Now that you’ve created your business or nonprofit organization, the to-do-list might seem never-ending. Your company or organization needs to promote itself efficiently while gaining support from the community and maybe even one day, from the world. One major marketing resource that should not be overlooked comes each day through everyone’s inbox.
Email marketing remains a great way to rally followers for a number of reasons. First, organizations can choose who sees their emails by targeting those who are already interested. Analyzing and segmenting your audience cuts down on time and energy for everyone. Second, showing up consistently in people’s inboxes promotes your brand while gaining exposure. Email marketing also provides easy sharing, which grants your business a wider audience. Last, email marketing proves cost-effective against other promotional tools because of its simplicity and digital platform.
Advertising your company or nonprofit through email marketing can create and strengthen the relationships you have with your clients and supporters. However, getting started with your email campaigns requires some thought and dedication. Here are three main steps you first need to take in order to master your email marketing:
1. Develop a Plan
- Create a series of emails for each goal
- Test deployment frequency, and plan accordingly with your findings. Then redeploy messages to those that did not open the first time
- Make sure the effort you put into an individual equals their value to your organization. Why waste time and energy on a disinterested viewer when you can be focusing on someone who will be more likely to contribute or turn into a client?
- Stick to your schedule. Time frames and windows of opportunity are important to keep track of
- Grow followers by having sign-up forms on each page of your website and at live events. Your emails will constantly reach a wider audience through easy access to your brand.
2. Make Your Emails Engaging
- Make sure your email copy and design are centered on your goal
- Have engaging or catchy subject lines that highlight a benefit or two that readers can expect just by supporting your nonprofit or working with your company
- Give your readers the chance to engage by driving them back to your website through calls to action (CTA) like “Read More” or “Browse Now.”
- Use powerful images to motivate action. Visuals can spur the imagination toward making an impact
- Use testimonials and case studies to illustrate how you’ve made a difference and helped your clients
3. Track Your Results
- Look at the open rates, and keep a record of them so you can tell which efforts get the best results
- Track click-through rates to see which ideas get the most interaction so you can take advantage of what works and stay away from what doesn’t work in future campaigns
- Keep an eye on unsubscribes so you can measure how your readers value your email marketing efforts. This way you can build stronger campaigns that cater to the interests of your readers. Also, don’t be afraid to reach out to unsubscribers to remind them of your core beliefs and why they should stay.
Marketing through email is a quick way to reach out to potential clients and nonprofit supporters. A study by Statista found that 39% of its subjects checked their email one to three times a day. This means that you have a very large opportunity to connect and spread your message. However, this chance at exposure needs to be well thought out. Remember to establish a solid plan of action, create appealing messaging, and then manage your performance throughout the entire process. You’ll quickly learn what works and what doesn’t.
Though advertising your organization through email might seem “old fashioned,” it still represents a direct way to engage with potential clients and supporters without breaking the bank. Nonprofit organizations, in particular, can benefit from this marketing avenue because it allows them to develop stronger relationships with both old and new supporters while spreading their true message. All businesses and organizations should take advantage of a strong email marketing strategy that will bring results.
Now that you have a plan in place to develop your emails, make them engaging and track results, it’s important that you focus on a few more specific things that will guarantee better results with every email that is sent. Almost every person has an email and, in a lot of cases, it is a necessity for things like work, school, or certain online purchases. Therefore it will constantly be a reliable medium of marketing for your company, you just need to know how to take advantage of it. Here are 5 additional tips to ensure you see better results with your email marketing strategies:
1. Don’t Waste People’s Time
The average person gets hundreds of emails a week and won’t hesitate to delete any that don’t immediately grab their attention or are relevant to them. Even worse, if you continually send long-winded, mediocre emails week after week, you risk losing subscribers altogether. Be sure your message is enaginging (like we mentioned above), clear, concise, and to the point and make sure viewers know exactly what they should do next (i.e. “Use this CODE to Receive 50% off Your Order”, “Click Here to View the Next Big Idea in Solar Energy”, “Register Today and Save 25% Off of Your Entry Fee”, “What You Need to Know About New York’s Highest Court Expanding the Definition of Parenthood.”) Adding content appropriate images and infographics can help cut down on the amount of text you’ll need, plus it’s more eye-catching to the reader.
Remember this rule of thumb: If you churn out emails that resemble spam you’ll get treated as spam.
2. Write Your Emails as if You Were Writing a Friend
Emphasis on the singular “friend.” You want to have your emails come across as personal as possible. An email that is perceived as written for a unique subscriber will invoke greater urgency and stand out amongst the crowd of other, more general, emails.
3. Stay Consistent With Your Brand
If you’re engaging in email marketing you most likely have a company. And, if you have a company, or even a nonprofit, you’re even more likely to have an image, voice, style—in other words, you have a brand. Any email you send acts as an extension of your company and the more consistent you are with your branding the more recognizable you will be. This should include everything from your corporate colors and font styles to logo placement and landing page design. The more recognizable your emails are the more comfortable your subscribers will feel.
4. Track Analytics and Measure Results
We mentioned this briefly above, but it’s worth mentioning again. Most email marketing services have analytics capabilities built in. You can take advantage of these tools in numerous ways and you don’t need to know much about analytics to do so. Just by simply looking at one parameter like “open rate” you can gather loads of valuable information. You can test the frequency of emails sent and compare which ones had the highest open rate: daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. How about which day of the week garners the most opens? What time of day are your subscribers most active and likely to view your next email? Tweaking even one of these parameters would take you only a few minutes to implement and, in return, possibly double or triple the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns!
5. Make Sure Your Emails Are Mobile Friendly
In August 2016, over 56% of all emails were opened on mobile devices, and this number is most likely even higher today. If you aren’t taking the necessary steps to ensure your emails are designed for mobile, then you’re losing over half of your subscribers the moment you send one out. It is absolutely imperative you put this feature in place and test every email blast on several different mobile devices (and tablets!) before sending them out. Computer code can get a little wonky when translated for mobile devices, which can turn a beautifully sculpted email blast into an ugly, illegible mess. When testing, make sure the call to action buttons are clear and BIG, to make sure your subscribers can click through with ease. Each year more people utilize their phones for viewing email so if you aren’t keeping up to date with the latest Internet trends you’ll just be another pixel in the wind. Make sure your email marketing strategy is taking advantage of the mobile presence you’re developing.
If you have any questions about mastering your email marketing and seeing better results with the emails you send out, please contact our team today. We are happy to help and want to see your business or organization grow through strong and strategic marketing strategies.
