Are visions of year-end dollar signs turning into lumps of coal? 💸 We’ll help you turn your fundraising frown upside down with an email marketing strategy that converts before 2023 comes to a close!
Here’s how to salvage your campaign in the final weeks of 2023.
Email marketing whiz Jess Campbell of Out in the Boons returns to share late-game fundraising tactics. The season isn’t over even if Giving Tuesday bombed – there’s still lots of money left to raise before January 1st!
We dive into setting achievable goals, writing compelling subject lines, using emoji and personalization to boost engagement, following up with lapsed donors, and more. Jess also explains why you should add text messaging to your outreach mix.
The bottom line? Keep emailing consistently through December. Using a strategic cadence of valuable content leading to clear calls-to-action is key to converting supporters into philanthropists. And never miss a chance to steward and recognize donor generosity!
If you’re feeling frantic about finishing your campaign strong, don’t miss Jess’s affordable new monthly fundraising email template membership. It’s packed with plug-and-play solutions to save you time while growing donations.
Ready for an email makeover to raise year-end revenue? Take notes – Jess is bringing the expertise!
Important Links:
The Fundraising Template Shop – https://www.thefundraisingtemplateshop.com/membership
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-campbell-outintheboons/
“The Nonprofit Email Report”- https://www2.neonone.com/l/679793/2023-08-08/277h7w/679793/1691513830BLlHeTzH/Influencer___GT_EOY_Email_Report.pdf
Episode Transcript
RHEA 0:00
Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I’m your host, Rhea Wong.
Hey podcast listeners, Rhea Wong with you once again with Nonprofit Lowdown.
So today is a special bonus episode with my dear friend, Jess Campbell, founder and president of Out in the Boons. We’re talking about end of year email campaigns and what do you do when things don’t go your way? Don’t look like the way that you wanted to go.
So Jess, welcome to the show. I think we do this every year.
JESS 0:28
You’re such a pro. You’re such a pro at all this podcast stuff. Oh my gosh.
RHEA 0:34
Well, thank you. You’re like a three time guest though.
JESS 0:39
It’s fun to be back. I love your audience. And I love chatting with you because you get it. So, it’s like riffing with like your best pal on your best pal.
Most favorite topic.
RHEA 0:50
Totally. Okay. So for people who don’t know you, which also like, come on, how do you not know the one and only Jess Campbell? Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in the nonprofit world. How, what is this never ending story that you’ve been on?
JESS 1:04
Yeah. I mean, I, like a lot of people listening, spent.
Decades in the nonprofit sector, raising money. I say I’ve raised money at startups, itty bitty, teeny weeny. I was first paid employee type shops to like Human Rights Watch in New York, which raises hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And, um, totally had my world flipped once I had my child. I really did think I was going to be one of those people.
People that was like, Oh, and I can’t wait to get rid of this kid, like send them off to daycare and I had the opposite reaction. So I had to make a pivot and a pivot quickly. My, um, baby is now seven. So I’ve been running out in the boons for a while now and the name. Spun out of a conversation I was having with a long time executive director who Had been at his job for like 15 years and when I was consulting with him.
He was asking me Like fundraising one on one questions, you know Well, how do I treat them like making friends and how do I go up to them at the gala or how do how many more? Days until I follow up with them and I was like, holy smokes. No one has taught this man anything and then that moment I really I remember having like a Feeling like a physical feeling in my chest of, oh my gosh, this person is just all on their own.
They’re out in the woods. They’re out in the boonies by themselves. And just, I never wanted a fundraiser to feel like that. So the name of my company is out in the boons. It’s because I don’t want anyone feeling like they have nowhere to go, nowhere to turn, nowhere to learn. And in the evolution of my business, I’ve just really doubled down on all things, email.
I think email is your most powerful marketing channel. I will die on that hill. Rhea knows this. I am like. And that’s what I help people do now is raise money and find donors in their email list.
RHEA 3:06
And you and I have talked about this, like, same, same. I started my thing, 301 Consulting and the Fundraising Accelerator because I like you.
