Email Marketing for Non-Profits

I subscribe to Fast Company, an absolutely great monthly magazine. FC pays special attention to innovation in the business world, but the lessons learned could be easily applied/used in the Non-Profit world.

Anyway, there is a great article this month that discusses the usefulness of email marketing. The numbers are astounding: it takes business, on average, $71 dollars per order to use banner advertising, nearly $27 for paid search, but less than $7 for email. Now, these numbers are a little deceitful, mainly because you have to actually have the email addresses if you want to go that route. Still, the fact that email only costs 10% of banner ads is amazing.

What does this mean for the average non-profit? Well it means if you are not actively building and ruthlessly using your email lists, you’re leaving money on the table. For example, what have you done in response to the stimulus checks? If you don’t have an email blast focused on the stimulus payment, you are behind the curve. It could be something very simple, a simple acknowledgment that the checks are in the mail and that it would be a great time to think about your charitable giving.

The obvious danger here is that you don’t want your emails to become so plentiful that people ignore them. I would recommend doing one newsletter per month and augment that with special appeals and blasts when necessary.

Tagged as: communication, email, email lists, marketing, special appeals