Email Marketing for Nonprofits

Are you ready to start crafting a simple yet effective email marketing campaign for your nonprofit? 

Email campaigning is one of the most important parts of building relationships with your supporters and getting them to donate. But, it’s hard to know how to create an email campaign that builds relationships with your audience and even encourages donations. That’s why we’re chatting today – to help you get started on creating and executing effective email campaigns! Let’s dive in and build relationships with your supporters that will last a lifetime. 

Build Your Nonprofit Email List

First things first, you’ll want to create an email list of your donors and supporters. This allows you to segment your audience and personalize emails based on the individual. You can also use this list to contact specific audience members and build relationships with them over time.

Once you have your list set up, it's time to create content that is both engaging and informative. You want to ensure that your emails provide value to your readers, while also driving home the message of why you exist and how they can help support your mission.

Automated Email Workflows

One of the most productive, yet underutilized, email marketing tactics for nonprofits is email workflows. Workflow emails are automated messages sent out to subscribers or donors in response to certain triggers or actions. These emails can include various types of content depending on the organization’s needs, such as thank yous for donations, nurture sequences, and educational programming. Workflow emails allow nonprofits to create more consistent and engaging content for their subscribers and donors. Workflows save time and effort, but they can help you ensure that your contacts are continuously receiving relevant content. This might sound a bit confusing, but think of it like putting your marketing on autopilot! 

So what kinds of email can be automated? There are a few specific types of workflow emails that we recommend for nonprofits including: 

• Welcome Email Series
• Automated Email Nurture 
• Donor Follow Up Sequence 
• Campaign Emails

These are just a few ideas to create effective workflows, but there are many more! Each workflow should be tailored to fit your organization’s goals and audience. Let's use the welcome series as our example moving forward.

Welcome series emails are sent to new subscribers and donors, thanking them for signing up or donating. They should also provide more information about your organization, such as its mission statement, the impact you’ve made in the past year, and how they can get involved. Typically, our welcome sequences include:

1. Email 1: Thank You
2. Email 2: Mission/Impact Statement
3. Email 3: Story of Success
4. Email 4: Get Involved

By sharing one email per week in this series, it gives the new subscriber or donor time to digest the information and encourages them to take action.

Ultimately, it’s important to build relationships with your supporters and donors before you ask for donations. Email workflows are the perfect way to turn contacts into advocates and create deeper connections with your audience––no matter when they start this journey with you.

If you find yourself wanting more support in this area, guess what? That's what I do here at Marketing Mission: Maximized Marketing. The Maximized Marketing Intensive is an experience where in just one week, we create your valuable Nonprofit Marketing Toolkit™ - the powerful assets you need to streamline your marketing and free you to increase impact and funding without losing your mind. 

If you feel like the Maximized Marketing Intensive would be beneficial, hop on my calendar so we can talk more about this.