Google does. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing, let me Google it. And it’s terrible. It feels terrible. Thank God for Google. Right? Like, I was Google University. What? How do you fundraise? Um, so yes, I love all of the things. Let’s talk about email. So I’m out here, and I’m like, Jess. Email is dead, right? Here we are, we’re being told to be on social media, do dances on TikTok, YouTube, etc, etc.
Why have you doubled down on email? Make the case for me.
JESS 3:47
I have doubled down on email because it works. So, This is for me. This is for my clients. I spent the better part of three years working my ass off on social media and being so incredibly burned out and tired that I mean, I couldn’t even look straight.
And it was when I started focusing on email that. The number I mean, the numbers just don’t lie. Um, statistically email outperform social 39 to 1. Um, email is something that you have control over. People are opting in. I always talk about social media. It’s like a drive by situation where in your inbox, people have invited you in.
So it’s going to be a way different type of. Behavior people use when they’re interacting versus just what they catch as they’re doing the swipe of the thumb. Um, also, you know, social, you just have no control and in the aftermath of pandemic. Online behavior, social media companies from LinkedIn to TikTok to Twitter to Instagram to Facebook are just messing with that algorithm and whether it’s a day where the thing just shuts down to like the day where they decide to show your.
Content to less than 0. 5 percent of your audience. You just have no control over that. And your email list is a whole different ballgame. You own that. If those things go away tomorrow, you still have your email list. And the last thing I’ll say is I want you, the listener to like, think of how you behave.
On email versus social. So you might catch something really entertaining on TikTok. Guilty. Like I am definitely guilty of the scroll. But I save my to do list, my task list for email. So I’m not making donations as I’m swiping my thumb, as I’m getting that dopamine hit on Instagram. But I have a folder that I star with the things I need to, to do.
And That’s an email. And so if you think about that, where are you wanting to put your resources? Is that on the side of things that you, a, can’t control where B or B people are thumb swiping through, or in the bucket of where people are actually doing stuff where they’re actually creating a task, let’s get to do list.
Um, I’m going to pick email every day of the week.
RHEA 6:25
just a way devil’s advocate for a second. I’m sitting here, Liz Hammett. Running a small non profit. I only have so many hours in a day. Are you saying that if I have X percent of hours in the day I should be focused, what, 80, 90, 100 percent on email versus social?
What percentage are we talking about?
JESS 6:43
Yes. So, this is I love that you’ve asked me this question because this took me a minute to actually come to terms with. So like I said, for the better part of the last three years, I’ve been going hard on social. I’m talking like post a stories every day, five posts a week on multiple channels.
Like, Oh my gosh, the amount of content I’ve produced on social. And I was feeling really guilty about it. Like really guilty. And I, I don’t remember if it was you or someone else that’s in our peer mastermind that was like, well, you’re not doing it. Why don’t you just give yourself permission to not do it and see what happens.
And I have probably reduced the amount of content I’ve put out in 2023 by 80%. I just. Like I’m just tired. I’m too tired and I’ve committed to email. So come hell or high water, you will get an inbox, an email from in your inbox from me where you might not see me on social, at least like posting content.
And so, yeah, I would say that if you’re having to choose up, down, left, right, yes, no. Is it social? Is it email? I’m going to tell you to pick email every single day of the week. If you’re like, well, I can dedicate 70 percent to email, 30 percent to social, knock yourself out. You will see the results in email.
Every single time over social, I guarantee it. So yeah, I’m actually moving towards the stance of email. I mean, social optional.
RHEAÂ 8:17
Bold, bold, bold. Wait, and talk to us about an experiment that you ran. You did a launch and you did it fully on email, not at all on social. And did you see What did the revenue numbers say?
JESS 8:30
Yeah. I mean, if you all are listening to this and you, um, are on Ria’s email list, you probably saw, we just ran a black Friday sale, a ginormous collaborative. I posted one time on social, but I sent nine emails and we had almost 300 people purchase that item. Um, I do it all the time. I mean, like I said this year, I’ve really dropped the amount of social, um, especially social posts that involve selling, which can be compared to social posts asking for donations.
