Step 1: Sign Up For Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an all-in-one email marketing platform that helps you communicate with your clients, customers, and other interested parties. Their tool makes newsletter letter creation simple and they make sure you follow healthy contact management practices. Plus they provide analytics so you can track the results of your email marketing.
Mailchimp offers a 15% discount to verified nonprofit organizations and charities. To request a nonprofit discount, visit the contact form and select Billing. Under Billing, select Non-profit Discount Requests, and click Access the contact form.
Signing up for the first time? Use our referral link: eepurl.com/hrdlGr
Step 1: Start Building Your Email Lists
People need to "opt-in" to receive your emails. When they opt-in, it's them giving you permission to send emails to the email address provided. So…how do you get them to do that?
There's three easy ways to grow your email list:
- Social Media
- Website Visitors
- Events
Usually, when a prospect hears about your nonprofit it's through someone they know, public relations, advertisements, events, or searching Google and social media. It's important that you make it easy for them to register, sign-up, or subscribe by using opt-in forms. Opt-ins forms are created within Mailchimp. They will give a paragraph of code to copy and paste onto your website. Using these forms will make sure contacts who sign up on your website automatically end up on your email list in Mailchimp. .
Step 3: Create Lists
When someone subscribes to your email list it's likely for one of two reasons: 1. to receive general information about your nonprofit 2. to receive specific information related to an event, campaign, donation, etc.
- General List - People on your general email list should expect to hear from you on a regular basis whether it's weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. When someone subscribes to your email list most people miss a very great opportunity of properly welcoming their new subscriber. (see step 5 for tips on welcoming your subscribers!
- Specific List - The subscribers who signed up for your email list through an event registration, or to receive an impact report, or other opt-in gift should be properly tagged so they get the custom set of welcome emails that provides their gift or confirms their registration. This will also ensure you send the correct messages to them in the future.
PRO TIP: You may have some of the same email addresses on multiple lists. Duplicate email addresses across different lists will be counted as many times as they appear, not as one email address. When selecting a plan, keep in mind how many subscribers you'll have and how many different lists they'll be on because it will affect your payment plan.
Step 4: Prepare and Organize Your Lists
Before you get too carried away with growing your email list, you'll need to create a couple Lists, Groups, and Tags to make it easy to identify which subscribers should receive which emails. It's important to match your messages with the right audience. You don't want to send them messages that are not applicable to them, or too frequently, because then they may opt-out.
Your signup forms can have check boxes that allow subscribers to select which topics they want to hear about. This is known as self-segmenting. These check boxes are controlled through Groups.
GENERAL EXAMPLE:
Lists = General Newsletter or Event Registration
Groups = Newsletter, Events, Fundraising
Tags = Volunteer, Agency, Event Registration
SPECIFIC EXAMPLE:
List = HandsOn Maui Monthly Volunteer Hotsheet
Groups = Newsletter, Events / What do you want to hear about?
Tags = Registered for Event, Agency / Volunteer
When you import a list, or add a new subscriber manually, you'll have to assign tags to them.
Step 5: Welcome New Subscribers
Your welcome sequence should consist of at least one email, but we recommend three. These emails will be automatically sent to new subscribers on a schedule you assign.
The first email will be different for the General List vs. Specific List. The second and third emails can have the same content for both audiences.
Sample Email Welcome Sequence for Nonprofits
1A. First Email for General List:
Welcome - Someone who signs up for your email list is showing interest in your nonprofit. Since they've just signed up to receive email communications it's much easier to get them to take another action right away. Therefore, the first email should answer the question they have in the back of their mind… "How can I help?"
You can talk to them about upcoming volunteer or donation opportunities. In this email, you really want to let your new subscriber know what role they can play in your nonprofit.
1B. First Email for Specific List:
Welcome with Gift - The first email includes the "gift." For example, for the subscriber who registered for your event will receive access to that event. The subscriber who wants your impact report will receive just that. In this email you can also add a teaser, like a list of upcoming events, or "…by the way you could sign up for our event next month," so they anticipate an email with more information and will stay engaged.
You should also use this email to clear set expectations. Will this person be receiving a monthly newsletter now or just event confirmation emails?
- Second Email for BOTH Lists
Talk about your organization and tell them what kind of impact you have in the community. Tells stories of the benefactors of your organization.
- Third Email for BOTH Lists
This email is your segmentation email. It allows you to get more precise with knowing which messages to send to which subscribers by helping you understand what kind of information is most relevant to them. Do they want information about upcoming events, volunteer opportunities, or to receive your general newsletter?
Email Event Registration Sequences
Promote an Upcoming Event Campaign - Send to all contacts on your email list:
- Announcement of Date/Time
- Call to Action (a hard ask) like "Register today" or "Get tickets now"
- Teaser like "we'll have food trucks and live entertainment"
- Last Call
Confirmation - Those who have registered for your event will receive the following:
- You're Registered
- Event Reminder
- What's Next (Only send to non-subscribers)
Step 6: Create Email Nurture Campaigns
Here are a few ideas of how to keep your audience engaged. It's important for you to stay top of mind and send them emails with the right content and at the right time to garner the best conversion results.
General Newsletter - Choose a frequency and integrate seasonal and holiday greetings into the messaging when appropriate. These communications are intended for the entire database and are usually sent on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis.
Event Registration - Promote upcoming events to the appropriate audiences. There are times when large scale events can be promoted to the entire database in a separate email and within the General Newsletter. However, for smaller events you may consider only sending emails to groups within the Target List due to the subject matter, capacity restraints, etc. These emails will include links to sign up for the event and once someone submits their email address it will put them on the "New Subscriber - Welcome with Gift Sequence" if they're a first timer. If they have already received that welcome email, then they will immediately be put on the event registration email sequence.
Support Outreach - Create a segment of your list that will support you on social media. Your "VIP's," ask them to comment on, like, or share your social media posts to help get more views. (You can do this by sending one email to your entire email list asking "Would you like to be one of the VIP's? If so, click here." On MailChimp you can tag them so that you can email just those VIP's when you need them.
Volunteers Needed - Tag email subscribers as volunteers or create a separate volunteer list.
Donation Requests - Plan an annual email campaign to ask for donations. We don't recommend running donation campaigns more than two times annually.
One thing to keep in mind, always put yourself in your audiences' shoes. What's in it for them? They'll be more likely to open, read, and click-through when your email content feels like it speaks to them. This thought process starts with the subject line and continues throughout the entire email. The key to keeping a subscriber on the subscribed list is by offering value.
