Email Marketing - Top 10 Mistakes

July 9, 2008

From Loren McDonald at Silverpop, an email service provider, here are ten big email design & marketing mistakes to avoid:

  1. Making it difficult to unsubscribe.
  2. No "welcome" message and/or waiting weeks to send the first message.
  3. Overmailing.
  4. Using a large single image as the core of your email.
  5. Not using alt tags.
  6. Relying on graphical links.
  7. Not having a preference center.
  8. Not designing for the preview pane.
  9. Using a person’s name in the "from" line.
  10. Hiding email registration.

Loren’s straightforward explanations are worth reading if you’re an email marketer.

Tom

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, email marketing, online advocacy, online fundraising | 1 Comment 

Thank You For Stealing

July 1, 2008

 

The maxim very successful fundraisers live by was set forth by George Bernard Shaw 80 years ago: "The mediocre borrow, genius steals."

In short, when you see a winning concept, campaign, technique, whatever, just steal it. Adapt it. Run with it.
Which brings me to today’s plea: All of us need to be sending more samples of good and great campaign or one-off efforts to SOFII the marvelous fundraising attic (aka: swipe file) where you can find all kinds of useful, informative and stealable stuff.
SOFFI just posted its June additions yesterday. For example:
§ActionAid’s controversial Bollocks to Poverty campaign.
§ Inspirational direct mail from a seven-year-old schoolgirl.
§ How Giving Scotland turned a crisis into a triumph.
§ A simple but brilliant idea for involving business people in the fight against heart disease.
§ Croatia’s campaign for mobility and independence for blind people.
§ A small organisation’s low-cost solution to recognising donors.
§ Hannah’s make and bake cake and biscuit sale.
§ The launch of a high level monthly giving product designed to upgrade donors in their thousands.
§ How a beautiful flower, the Edelweiss, became an involvement device and a symbol of hope for a hospice in Romania.
§ Make–A-Wish and upgrade your donors.

§ Twenty years before Barack Obama, the tale of an African American’s bid for the White House. Common Cause takes on the excesses of the American legislature. [Hey, this is copy I wrote 20+ years ago, long before "mid-level donor programs" were even a glimmer in whatever consultants’ eyes and it’s still good, he says, in all modesty :) ]

Seriously, so much great thinking, great creative and great innovation occurs every day in our trade, but we need to be far more energetic in sharing it with the rest of our world.

So please, vow to take 15 minutes, find one or two samples and get it up on SOFII’s site.

Thank you for stealing.

Roger

Posted by rcraver | Filed Under Uncategorized, advocacy, cause marketing, charities, communications, copywriting, creativity, direct mail, direct marketing, drtv, email marketing, fun | Leave a Comment 

How To Raise Funds Online

June 30, 2008

For months, we’ve been urging readers to track the online fundraising exploits of presidential candidates, where new ground has been broken almost weekly … especially by Barack Obama.

The Obama campaign is to online fundraising what George McGovern was to direct mail fundraising in 1972 … the trailblazer. Though the Obama folks might not like the comparison, given the electoral fate of George, running against what’s his name.

Here’s the latest example of why the Obama campaign has done so well at online fundraising. It features a video briefing by campaign manager David Plouffe, backed by slides, explaining how the campaign expects to contest the election in all states … a strategy made possible — he emphasizes over and over — only because of the terrific grassroots donating and organizing achievement so far by the supporters watching the video … who now need to do just a bit more.

It’s a terrific execution of historically proven fundraising technique in a new medium.

Check it out. Can you imagine your CEO delivering such an appeal? Why not?

Tom

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, email marketing, fundraising, online activism, online fundraising | 4 Comments 

Want 50% Lift In Email Conversions?

June 24, 2008

Then read this excellent case study provided by Marketing Sherpa. But you must read by June 24 unless you’re a subscriber.

In this example, a travel destination raised its conversion rates on marketing emails by 50% by embedding a brief video that automatically played when the email was opened.

If you missed the deadline, here’s the bottomline: Test everything in advance.

They tested:

  • The video content itself (what was most compelling?)
  • The optimal video length (from the perspective of being accepted by the filters of the major email clients)
  • Email subject lines (putting the word "video" in the subject line performed best.