I’ve essentially stopped doing them because they don’t work and I reserve all of my selling for email.
RHEA 9:12
uh, bold. Well, the other thing that I will say, too, if we look at the younger generation, they are actually against social or they’re on social way less than, say, millennials are. So I think it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting evolution in the world of social.
And I think increasingly there are, legitimate concerns about these large social media companies and selling our attention spans, etc, etc. So, uh, it’s a bold statement. I’m into it. But let’s transition a little bit. So I think, uh, The concern a lot of people have about using email for things like, you know, campaigns or sales is, Oh my God, I don’t want to send too many.
They’re going to unsubscribe or they’re going to, they’re going to be annoyed or whatever it is. What would you respond to that? Is there such a thing as too many emails? I mean,
JESS 10:10
in my world, no, because I like email, but I also think that it’s really difficult to go from like zero to 150 in one. Campaign.
So, for example, if you’re an organization and you come to me and you’re like, I want help with email and I’m like, great. What was the last email you sent? And you’re like, April, I’m not going to suggest that you send, you know, like 14 emails in the next seven days. That would be. Obnoxious. Um, if you have been sending consistent, valuable emails regularly to your list, then you have a little bit more wiggle room to increase that cadence fast.
So you have to take, um, an inner look at what you’ve been doing. And I would say slowly turn the dial. In general, I almost never have an organization come to me that is emailing their list enough, and by enough, I would say at a minimum of once a week. Um, so that’s very, if you’re doing that, and doing that more than that, like, hats off to you, you’re doing a great job.
If you’re not doing that, I would. I would work to make that your cadence because it does it becomes tricky when you’re only sending an email a month or an email every couple weeks and then it’s campaign season and you’re trying to put like three emails and folks inbox on giving Tuesday and they’re like, wait, who is this again?
And like, I don’t recognize you. I always use the analogy of like, Bed Bath Beyond or Target, like those people are in my inbox every single day. Do I ever unsubscribe? No, because like, who knows, I might need that 20 percent off coupon or something. Like, they, I’m so familiar with them. They’re like my friend now that.
They don’t bother me. And so that’s why when they run a sale and they’re sending like three, four, five, six, seven emails in a day, it’s like, no big deal. I’m just so used to it versus I’ll get other companies. And I’m like, wait, who is this? Like, I don’t recognize you at all unsubscribe because you just bought my name off a list is actually my first assumption.
And so I would say. No, actually, the data says that on Giving Tuesday, folks who emailed more than once, and specifically folks who sent emails after 5pm, performed better. Most donors actually gave a late in the day donation. So if you’re over here saying like, Oh, I can’t send two emails on Giving Tuesday.
Sorry, Charlie, you missed out because those are the people that actually won the game. And I think that as you look forward to the next couple of weeks, I would be sending at least one email a week through the month of December with an increase of emails the last three days of the month with the increase on the last day of the year.
I am even encouraging people to send an email on like January 3rd just to get those last stragglers who just, you know, can never get enough reminders.
RHEA 13:10
love that. Okay, you said something that I think is really important that cannot be underscored strongly enough. Valuable emails. So I find that the mistake that a lot of non profits make, and I’m sure you see this as well, is that they send emails that are valuable to them as an organization because they’re asking for money or they’re talking about themselves, but how do we think about value for our readers?
What, what does that look like?
JESS 13:35
Yeah. Okay. This is so difficult for nonprofits and I’m not, I haven’t, I haven’t unearthed why, um, I think it comes from a place of scarcity, but I’m always Butting up against nonprofits who want to sing their praises, talk only about themselves, how good of a job they’re doing there.
I see so many organizations that are very reluctant to have any tension in their storytelling. And I want to be super clear, like tension does not equal being pervasive in your storytelling. We’re not trying to like tell the story of someone’s. Deepest and darkest traumas and like, that’s not what I’m talking about, but you do need tension in your storytelling.
And you also need to have a compelling reason for people to give. So if you’re over here, like, and we did this and we’re this great, and we’re the best and we never have any problems. Why would anyone feel like they need to help you out? Like that is so weird to me. And nonprofits do it constantly. And it.
