Email Marketing for Membership and Membership Email Templates
Email marketing is a simple yet effective way to get the word out about a wide variety of things going on with your nonprofit. Despite social media’s popularity, email still remains the most popular method of marketing. It’s something everyone has, giving you a bigger reach and more wiggle room for promoting yourself, events, and calls to action for support and donations. We’ll go over the impact email marketing has and how to implement an effective email marketing campaign that leads your organization toward success.
Why Email Marketing for Membership is so Important
Email is still one of the most popular platforms for a reason. People are divesting from social media in addition to the spotty and unpredictable results outreach can get on those platforms as well. Everyone has an email and it’s something people use when they volunteer or donate to you. You can keep people interested in your cause informed about your progress and encourage them to continue their support through regular emailing. Repeat donors are important to nonprofit success as it helps you set realistic budgets for projects associated with your cause.
Types of Email Campaigns for Your Organization to Engage With
There are a few different ways to approach your email marketing tactics, each with its own use case. It’s important to use a varied plan for your campaigns to get the most out of your emails.
Member Email Engagement Campaigns
Member email engagement is specifically for people who’ve already opted to be a member of your website. This is what you might initially think of when you head “email campaign”. You’re marketing things that are happening within your organization for the purpose of informing your supporters. In a sense, it’s a formal way of saying “don’t forget about us and our cause”. A member email engagement campaign might look like this:
- Promote engagement with the site or organization. You should encourage users to engage with you through emails that say things like “check out what your donation helped us do” or “we miss you”. That can become a great way to get into requesting more donations for other projects you’re working on or to get continued support. Some wildlife organizations will do something similar by sending you photos of the animals you helped with your donation. You want to remind your supporters that what they do matters and they should continue to engage with you.
Interacting with your website specifically gets you more traffic also. Depending on the actions people do, you could start ranking higher in searches on search engines. You’ll gain more visibility the more people interact.
- Event information. Events like fundraisers or volunteer opportunities should always be sent out in an email. It’s a lot easier to reach out to your entire supporter base this way. Since many people have smartphones, your event info email will likely show up in someone’s inbox in the form of a push notification so they’ll know right away when things are happening at your nonprofit. This is especially important if you’re doing special events for a limited time as well.
- Contests and free giveaways. People love the opportunity to win stuff and having more entries means more traffic and engagement for your cause. The bigger your reach through email, the more attention you’ll get. It’s also a good idea to post on social media at the same time as well just to cover all your bases. Supporters can see your initial email and share your social media posts with others.
- Promote new site content. Keep up the interest in your organization by promoting your new content. If you have any interesting recent interviews to post, new supporter perks, or anything new to your website, you should promote it with an email. People want to see what you’re up to and know about new things, but aren’t usually thinking to check. A little update is yet another great way to encourage people to give you traffic and see what you’re doing.
Member Email Drip Campaigns
Drip campaigns are specifically for when a new person joins your cause. These are the ‘welcome’ emails you get when you sign up for a website’s newsletter or you make a purchase or donation. The purpose is to continue the interaction you have with a supporter past the initial sign-up process. It tends to happen with 3 different moving parts:
- The welcome phase. You send an email to your supporter welcoming them and thanking them for signing up. You should also try to mention how many emails you send per month and why someone would benefit from keeping track of your emails. For example, you could mention you email supporters about admission discounts or special limited-time events.
- Re-engagement. These are emails that are meant to reach back out to your supporters to remind them you exist. You can list things your organization is doing like upcoming fundraising and volunteer opportunities or educational content to check out. Discount coupons are a great idea as well. You could offer 15% off admission or something to that effect. It’s important your emails get opened as they can eventually be detected as spam and your “spam score” could be affected.
- The pitch. Eventually, you’ll get to the pitching stage. People who’ve sufficiently interacted enough with your content can start receiving things like donation request emails. These emails should contain educational content that reiterates your cause and how impactful donations and engagement are. You might have the urge to jump right into the pitch stage, but it’s important to wait and make sure you’re targeting your email marketing campaign to ensure its effectiveness.
Membership Email Campaign Templates
Effective email marketing campaigns for nonprofits are especially important to make information about your cause accessible and readily available. Here are some ways you can create engaging emails that keep your supporters in the loop and ready to help:
- Discounts! Discounts are attractive and you can make them feel more exclusive by making them members-only. These discounts could be for merch, admission to your facilities, or even discounts from your sponsors for food and entertainment.
- The proof is in the pudding. Send out a personalized educational email going in-depth about the current big things your nonprofit is doing. This might look like a new exhibit or something going into detail about what’s happening in your organization.
- Introduce yourself. Having an email that talks about how you got started is a great way to connect with supporters on a personal level. People can feel more passionately about the causes they donate to if they get to learn more about the people behind them.
How Acme Can Help With Your Membership Emails
Acme Ticketing has great options to track your contacts and receive easy payments both online and offline. You can also use Acme’s membership marketing system, allowing you to connect with industry-leading technology, yielding better results for your nonprofit. If you’re interested to see how Acme can fit into your nonprofit, request a demo today.