Everyone involved in administering a fundraiser understands the importance of maintaining regular contact with your supporters, and reinforcing the message behind your fundraising efforts – it’s key to any campaign.

These days, most of us utilise electronic means to get our message out; and for the most part, that means email. While most of us aren’t email marketers by trade, we can all use some of their advanced techniques in order to deliver the most effective campaigns we are able to.

So, where to start? What elements comprise a good fundraising email? Well, let’s start at the beginning: your recipients.

If you are sending the same email to a large number of supporters, you may be inclined to simply CC or BCC everyone on your original. This is a mistake. Unfortunately, the spammers of the world have made life more difficult for everyone; and one of the primary factors spam filters take into account is the number of recipients for a particular message. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend crafting your email if it isn’t being seen by your intended audience as a result of interception by a spam filter.

Not only is this a problem for the particular email in question, but should you send a lot of these, you risk being blacklisted by organizations such as Spamhaus which ISPs utilize in order to maintain their own lists of spam producers. Should you fall afoul of one of the many blacklist providers, you may discover all of your outgoing correspondence being dumped in the spam bin – and it’s often quite difficult to have your email reputation restored to good standing.

The best way to avoid the above would be to utilize an email service provider such as Constant Contact. While helping ensure deliverabilty, these service bureaus provide additional advantages by enabling you to measure the effectiveness of your campaign, as well as providing handy templates which allow you to present your content in a manner consistent with best practices.

Grab Their Attention

So, assuming your email is delivered, what’s next? The single most important factor in your message is your subject line. Designing a compelling reason for people to even open your email is key to your campaign’s success. Here are some good tips for designing effective subject lines:

• If possible, use the recipient’s name within the first few words – people are many times more likely to read content that speaks to them directly. This is problematic manually; however, with an automated system, fairly easy.
• Inspire curiosity in your subject line. Asking a question related to your cause is often a good way to get your supporters to open your message.
• Be clear. Cryptic email subjects may work the first couple of times but rapidly lose their appeal.
• Be concise. People generally only glance at subject lines in advance of a decision on whether to hit the delete button or open your email. Additionally, some email clients automatically shorten subjects; so if you must have a longer one, ensure the important content appears at the beginning.

Timing

Ok, now that we have that covered it’s finally time to move on to the body right? Nope. One final thing you need to understand about email campaigns is that timing plays a critical role in their effectiveness. You don’t, for example, want your message arriving in your recipient’s inbox first thing Monday morning. People are busy with their work-related duties, and don’t want to be interrupted by your pleas for support. There are few things more detrimental to a fundraiser’s success than irritating your membership; and inappropriately timed emails can do just that.

If you are going to send your correspondence during the work week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday have been proven most effective. By that time, folks have dealt with the backlog generated by the weekend and Friday’s inattention, and will be more receptive to your interruption.

If your list is large, you may not be able to guarantee the time of delivery; however, it’s often best to shoot for between 10:00 -10:30 in the morning and 1:00-1:30 in the afternoon. By 10am people have generally attended to the most critical matters presented by their inbox and are about to go grab that second cup of coffee. Similarly, at 1pm folks are just easing back into their work day after a meal, and often spend time on non-work-related tasks including personal email, social networking and so on.

Of course, this timing may not work for you. One trick is to segment your email list, send to different segments at different times, monitor open rates, and adjust based on your findings. There is no substitute for good data on your campaign – something a service bureau can definitely help with.

Your Message

Finally we’re on to the body of your email! There are quite a few things to keep in mind when crafting your message; here’s the top 10:

1. Your first sentence is of paramount importance. If you’ve managed to bypass the spam filters, transcend your recipient’s resistance to opening by timing your email properly and including a compelling subject line, you can still lose them right here. Be clear and concise – using punchy copy that simply describes the reason behind your message and impels them to read further.
2. Avoid flowery language and complex sentence structure. Communicate your message as plainly as possible. You’re not writing the next great novel; you’re conveying an idea and a call to action as quickly as you are able.
3. Ensure all your important content is near the top of the email. People will often only afford you a few seconds of their day – get them to act early. Many won’t bother to scroll down to click on a link at the bottom of your message. While you certainly can (and it’s a good practice) duplicate links at the end of the email, if folks don’t scroll there, you’re not going to get the kind of response you’re looking for.
4. Avoid ‘Click Here’ types of links. Make your link text reflect what you wish your recipient to do upon arrival at your landing page. This forms a mental connection between the physical action of clicking and your desired outcome – improving its likelihood of occurring.
5. Don’t rely on imagery to convey your message. Many people have their email clients set to only enable image display upon request. While having good alt text helps here, ensure your textual message is at the fore, and don’t expect people to try to understand what you’re talking about by reading image descriptions.
6. Make certain your email is as lightweight as possible from a kilobyte perspective. Understand that many of your recipients are going to be viewing your content on mobile devices; and if your message is too bandwidth intensive, will be asked whether or not they wish to download more than the excerpt presented. Many won’t.
7. Stay focused. You should try to ensure your messaging is in support of a single, easily understood objective. Providing content which distracts from your primary goal is counterproductive.
8. Be personal. Don’t try to come off sounding business-like; make a personal appeal to your supporters in the same manner you would ask a friend. If in reading your email aloud, it doesn’t sound like something you’d say in friendly conversation, it’s time for an edit.
9. Be positive! The old adage “Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you cry alone” certainly applies here. People like to feel they’re part of a fundraising effort that is on the path to success, not one desperately seeking support. Keep your goal highly visible, yet present your progress towards it in glass half-full rather than half-empty terms.
10. Test! If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Send out two different versions of the same email to different segments of your supporter base and compare your open rates, click through performance, conversion rates, and unsubscribes. Keep track of your results over time and adjust your message to reflect your findings.

While there are definitely a number of additional factors which may help improve the overall effectiveness of your campaign, applying the above should start you off on the right foot.