Let’s play Mad Libs to illustrate why many email appeals have a deliverability — and performance — problem.

We will need:

• An urgency phrase, like “Act now”, “Ends at midnight”, “Last chance”, “The clock is ticking”, “Deadline”, etc
• A whole number between 2 to 5 inclusive
• A reference to what happens at New Year’s, like “the ball drops”, “midnight”, “Anderson Cooper punches Andy Cohen”, “people wonder what’s so great about a crowded Times Square”) etc.
• A collective group (e.g., committee, society, group, murder of crows, etc.)
• A verb
• A plural noun
• A celebrity name
• Two amounts of money larger than most of your donors have even seen in one room
• A salutation
• An adjective
• A leader’s name
• That leader’s title

Now, let’s plug them into this handy Year-End Email Generator™:

Subject Line: (urgency phrase) to (number)X your impact in 2018! As in “Rush! Only 3 Hours  Remain to Triple Your Impact.”

Sub-head: Don’t forget! Donate before (New Year’s Reference)

Dear [first name],

It’s almost midnight.  It’s your last chance to make a tax-deductible gift to [collective group] to [verb] [(plural noun].

And if you act before [New Year’s Reference], the [celebrity name] Foundation will [multiplier that corresponds to your number: e.g., 3 = triple]  your gift up to (massive, alienating amount of money #1).  We need to reach our goal of [massive, alienating amount of money #2]. [Plural noun] are counting on you to [verb] them – don’t let them down.

(Donate Button button that says “[multiplier] your impact before midnight”)

[Closing Salutation] and an [adjective] 2019!

[Fake signature image]
[Leader’s name]
[Leader’s title]

P.S. [urgency phrase] – you only have a few minutes left to give in 2018!

[ Add thermometer image, if you’re feeling fancy]

Look familiar?

How close did we get to some of the year-end fundraising emails you received (or sent)?

Even before we get to the issue of  ‘deliverability’ this type of paint-by-numbers fundraising has some problems.   Matches aren’t the be-all, end-all.  The “when” of giving is crowding out the “why”.  And donors don’t necessarily care for these appeals:

Too many more of those countdown subject lines–Five days left to give!–and I will be fully unsubscribed by January 1.

— The Whiny Donor (@thewhinydonor) December 27, 2018

Building a Year-End Spam Filter

But let’s set those concerns aside for the moment.  Instead,  let’s pretend we were trying to develop a spam detector.  First, we’d go for some easy wins.  Anything from Nigerian princes or claims to change anatomical features is of course spammed out immediately.

The next logical place to look is where we identify a bunch of similar messages sent in about the same time period from different addresses –but all with below average engagement.  In other words, the very thing we see from the nonprofit sector at year-end.

Some of this is unavoidable.  Words like “give” and “donate” are necessary staples, so there will be necessary overlap.  But the more a year-end appeal follows the Mad Libs fundraising formula, the more likely it is to end up in the cyber-bin.

This is equally true for us human,  carbon-based spam detectors as well.  When look-alike appeals are floating in the  sea of sameness, we experience brand confusion, lapsing, and switching.  The result? Folks simply ignore the message.  This may not apply to the top line metrics — the message may get through.  It may even get opened if someone is curious and hopeful that the message is  not boilerplate.  But in reality the results from the flotsam and jetsam of appeals in the sea of sameness inevitably wane.

What’s to be done?  In a sea of apples, the orange gets noticed.  It’s a scary proposition to change tactics at year-end, or even to test when so much is on the line.  But the alternative is to gradually have less and less on the bottom line as results wane.

The use of that orange standing out in a sea of apples could very well could be signaling you know more, about your donors and how to engage them.

Currently, most year-end fundraising models depend more on volume rather than depth.  We’ll dig into that on Wednesday.

Roger and Nick