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Increase email fundraising
In recent years, many organizations have seen their email fundraising numbers going down or varying widely from year-to-year. You might be surprised by our tips to help:
Define your donor programs
Segment your audience into groups based on historical behavior to send messages and make asks appropriate to the level of action they’re ready to take. Here are some ideas on the most basic level of segmentation:
One-time donors
Focus on gift retention and moving them up to midlevel or monthly giving.
Email
Monthly donors
Focus on acquiring and retaining monthly donors. To do that, ask less, thank more. Make them feel special and have a unique case for monthly giving.
Email
Midlevel Donors
Focus on retaining and increasing annual giving. Balance impact reporting, a lighter cadence of fundraising asks, and data-driven ask amounts to incentivize more giving without pressuring for it.
Email
Advocates
Messages should connect fundraising to advocacy work to encourage donor-advocate crossover. Asks should move them up to higher-lift actions like offline advocacy.
Email
Build out a long-term plan
Begin every project or campaign by setting goals and priorities — this will ensure short-term wins build and support your bigger picture goals.
Get out of channel-specific thinking
Think of the ways channels can boost each other; for example, an incremental investment in display can massively increase the conversion rate of the campaign as a whole.
Display
Email
Social
Paid Search
Website
Invest in your own campaigns
Turn on relevant keywords to get a sense of the volume and interest of your campaign focus. How compelling & important your supporters independently find these topics should help decide your objective: to educate or activate.
Paid search
Email
Social
Prioritize your audiences
Not every email needs to go to every person. Use your data to narrow it down to the supporters most likely to engage. This group can serve as a test gauge for the full list.
Email
SMS
Reach out on their terms
Supporters should hear from you when it’s right for them. When building out communication plans, get into the mind of the supporter and think of what they'll care about in the months ahead.
Email
SMS
Paid Search
Communicate cross-channel
Thank and follow up through text from email actions (and vice versa) to deepen relationship with supporters. Think of them not as an email supporter, just a supporter.
SMS
Email
There are more opportunities ahead. Ready for the next piece of the puzzle?
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