I wonder how many online marketers in the nonprofit space are this meticulous?

Tom

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Hot Research, email marketing, online fundraising, online video | 1 Comment 

YES Or NO?

May 1, 2008

Two important articles for email marketers.

The first gives cause for worry. More and more emails winding up in spam piles … nearly one out of every five permission-based e-mail messages sent to US-based ISPs lands in the junk mail folder.

The second suggests how to keep your e-list clean and responsive. You don’t want disinterested subscribers tagging your emails as spam … this is bad news for the spam filters.

Interesting claims …

1) Giving a Yes and No option when asking dormant subs if they’d like to opt out actually produces more opt-ins than giving only a Yes option.

2) In the right circumstances, sending a second message to non-responders produces as many opt-ins as the first message.

Tom

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, email marketing, online advocacy, online fundraising | 1 Comment 

Building E-lists

April 30, 2008

Remember the good ‘ol days of direct mail fundraising, when if you needed names you just went out and rented or exchanged for them by the bucketloads? And if you knew what you were doing, you could get pretty decent ones.

Of course in the online fundraising culture, new rules apply. [How we direct marketers ever let that happen, I don’t know!]

So, we have to build our own e-lists. Permission marketing. What a pain!

Ironically, despite the fact that permission marketing is the rule of the road for online marketing, whereas the direct mail list market is alive and well, donors still report being far more comfortable receiving an un-solicited direct mail pitch than an email solicitation.

According to The Agitator’s latest DonorTrends survey, 15% of donors are very uncomfortable receiving a fundraising request by mail, versus 53% by email. True, the email discomfort drops to 19% if the email comes from "someone you know." But that raises the interesting philosophical question: Do you really know Paul Newman more than ________ (fill in your exec director’s name) in their emailing personas?!

A virtual invasion of privacy is regarded as far more dastardly than a hard copy one, even though both are "deleted" equally easily. With spam filters these days, do you still get more unwanted email than snail mail?

Of course, some of us try to take short cuts and even try trick our prospects into parting with their email addresses. Here’s a humorous take on the matter.

Tom

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under General Post, email marketing, online fundraising | Leave a Comment 

Online Marketing Benchmark Study

April 17, 2008

More great data from Convio, compiled from more than 400 nonprofits and millions of online interactions and transactions.

Report looks at seven areas:

  • Website traffic — up 34% for groups with more than 250,000 email addresses
  • Registration rates — 3% of unique visitors convert
  • Email file size — Convio clients grew 32% over previous year
  • Online revenue — grew 25% (including eCommerce), average gift = $60
  • Email appeals — open rates, click-through rates, response rates
  • Email newsletters — open and click-through rates
  • Legislative advocacy — 8.5% of online advocates also donate

The data is great. Exec summary here for anyone. And check out Vinay Bhagat’s video presentation.

Tom

Posted by tbelford | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, Hot Research, Uncategorized, email marketing, online advocacy, online fundraising | Leave a Comment 

1,210 Marketers Report Their Email Strategies

December 18, 2007

Marketing Sherpa has done another of its Benchmark Guides, this one on Email Marketing.

An executive summary gives a preview of what over 1,000 email marketers are doing, and what's working for them.

But the serious comparative data comes with a price tag … $347 plus S&H.

If I were raising $350,000+ from email appeals, I'd want this volume on my bookshelf. Testing variables. Metrics to track. Heat maps. Video in emails. Segmentation & personalization practices. And more. Yes, I'd pay 0.1% of my online revenue for this data.

If I were raising less, I'd just sign up to get on the email list of online fundraising sensation Ron Paul, and watch for ideas there!

Tom

Posted by admin | Filed Under Hot Research, email marketing, online fundraising | Leave a Comment 

Is This Bait & Switch? - II

December 14, 2007

Last week, I described this email marketing scenario …

  1. League of Conservation Voters (whose e-list I'm happily on) sends me an email introducing an embedded call-to-action from Defenders of Wildlife.
  2. I respond to the Defenders appeal, but opt-out of further contact.
  3. Defenders backs off awhile, then hits me with a succession of e-appeals.