Honestly, it gives me a bit of a migraine. And so when I talk about valuable emails, I want you to really think about the person on the other side of that email who’s reading it. So are you entertaining them? Are you telling them a story that’s either going to make them feel good, laugh, smile, feel related to?
Can you provide some information or education so is that you can share a recipe or maybe you’re a kids museum and you’ve got 12 ways to hide your elf on a shelf or um, maybe you are a food rescue organization and you have some new recipe like I want you to be generous in your email the way that you the reader would be like I’m sure everyone listening actually has this.
I’m sure that there are a couple people you get emails from that you look forward to. That you save, you covet, maybe you like are me and you save Saturday mornings with your hot cup of black tea and you sit on your big chair and you read them all. There’s probably people like that and I want you to work to become one of those emails that like people read because they get something from it.
RHEA 16:00
Yeah. And I also just want to underscore this point too about having a specific voice and a specific point of view. I mean, we’ve interviewed Mitch on this podcast and he talks about being pink Sherbert, right?
JESS 16:13
Isn’t that impressive? That’s so good for Mitch, yeah. Right?
RHEA 16:16
Like we’re all so afraid of offending that we’re all vanilla.
Well. Here’s the thing, vanilla doesn’t offend, but it, like, doesn’t really excite either.
JESS 16:24
Oh, it’s like beige. It’s like, I was thinking about that today.
RHEA 16:27
Beige. Yeah, beige. Like, like, I’ve never walked into a room and I thought, wow, this beige is really audacious. Like, this beige, this beige is really making a statement.
JESS 16:38
Yeah. Never. Never.
RHEA 16:40
Never once. And I, I just think about the fact that, you know, good marketing attracts great marketing repels and you have to be willing to repel people who are not your people.
JESS 16:50
It’s okay. Totally. Yes. And don’t be afraid of those unsubscribes. I mean, honestly, they are doing you such a favor.
Like, really, if I was to be forced to choose between an unsubscribe and someone just sitting dead on my email list for months and months. I’d rather them just unsubscribe because they’re pulling your open rates and all of your data down, down, down. The number of email subscribers you have on your list is honestly just a vanity number.
Like you can do amazing fundraising with very small lists and it’s more important that they’re opening and clicking and replying.
RHEA 17:51
Just go like, yeah. This is not going to happen. That’s fine. Okay. Wait. So let’s talk about the big question. So all of us on the listening, I’m sure I have thought about campaigns, gotten really excited, planned out the whole thing, written out the emails, blah, blah, blah.
And we send them out and we’re getting. Maybe not crickets, but we’re not getting what we thought we should be getting. So a couple of questions here. Number one, how do you set goals for the next year knowing that hopefully throughout the year you’ve been emailing your list, et cetera, et cetera. That’s question one.
How do you set realistic but ambitious goals for a campaign?
JESS 18:36
So you said something important because it really does matter the pre work. I’m like a crazy person around the pre work in the campaign. Like basically, that’s That’s the work. And then you sent some emails. So there are two buckets. Like if you haven’t done the pre work, you’re going to have more of an uphill climb.
And if you have done the pre work, it should be more smooth sailing. But specifically, how do you set your goal? I think it’s important to data. Set from the previous year, right? So if you raise 10 last year and you’re trying to raise a hundred thousand dollars this year, like what, like, where’s that money coming from?
I’m a really big proponent of pre raising 25 to 50 percent of your campaign before launch day. So if you haven’t met that threshold, you might want to adjust your public facing goal because. You’re working with a finite amount of time. And if you haven’t secured some pledges, that might be a bit ambitious.
Um, and then year to year, I think you have to really decide. So I have some organizations that keep it modest. They’re like, you know, we’re just trying to raise a little bit more, do what we did last year. I have some other clients that like, this is their 10 year or 25 year anniversary. And so they are going big and they have a really compelling ask.
Other clients are trying to achieve something very, very, very specific that requires a very specific amount of money. And so they are calling on people to help them achieve that. Financial goal to be able to achieve the impact they’re trying to make on the world. And so I think it’s not as simple as like, well, do what you did last year and increase it by 10%.
