Email And Donor Relationships
We all know email as the workhorse of online fundraising.
But what about email as a relationship and loyalty building tool?
Writing in Email Insider, Loren McDonald at Silverpop, an online marketing agency, offers some interesting examples of commercial email approaches that are not aimed directly at sales, although in some examples that objective clearly lurks in the background.
Loren’s examples include sending “how to use” or “how to care for” info after a purchase … how to share your birthday wish list … what to expect when you take our overseas flight.
Many groups certainly use emails for action alerts, petition drives, event notices and the like, but these also in effect are “asks” and indeed often include money appeals.
What about pure “relationship” messages — e.g., our annual report is now available, just thought you’d like to know about our recent success, three of our alumni recently …, did you know we just completed reports on …, you can now use our toll-free number to …, etc?
What news, information, “customer service” features, reminders can you share in the interest of strengthening relationships with your donors?
Some of these items might typically appear in your printed newsletter, then migrate to your website. Think about grabbing some of these items for email delivery … especially if they can be targeted with special relevance to specific members or donors (or categories thereof).
Tom
Behavioral Science Q & A
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