Development
5 Nonprofit Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid By Ankit Thakor
• DID YOU KNOW THAT the average open rate for the nonprofit organization is around 25.17%, much higher than the industry average open rate, which is just 21.33%? According to Mailchimp ― a wellestablished digital marketing automation platform ― email marketing is one of the most effective channels for nonprofit organizations. Here are 5 nonprofit email marketing mistakes to avoid. As a nonprofit organization, email marketing should be one of your top priorities. To help you understand this, let’s look at Campaign Monitor’s research which states, that ‘donors prefer email.’ Around 42% of donors prefer to hear from nonprofits via emails. That means it’s time to work on your email marketing strategy. However, it can take a lot to make your email marketing strategy work. That’s why we bring you a list of mistakes that you should avoid in your next fundraising campaign.
1. Overlooking Mobile Users Gone are the days when people were restricted to their laptops for checking out emails. Now, 34
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mobile phones are used to check emails. OptinMonster states that 58% of individuals check their emails the first thing in the morning with a sip of a coffee. So you must optimize email templates for mobile users to ensure higher open-rates and click-through rates. Instead… • Use templates that are optimized for mobile devices • Avoid subject lines over 30 characters. Ensure the header text is compelling and no more than 40-50 characters. Make the image size and text compatible with each other. Have an appealing CTA button Link to a mobile-friendly landing page
2. Poor Segmentation For a nonprofit organization, the primary goal for sending an email is to grab donors’ attention, and if that’s true for you, too, segmenting should be the first thing you should work upon. An eyeopening report authored by Brett Schenker states, “Nonprofits lose about $15,000 per year of donations due to wrong targeting and missing out spam filters, which blocks the emails from prospects.” So, to ensure that your emails reach out to potential donors, segmenting must be taken seriously. Instead… • Make sure your users have opted-in to your email list • Get as much information from users as possible during the signup process to strengthen demographic segmenting. DAWN
www.africabusinessassociation.org