Like you could do it that way, but I would actually circle it around. What will this money do? What will this money achieve? And I think the more specific you can get, like, our goal is to raise 43, 000. Like, make it 43, 000, you know, instead of 50, 000 or instead of 40, 000. Um, and yeah, that’s, that’s how I would assess it.
Um, so it’s a little bit of history combing. It’s a little bit of how much you pre raise. It’s a little bit based on what it is this money will do in the world.
RHEA 21:04
also talk about other metrics, too, because obviously there’s a monetary goal of, yes, it is a fund raising campaign. And what other things can we think about, like new donors?
JESS 21:15
you know, retained donors, monthly donors, number of donors. How do we feel? Like, are we stressed out and burned out? Or are we cool, calm and collected? Yeah, there’s a lot of things that you can do.
RHEA 21:31
And how long would you recommend for the length of the campaign? Because I also know that people feel like if it’s too long, they get burnt out, they’re, you know, they’re sending out the same thing, people don’t want to hear from them, but if it’s too short, they don’t have enough time to actually build the momentum that they need.
And then statistically, we also know that people tend to come in at the tail end of a campaign. So how long, do you have an optimal length of time for a campaign?
JESS 21:55
Yes. So for end of year campaign season, I really do recommend campaigning from, let’s call it Giving Tuesday through the end of the year. And that might feel very long because that is like roughly four or five weeks.
But the truth is, is people give. All December long. They really do. And so I recommend a cadence of kind of a lot of emails surrounding giving Tuesday or leading up to giving Tuesday. Then an email a week through the rest of December with then turning up that dial the last week of the year. So probably an email every day, the last three days of the year with like two or three emails.
on December 31st. Um, for a campaign that’s not end of year giving season, a lot of my clients do like seven to 10 day campaigns, like kind of fast and punchy. Um, I know in January, I encourage all of my students and clients to try to convert folks who’ve made a gift of 500 or less into monthly donors. in January.
These are people that just gave to you. They are hot and They statistically do not retain very well, so they’re the best people to try and convert from that one time donor who might lapse next year into recurring giving. So that would be anywhere from like four to six emails in January, and you can decide over how many days I would keep it pretty short.
Um, so really, I know, nothing, I wish, there’s no black or white simple answers here, unfortunately. Everyone is unique.
RHEA 23:38
Right. Right. But what I’m hearing is it does have to be, uh, time stamped, like there, there’s a set amount of time to create some urgency.
JESS 23:46
Yes. Donors love an end goal, an end goal, an end date, completion.
We just love that as humans. So I’ve, yeah, I would, I would, I would mark a line in the sand. Okay.
RHEA 24:02
Let’s talk about. Great. What happens when a campaign does not go the way that you want it to go. So let’s just say, fictional, if you’re listening to this, maybe this is you, but it’s not you. You have a whole campaign, you went out on Giving Tuesday, it didn’t do what you thought it should do, or at least the goals, either monetarily or in terms of your donor response rate.
And I also know that there’s like this tendency to be like, well, it’s the economy, like people are responding to the economy. But the truth is like. There’s a lot of money out there and the economy, we know that people give even in tough economic times. So, how do we salvage this? Like, when this publishes, we’re in the first week of December.
We’re still in the game. We’re in like the
JESS 24:58
for not even I would say like, it’s not even halftime yet. Like we got time. We’ve got time people like, okay, we’re going to depress out. Okay. Yes. Yes. Okay.
So I have five things. I have five things. And, and this came up because I was over the weekend really knocking my head against the wall. Like what would I do if my campaign was underperforming or not performing? Forming like what would I do if I was a director of development trying to figure this out.
The first thing I would do is Look at your data. So how did your emails perform on Giving Tuesday? Was the open rate, the click rate, um, either I, it doesn’t need to be astronomically amazing because it was a very competitive Giving Day, but if it’s really, really, really low, I would take a serious look at your subject lines.
