One of the best, but sometimes most labor-intensive, marketing tools a nonprofit can utilize to marketing their cause is an e-blast campaign.
E-blasts can support your overall marketing goals by engaging audiences on a consistent basis and keeping them informed.
When creating your e-blast, there are a few tips and tricks to keep in mind. Below are some brief explanations of the different elements of an e-blast which should help guide you through planning and sending your campaigns.
Have A Plan
Your e-blasts should support an overall marketing campaign. Create a calendar which details the time and day you plan on having each e-blast sent. This will allow you to give yourself enough time to create the content as well as help you figure out what content you should include.
It can be as simple as creating themes or planning e-blasts around event promotion—whatever would work best for your overall marketing goals. An e-blast is a small piece of your overall marketing puzzle, make sure your other efforts are also consistent in supporting the same marketing goals.
Day and Time
An e-blast should be sent at an appropriate time and day of the week when your target audience would most likely be willing to open and read. To best identify when this is, think about your audience. Is your email list mainly personal or business emails? If so, when are people most likely looking at their inboxes?
The very beginning and end of the day might not be best if sending an e-blast out to predominantly business email addresses. Try to avoid times when your target audience would be busy or otherwise less likely to open an email they don’t immediately recognize.
Subject Line
The subject line needs to be enticing, but not too generic that your audience will delete without reading. Get creative! Use their name, ask a question, make a bold statement, or use emoji’s.
A great tip might be to make your email look like something your audience has already engaged with. Try something like “Re: Your Donation” instead of “Make a Donation.”
Keep track of your subject lines when looking at open rate analytics. This will help you see what kinds of subject lines do better than others.
Body Content
You want your e-blast to be informative, but not too full of information. Try to keep each section to 1-3 sentences. Too long, and your audience might be overwhelmed by the amount of text. Too short, and it will be difficult to create conversions.
Pictures
Use pictures!! Try to avoid using stock photos when you can.
People want to see real people. Do your best to only utilize high-quality photos of real people, this will maintain the quality of the content you send out while also remaining organic to your target audience.
Be Consistent
Your e-blasts will be most successful if you are consistent. Sporadic messages won’t help you grow awareness or create conversions. They will most likely annoy your audience, be forgotten, or create an increase in your unsubscribe rates. Do your best to stay consistent so when you do want your audience to donate or attend an event, they do not feel like they only hear from you when you want something.
At Uptown Studios, we often create e-blast designs and campaigns which help support non-profits collect donations for the Big Day of Giving and Giving Tuesday.
In addition to a strong social media presence, e-blasts are awesome opportunities for you to share special events, news, and updates about your organization. Get creating, today!
Sign-up for the Uptown Studios e-blast today add your email at the bottom of the page. Thank you!
