Email Marketing - Getting Started

Many smaller non profits make the mistake of thinking they can simply email their donors rather than send direct mail since it’s a fraction of the cost. Wrong! Email alone will not generate nearly the same revenues that you can expect through direct mail.

However, online contributions are slowly trending upwards – it’s just going to take several more years to get there. In the meantime, use email effectively to support your direct mail program.

If you haven’t begun doing so already, start gathering your donors’ email addresses today. You can include an area on your direct mail reply device, or on your website, where a donor can indicate her email address – remember to provide a logical reason or free offer for doing so. For example, you can tell the donor that you need an email address for sending weekly organizational updates, uplifting or inspirational quotations, informative e-newsletters, white paper reports, etc. Be creative!

Email Appending

While starting to collect and build your file of email addresses is a smart idea, there is also a faster way to grow it. Let Starfish Marketing find your donors’ email addresses for you!

How? Starfish Marketing begins by cross referencing your house file against several lists of 3rd Party Opt-in addresses that contain both postal and Email addresses of Opt-in addresses.

Once the records are matched, an email is sent on your behalf with your logo and personalized message asking the donor to opt-in to receive emails from your organization. This is called the "Permission Pass."

The recipient is sent the Permission Pass which is a passive opt-in request to receive emails from you. They are also asked to opt-in to receive 3rd party emails that you might recommend.

Only the opt-in email addresses are then sent back to the organization.

Results: Generally this process will yield about a 15-30% match rate of the entire file.

E-blast and Reports

Once you have a file of valid, usable email addresses, Starfish Marketing will help you get your message ready for blast off!

Our team of experts will properly format your text (and images, if desired) for fast and easy opening . . . and send it out into cyberspace to your donors. We highly recommend email to support your direct mail – either as a pre-announcement ("be on the lookout for an important piece of mail") or post ("I hope you received the letter I recently sent and that you’ll consider sending a gift?")

How will you know if your Email Marketing was successful? Easy enough – Starfish will also provide you with a user friendly activity report tracking the action taken from your e-blast

Email allows you to track every click

• Open
• Clicked through
• Forwarded to a friend
• Opted In/Out
• Action = Donation or Subscription

To get started with an Email Marketing program, or for more information, contact Starfish Marketing today. It’s the ideal compliment to your direct mail efforts and will increase overall response rates up to 20%!

To learn please contact Margaux at 954-943-7740 or Margaux@starfishmarketinggroup.com.