Are they compelling? Are they curiosity inducing? Do they have an emoji? preferably at the very front. Are they capturing people’s attention in their inbox? I would take a real hard look at that. Um, I have a template membership and I put, um, an email template in there called the shortest email template ever.
And the subject line of that email was this email only has 41 words or this email only has 28 words. This email, you guys performs chef’s kiss. Every single time because people are always like, what are these 28 words and inside the email is like, please make your donation today. Like it’s nothing. Yeah.
RHEA 26:32
Can we back up for a second? Yeah. What kind of numbers are we talking about here? Because you said, if I look at my open rates or if I looked at my click, click through rates, like what?
JESS 26:43
What’s my bed? What are those? Yeah. So, um, maybe we can link this in the show notes because, uh, neon one actually has a really fantastic email report that they did last this year, earlier this year, and they have a specific giving Tuesday report, um, and it assesses organizations based on your list size.
So is it a small list, which they consider under 1000? Or big list, which they consider above 1000. I think the average across all nonprofits is like a 28 29 percent open rate. And I want to say it’s 2. 3 click through rate. But those numbers might Be off a little bit. And really, it depends if you’re a small or large organization, um, I would say I’m giving Tuesday.
Your numbers might be lower than that. Just because I mean, I don’t know about you, Rio, but I had like 108 emails in my inbox asking me for giving Tuesday donation. So it’s not like an apples to apples comparison compared to like a regular Tuesday. Um, but I would say. I would say those are kind of baseline parameters.
So around 30 percent open rate, around 2 percent click rate is anything above that you should be feeling,
RHEA 27:56
feeling good. Well, and I think you said something really interesting because I think our tendency is to look at the open rate, but actually click through it is probably a better indicator of engagement, is it not?
JESS 28:08
Yes, especially with the wonderful update, the iOS update of 2022, 2021, I can’t even remember at this point, it basically falsifies open rates and not to get into, like, a huge Explanation. But if a person has an iPhone and they have the email icon on their phone, like on mine, one of my bottom four is that like envelope looking icon that counts as an open whether or not you open that email.
So your email rates are probably higher look like in your they’re reporting higher than they are. Actually are, which is why your click through weight is a much more accurate indicator of engagement as well as replies. I’m a big fan of asking people to hit reply and then them actually replying to your email.
Um, That’s another good one. If people are replying.
RHEA 29:07
Okay. So let’s get back to you. So look at our rates. If it’s below 30 percent and below 2 percent click through, we should probably look at our subject lines. Yeah. What’s the second thing we can
JESS 29:17
do? The other thing I want you to do is. assess the sender.
So are you sending it from an organization? Are you sending it from a person that people really recognize? Um, I have a blog post going out where I screenshot an email I got today from Scott Harrison, the CEO of Charity Water, but the way it came through my inbox looked like he was sending me an email.
And I was like, I’m gonna open this. And of course it was an appeal. Um, but it just, it was from Scott Harrison, not Scott Harrison charity water like it looked like it was from him. Um, but maybe, so you need to assess who’s the most recognizable person at your organization is that the CEO and founder versus the director of development versus maybe a program staff member.
I would assess that because it might just be getting missed because people are like, I don’t know who this is when really they do they just don’t recognize the sender.
RHEA 30:19
Yeah, well, and I also just want to double click on this, like anybody who has an email address that’s like director at whatever, or, or executive at whatever, like, that’s not a real person to me.
That should be changed immediately.
JESS 30:34
Yes, yes, for sure, for sure. Okay.
RHEA 30:38
Okay, number three. What do we do to salvage the situation
JESS 30:40
Yes. Okay, so I talked about it a teeny tiny bit, but non profits are historically, um, really, really, really bad at retaining donors. Especially donors who give 100 or less. The retention rate is like 18%.
Um, I think the average across all donations is 46%, which essentially means that for every donor you gain, you will lose more than one, which is just like such a bummer. And so I suggest sending, um, a version of a, we miss you email. I just wrote a template like this in my template shop. It’s for you to send to people who are either lapsed.
