The purpose of your nonprofit email marketing campaign is to raise awareness and donations, but after a while, the novelty of the message wears off, and donors have already donated what they could, and the novelty wears off. So how can you keep the interest of your supporters?
You can use data, storytelling, and a few tweaks to keep the interest of your donors, volunteers, and supporters, and ensure your fundraising emails continue to be effective.
Personalized Stories
A recurring theme across all of your storytelling is that your brand is the solution to a problem. It’s not simply about your cause; it’s about how you can make a difference. This focus on the individual is what makes your story unique and memorable. However, this personalized approach also makes it difficult to replicate.
The good news is that you can use existing data to personalize your stories. Take the United Way of San Francisco, for example. They used to send out a generalized email, but they found that it wasn’t resonating with their audience. So they turned to SurveyMonkey to pinpoint the types of stories that work for their audience, and what stories they should avoid, altogether.
They found that while many of their respondents liked hearing about the general topics of homelessness and poverty, only a few liked learning about the specific issues that affect them as individuals. For example, only 3% of respondents liked hearing about the issue of affordable housing, while 13% liked hearing about economic security.
Based on this insight, they determined that they should shift their focus to the individual problems that their respondents were facing. This meant tailoring their content to be more personal, and creating more individual donor journeys.
The Importance Of Timing
One of the things that makes your story unique is that it was created at a certain point in time, and it was not created to replace other stories but to complement them. This is an important point to make, because as you repeat this story over and over, your donors will start to question the veracity of the narrative. So it’s important to establish from the beginning that this is not the same story that you’ve told before, but rather it is a new and improved version that builds on the original. To do this, you need to time your email campaign properly, and when we say time, we mean the right time, and not a few weeks or days later when it’s already too late to revive the interest of your supporters.
Pro-Tip: Measure The Impact Of Your Campaign
One of the best things that you can do for your story is to measure the impact of your campaign, and adjust as needed. This way, you can ensure that you’re always telling your story in the most effective manner possible.
To do this, you can assess the success of your campaign by looking at the number of online articles, social media posts, and web pages that are talking about your organization, issue, or campaign, compared to how many people are finding out about it through traditional methods, like email and phone calls. The ratio of these two groups will give you a good indication of the effectiveness of your campaign. You should see a big difference between the two, and if not, then you need to revisit the strategy and messaging of your campaign, and maybe even consider whether this is the right time to raise funds.
Take the example of Heifer International, a global nonprofit that works to help communities around the world work together to end hunger and poverty. Their story is incredible, and we were excited to learn more about it, especially since they have a tool called GRID, which stands for Growing Restaurant Industry Daily.
This tool allows you to enter your key contact information, and it will generate a lead magnet, email signature, and social banner, all based on the information you provide. What this means is that you don’t have to create these items yourself; you can have them generated to look as good as new, and you can even modify them based on your needs.
The Role Of The Media
You have a variety of media channels that you can use to reach your audience. From social media to website design to videos and infographics, there are plenty of options. What you need to do is figure out which one(s) will be the best fit for your story, and then use that channel to disseminate the important news.
Your choice of channel will ultimately rest on what you find to be the most effective, and it’s an ever-changing landscape, so it’s important to stay up to date on the latest trends and technologies.