An ONG’s communication plan must be able to reach those who are most sensitive to the promoted causes and values, by involving them in a direct and active way.
Among all the available channels, one of the most direct and personal is the email, which allows to reach donors and supporters directly in their inbox. E-mail marketing is a great communication tool: it’s direct and cheaper than traditional email (still widely used in the non-profit sector), allows you to get quick results, to customize messages and communication cycles.
The goal of a communication campaign should be the recipient’s overcome of at least three steps:
- Open and read the message
- Considering to take action
- Take action
In particular, the key to a successful email campaign is to create different types of content for different types of users, in order to get their attention.
Call to action, copy, content and segmentation of the list are all ingredients that compose the recipe for each submission.
Which kind of Email can your Charity send?
Event invitation
Whether they are online or not, events are one of the best marketing techniques to raise a subject’s awareness, involving at the same time, the supporters. The email is in fact a great channel to promote events.
Resource and Downloads
Content Marketing is not a channel reserved only to Business. It’s one of the best ways to grow your database by generating involvement. The importance to support a non profit organization is expressed not only in the concrete voluntary actions, but also in creating and spreading knowledge. So why not prepare free resources (as guides or short videos), that help supporters to grow and learn?
Surveys
It’s true that providing a survey means to predict the time to analyze the results, but sometimes to stop and think can improve things. Using email to invite supporters to participate at a brief survey is a good way to learn more about their opinions regarding your organization and to understand the participation and support dynamics. For our surveys, here at Bancomail we use SurveyGizmo.
Follow up
This is one of our favorites! When a person performs a desired action as making a donation, signing a petition or participating to an event, it’s important to keep on the conversation with a follow-up email. In most cases this process can be automated via triggers set on its own CRM, also known as transactional email, which is part of a process or transaction.
Remember to add more personality to your messages if you cannot do it personally: the follow-up emails are an excellent way to give information and call to action that, certainty, will be read. Also remember always to insert links in your follow-up emails, in order to provide a way for the supporter to share its own actions with his friends, inviting them to fulfill it too!
Thank you Message
It’s a follow-up version. Leading a non-profit organization, very often you have to show your gratitude to those who help making possible a project. We are talking about donations, sponsorships, volunteers and technical partners. All these things make an organization to successfully move forward.
Regarding the same topic, it’s important to provide a thank you message every time a user or supporter complete a form from a landing page, participate in an event or make a donation. These emails, designed to make your association or cause important, must be very simple, but at the same time, must impress the recipient.
Besides the thanks, in this type of email, is right to place ‘more details on the topic’ and ‘call to actions’ that keep on the conversation.
