practices, you can consolidate the trust and loyalty of your charity’s new subscribers.
Incorporate Multimedia Content Within Your Emails
Many charities merely send a monthly email newsletter with generic information, and then remain digitally silent for the rest of the month. Alternatively, if you introduce your users to dynamic and original content, you will be able to capture and sustain their interest with your particular cause. By incorporating multimedia content, such as related videos, images or info-graphics, you can actively encourage your email subscribers to support your cause and promote it to others who may wish to take part. These interactive mediums are highly effective marketing strategies, as shown by recent studies, that content which includes an image receives 94% more views.
As such, it can be highly beneficial to implement interactive news features and videos within your email newsletter, as well as e-cards and invitations to events which will intrigue and amuse subscribers. For instance, organisations such as the British Heart Foundation inform their supporters about the various causes which their donations are supporting. Techniques such as these are highly useful for encouraging your subscribers to participate, and even get their friends and family involved, in your charity’s fundraising events.
Track And Encourage Donations From Online Supporters
If you have the capacity to support online donations, you can track exactly who is donating and how often they’re donating. Subsequently, you can track the individual goals of each of your email subscribers. Innovative donation sites such as Just Giving utilise these tracked goals to encourage their users to accomplish their fundraising goals. As such, every time one of your email subscribers reaches a fundraising goal, you can send them a congratulatory email. This simple yet personal touch conveys to your supporters that you value their contributions and are genuinely interested in , and sincerely grateful for, their charitable endeavours. Moreover, it will spur your subscribers on to reach their goals!
Implement Social Media Links Within Your Email Template
At the end of all your emails, include a series of links which invite your subscribers to follow you on your organisation’s various social networks. By amalgamating all of your social media sites, your email subscribers can promote your charity’s causes across their own respective social networks. Multiple charities have achieved substantial promotional and fundraising successes by publicising their campaigns across social media. For example, Cancer Research created a hashtag encouraging people to go without makeup to raise money for cancer research. This #nomakeupselfie campaign successfully raised £8million for Cancer Research. By incorporating social media links within your emails, you can emulate these promotional practices.
Use emails to introduce your users to your various campaigns, and provide them with links so that they can participate and promote them to others. Given that social networks such as Twitter and Facebook currently have over 300 million and 1.1 billion users respectively, this combination of email and social networking sites is a lucrative marketing method through which your charity can unite its online supporters.
At Qlic, we provide charities with a highly efficient ‘out-of-house’ marketing department. Our digital marketing team will work collaboratively with your charity to comprehensively understand your objectives, requirements and specific audience base. Once we have established these key elements, we will begin to cultivate and sustain an efficient marketing plan which will be specifically customised to complement the unique aspects of your charity and its ideals. For more information on our customisable marketing strategies, as well as our additional IT support services, why not visit our website’s marketing section. Alternatively, feel free to contact us by phone on 020 8269 6878.