I asked Agitator readers to give their opinions in a quick poll, titled: Is This Bait & Switch? And meantime, Defenders has explained its actions in detail in a response I urge you to read here, from Jeff Regen, VP for Online Marketing & Communications.

As it turns out, (after excluding respondents whose role wouldn't include such dealmaking) 24% of our respondents have made deals for this kind of list exchange. But 43% consider it a “tolerable” practice, and indeed, another 33% agree with the statement: “Get with the Digital Century, Belford, this is just smart marketing … I heartily approve of the deal.”

Who am I to argue with that blessing from the congregation?!

Seriously, I'll concede that LCV was operating within the range of permission I had implicitly given them. By joining their list, I effectively said: “Talk to me when you need to and about whatever you think I need to hear.” Once I've said that, I guess I have to go with their judgment. But I'm not sure I'd feel I had given permission if they came back and said: “Oh, and how about supporting our good friends at NARAL or Save Darfur?”

As for Defenders continuing to blast me with e-appeals. They acknowledge they were wrong to do that (blaming it on a technical glitch) and apologize. Blessedly, 88% of our poll respondents agreed with: “They're breaking the rules … slap their wrists.” Wrists slapped; apology accepted.

As for the 12% who appear to condone spamming, shame on you!

While, as noted above, only 24% of our respondents have made an e-list exchange deal like this, 40% say they personally have received this kind of appeal.

I would expect to see many more chaperoned e-appeals as time goes on. After all, two-thirds of those who have tried it report successful results.

If there is truly a nexus of interest between Org 1 and Org 2, perhaps most recipients will accept these appeals graciously … and maybe even respond. As Jeff Regen says:

“We all know the challenges associated with growing email programs for activism and for constituency development and, yes - for fundraising, too. So, when a true relationship between organizations exists, we want not only to make one another's constituents aware of the larger challenges that face our organizations, but also to expand the base from which we communicate.”

Is that a statement of pragmatism or virtue? And will recipients of chaperoned
e-appeals respond? We'll see.

Tom

Posted by admin | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, email marketing, online advocacy, online fundraising | Leave a Comment 

Quick Survey: Is This Bait & Switch?

December 7, 2007

Back in February I reported in The Agitator this sequence of events …

I received an e-mail from Gene Karpinski at the League of Conservation Voters (on whose e-list I'm happy to park) “sharing” with me “an important message” from his friend Rodger Schlickeisen of the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund regarding the urgent need to protect polar bears.

When I clicked on Rodger's imbedded message, I was whisked to the Defenders site, where the typical e-mail action alert awaited me. The form included a pre-checked box authorizing Defenders to send me future messages (meaning I had to notice it and opt out to escape the clutches of Defenders). Though the Defenders navigation bar included a “Support Us” link, they wisely didn't try to push me to contribute, being content on the first pass to capture my e-mail address as a kindred spirit.

And I asked these questions, among others:

1. Did I actually give permission to LCV effectively to give Defenders a shot at me? Probably, in the loose sense that somewhere, sometime I must have invited LCV to e-mail me on issues they deem pertinent. [What if Gene's buddy Ellen Malcolm over at Emily's List, straying a bit beyond the environment, asked Gene to send me a “cover note” on her PAC's behalf?]

2. Will I hear from Defenders again, even though I deliberately opted-out of receiving future messages from them. Time will tell!

Well, now I'm receiving a steady stream of email messages from Defenders … four since November! It seems that as year-end approaches, they just can't resist contacting me!

I'm not sure what I think about this. Smells a bit like bait & switch.

  • Should I be miffed that LCV “gave up” my name in the original deal?
  • Should I be angry that Defenders hasn't honored my direct opt-out from future contacts?
  • Should I just get over it? After all, I've authorized many, many direct mail list exchanges in my checkered past.
  • Should all of us just get over it … put aside the “cover note” facades like the one LCV and Defenders used and just get on with out-and-out email list exchanges?

What's your opinion? Let us know in this very quick three-question survey.

Curious to know.

Tom

Posted by admin | Filed Under Don't Miss these Posts, email marketing, online advocacy, online fundraising | Leave a Comment 

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