It’s the bit you always overlook. You’ve written the great thank you email, thrown in an emotionally resonant anecdote or two (haven’t you?) and signed off with a big, empathetic hug of a thank you. And then you realise you need to stick something in the subject line. So what do you do? Write ‘Donation Confirmation’, because that’s what it is, isn’t it?
Time to stop and start again. Forget the content of the email for a sec and put all your energy, effort and empathy into that subject line. Because that’s what people read first. In fact that may be all people read - at the very least it will determine whether they read any further. You wouldn’t treat a billboard headline as an afterthought, would you? Well, don’t treat a subject...
Clumsy, clumsy, clumsy. It seems Ammado has managed to create completely the wrong sort of buzz among Irish bloggers by spamming them with bulk unsolicited emails. It doesn’t matter how important or deserving you cause or issue is - sending bulk, unpersonalised, unsolicited email to anyone (especially vocal and widely read bloggers) is stupid and will be viewed as spam.
Technorati Tags: ammado, spam, blogging, marketing, email...
If you want to see email fundraising at its most effective, it’s worth taking a look at how the Democratic Party candidates are using it. Your first step should be to sign up to both Barack and Hilary’s websites. You’ll need a US zip code, but I’m sure you can think of one.
Here’s a great example of good email fundraising from Obama:
What does it do right?
1. Timing - it arrived the day after Super Tuesday
2. Subject line - this is possibly the most important collection of words you will right in an email. Here we have the intriguing ‘Startling News’
3. Clear articulation of need - the Clinton’s have pumped in $5 million of their own money into the campaign so we need your help to keep up.
But there’s still a long way to go before...
We’re going all new media here for the next while, thanks to a day’s inspiration from the Institute of Fundraising’s New Media Conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday (we go so you don’t have to). So to kick off, here’s 5 tips we picked up for better new media fundraising.
1. The best way to use SMS is ‘capture and convert’.
Forget premium services - half the money is going to the network and service providers - and use capture and callback instead. Encourage people to send a text - a message of support, a text petition, whatever - and then call them back and ask them if they’ll consider a gift, or better still a direct debit.
2. Monitor social networks to see what people are saying about you
You may not have a strategy to use youtube, facebook,...