We hear about email a lot. We get a ton of emails every day, and that doesn’t seem to be changing. It makes sense—emails are a quick and affordable way to reach supporters of your organization. With email constantly evolving, it isn’t always easy to hit a home-run with your email campaign.
Maybe you’re having problems with undeliverable emails or low click-through rates. Whatever the issue is, there’s not one magic bullet method for sending a successful planned giving email marketing campaign.
However, there are some measured steps you can take, though, to put together a solid send:
- Clean your list: Too many bad addresses in your list can prevent even the good ones from getting delivered. Before you even think of hitting the send button, make sure your email addresses are clean. If you’re sending in high volume, it’s best to pay for professional services to cleanse and validate your list.
- Segment your content: Don’t try to be everything to be everybody with your content. An easy way to segment is by generation. Finesse your content to speak to each of these groups in their own language and focus on the solutions that your planned giving program can provide based on their life stage. Watch out for words that trigger spam filters. Free tools like Mail-Tester can offer a quick way to test the spammyness of your emails.
- Write a subject line that sells: A message that doesn’t get opened doesn’t do much to move your planned giving program forward. Relying on intuition to decide what works is risky. We regularly test our assumptions using simple A/B testing techniques. For example, a winning subject line for bequest emails is “A Simple Way to Help.” But we know that could easily change, so we keep on testing against it.
- Give the reader a clear next step: After all the work that goes into getting the reader to open the email, don’t let them close the message right away because they don’t know what to do when they see your content. Direct them to a free download or some other added value from your planned giving experts.
Sending successful emails can be a key part of your planned giving marketing strategy. These are just a few ways to make your email donor communications go the distance. What other ways have you found to make your email campaigns successful? We’d love to learn in the comments.
Want to learn a little more about planned giving email marketing? Download our whitepaper “Email Marketing: Power and Pitfalls.”