Will Email Fundraising Die?
It’s bad enough that pundits tell us direct mail is dead, or at least dying.
Now we’re being told that email is dying too … or at least becoming marginalized. And since email is the online fundraising weapon of choice, won’t that mean that online fundraising will wither as well?!
Here’s one of the better, less hysterical, discussions of the matter I’ve seen. Writing in Email Insider, Elie Ashery of email service provider Gold Lasso says:
"Just as direct mail isn’t completely dead, email isn’t going anywhere, either. It’s still the most cost-effective marketing medium and delivers the biggest bang for the buck. However, email’s effectiveness over time will become marginalized for consumer marketers as social interaction over the Internet shifts from email to social networks.
Since I’m the CEO of an email service provider, some critics might think I’m crazy for spreading the idea that email will soon become marginalized. To them my answer is, it was crazier for railroad barons to think they were in the railroad business when they saw their first airplane in the sky."
First, I’m glad to see that Elie isn’t buried in the weeds, but has an eye on the horizon. Second, he isn’t panicking yet. For that wary but calm attentiveness, Elie, you deserve a raise.
This "email versus social networks" debate is raging in the commercial marketing world. In a nutshell, the fear amongst "push" marketers is that as consumers move their highly valued personal communications out of email (as they have previously moved out of the postal mailbox), what will be left in the email inbox is only the trash … and for you Agitator readers, that could mean your email fundraising messages!
Abandonment of email for "important" communications, most pundits believe, is well along with the under-35 generations, but will undoubtedly spread up the age scale. And indeed all the stats point to social nets like Facebook growing most steeply amongst over-35 folks.
So, online fundraisers do need to be paying attention to this migration and the new challenges it will present, given the hostility current social net users are showing to marketing messages arriving on these sites.
But it’s too soon to hit the panic button. Most nonprofits have plenty of headroom for improving the productivity of their current email-based online fundraising efforts.
Tom
8 responses to “Will Email Fundraising Die?”
Behavioral Science Q & A
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Interesting question. I had a quick look at the testing done on this topic. On the positive side, in all cases, over half of donors decide to cover the fee. In some cases, it goes as high as 65%. Not a negligible percentage at all. Here’s another test from iRaiser showing consistent results (see point […]
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There’s just one thing to consider when designing a supporter journey: the supporter. More specifically, you need to take into account: Who the supporter is i.e. their identity, which is the reason they support this cause, and their personality, which describes the way they “see” and process the world. These will determine the kind of […]
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I’m not an expert in this but a quick search surfaced this article on the effect of tax reforms on 2019’s charitable giving. The researchers didn’t find a reduction. Actually, they observed an “increase in charitable contributions in 2019, even with the lower tax rates and the dramatically smaller number of taxpayers who itemize their […]
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Email is still very effective for our marketing efforts. Social media marketing is certainly becoming a more frequent medium for communications, but email still dwarfs it in specific business attention spent.
Our best results come from an integrated marketing approach – social marketing, email marketing, and human touch, when appropriate.
Great piece, Tom. Thank you. My own sense is the spread *way* up the age scale will be very slow. I’m sure you’ve seen the latest Pew stats re the rapid recent adoption of email in the 65+ demographic even as the youngest abandon the medium. There will undoubtably be some cross curents, but perhaps the golden years of email fundraising still lie ahead of us.
I was just talking about this with the Chronicle of Philanthropy. I think we are literally at the tipping point. In the next year or two we’re going to see big changes in how donors interact with us, and we’re going to need to try new things and continue to adjust. Social networking is all about cultivating relationships and that’s something we really need to do! But we can’t expect the ROI to be there right away, and we’ll have to work on how we measure it. I’m advising groups to at least spend about 5% of time on Facebook and Twitter at a minimum. Jump in and participate!
[…] post about the end of email. It is a well thought piece, not panic attack inducing at all. Tom Belford is glad to see Ashery’s approach and concludes: So, online fundraisers do need to be paying […]
Whether it’s direct mail, e-mail, FB, or Twitter, nothing short of a personal, face-to-face solicitation will ever consistently generate extraordinary gifts.
Has email fundraising even grown up yet?
While it’s certainly a part of the overall mix, is anyone claiming to use it as a primary method of raising money?
Facebook and Twitter will create some buzz — which is important and useful — but raise money? Not impressively.
Still important to use many channels, including email and direct mail. No one tool works best by itself; it’s by using a combination of interaction tools that we can have the best results.
[…] the increasing popularity of social media, some are asking if email is on the way out, e.g. Will eMail Fundraising Die. But just as direct mail is still effective, so is email. These tools work best when part of […]