"How to Use E-Marketing to Promote Your Non-Profit: A Beginner’s Guide"
Sandy Fong
Email marketing (E-marketing) is one of the most effective tactics for promoting your non-profit organization. By itself, E-marketing can be used to keep your existing supporters up-to-date on your news and events as well as attract new supporters to your cause. When used in conjunction with your organization’s Web resources, E-marketing can drive more traffic to your web site and improve your site’s metrics.
This article is written for non-profit organizations new to E-marketing. It offers a basic guide to getting started through a question and answer format. AFP is planning to print a series of articles on this topic. If anyone has questions please contact the AFP office: nycafp@nycafp.org.
How can I use E-marketing to promote my nonprofit organization?
Ad-hoc e-campaigns are a great way to promote specific events like fund raisers, new programs, participation in info fairs, etc. Regularly scheduled e-newsletters (such as this one) are an excellent way to keep your supporters informed on your organization’s news such as grant awards, special awards, major achievements, staff changes, etc.
How do I link my E-marketing to my web site?
Your e-campaigns can contain links to your non-profit organization’s web site—either special pages with content relating to the theme of the email or links to sections of your web site that will provide good information to readers. These email links are a good way to highlight sections of your web site that have not been getting significant attention.
I don’t have the design staff to create fancy HTML emails. What other options do I have?
If you already have a web site designer, they can create your HTML emails for you using the same tools they used originally to develop your web site. If you don’t have any design staff at all, you can look for a volunteer or consultant to create these HTML emails.
Let’s not forget about plain text emails. These emails are not as attractive as HTML emails but they can be just as effective in communicating with your supporters. An added benefit is that every email server will accept plain text emails—even PDAs and cell phones with web access.
How do I get e-addresses for my distribution list?
Use the same tactics that you use to get mailing addresses. Ask your supporters to provide e-addresses when they sign-up with your organization. Ask your supporters to give you the e-addresses of people they think will be interested in your cause. On your web site, allow supporters to sign-up for e-alerts. In the emails, ask recipients to forward the email to their friends. Eventually a percentage of the people who get these forwarded emails will sign-up themselves.
Gathering e-addresses for your organization’s contact database is an on-going task. As you continue to send emails and ask for addresses, the list will grow and grow.
Sandy Fong, a marketing consultant, assists clients in the corporate and nonprofit sector with direct mail/email marketing campaigns.
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