Donors or who are on the verge of lapsing. And what I want you to do in this email is send it a, through like a mail merge situation. So if you use Gmail or Outlook, you can mail merge. I want it to specifically recognize their first name. And their last gift amount, and this is important because we want our donor to feel like we see them, that this is customized and personalized, and then we want to wrap it in to the impact that gift was able to make.
And so if you’re kind of like, I don’t know what I would write in this email, like I said, I have a template shop that does this for you. It’s very fill in the blank style, but Refocusing on the people who have already raised their hand to you and said, I like you. I think you’re doing good work versus spending all of our energy just trying to go attract a brand new donor.
That’s going to be way more expensive and way harder to do versus just recapturing the people that we already have. Well,
RHEA 32:23
and like, let’s just talk about this for a second, because just this morning, I received a text from Doctors Without Borders. I’d made a gift a couple of weeks ago, and they just sent me a text to say, here.
Here’s a link to show you how we used your money. I was like, Oh, well played. I expect that they’re probably going to send me another appeal by the end of the year, but because they’ve warmed me up, I think I might be
JESS 32:46
open to that. Okay. I’m so glad you said this because this is one of the things on my list is text messages.
Yes. Perfect. Tell me more. Okay. So I don’t know about you. I’m not an, like a zero inbox girly or whatever that thing’s called. I currently have 2, 884 unread emails on
RHEA 33:06
my God. Just you say that and it’s like freeing. It’s like, anxiety for me, but please continue. But
JESS 33:13
I only have six unread text messages, only six.
And so I think text messages are a very, very, very powerful tool, um, to kind of break up the noise. On this like digital, like influx of messages that we have people read their text messages. And in fact, um, I just want to read it for you. I have a boonie. I call people in my community, my boonies and one of them.
Her name is Joe Ellis. She runs this amazing organization called make do based in Arkansas and She was just riffing with me on Giving Tuesday and she sent me her text message she sent to her donors and it was super simple like, you know, she specifically said what 22 does for her, for her organization with the link to make it easy peasy, which I thought was just so smart and she told me, let’s see, that she had like a, what was the rate?
I want to say she had like an insane like 38 percent conversion rate or something on these text messages because it’s like click done, you know, it’s just like right there. You’re doing it. And I was thinking like, man, everyone should do text messages. I will say you need to do them. One by one. Okay, and I say need.
I say need. There are tools out there in the world. I know some of our tech partners have like text messaging tools, but it’s very, very, very easy to get marked as spam when you use one of those, or you use like a Google number. I know specifically if you try and do a Mass text message through a Google phone number, it will mark you a span and won’t get sent.
So like Joe specifically sent those one by one by one by one. She did it to 50 people she was trying to recapture. It probably took her, I don’t know, 60 to 90 minutes. Um, I would say that that is a valuable use of 90 minutes. Um, so I think you have to assess. That like the process or the functionality of that, um, because if you’re going to do it, like, let’s do it.
Well, you know, we want it to actually get delivered. It’s kind of a waste of time if you do this work and then it gets shuffled into spam or junk or whatever. Well, and
RHEA 35:46
I just want to underscore this point, which I think is implied, but it’s worth saying is that you. Definitely want to make sure that you have permission to text message people and to email people because I find it so annoying when I get a DM from someone I’m like pretty sure I don’t know who you are and I don’t know how you got my My phone number.
RHEA 36:09
Yeah. So make sure that you have permission. So just with these five strategies, at what point are we also looking at our copy? Like, at what point are we like, well, maybe it’s just a bad email.
JESS 36:22
Yeah. So, I mean, this is again, um, has a lot to do with what you do in that warmup phase.
But since we’re talking about this. probably mid campaign. I would say that single story text based emails with one call to action are going to be your best performing pieces of communication. So that is not a lot of graphics. That is not like a bunch of funky text. It’s It’s something that is easy to read, it’s easy to navigate, there’s not a lot of choice.
You’re not like, donate to this, volunteer for that, RSVP to this event over here, and like, do all these things, like, no, no, no, no, like, it’s fundraising season, so make your links to your fundraising page. period. Um, as far as the copy goes, I mean, some just quick suggestions are right. Like you talk. So you want to be informal.
You want to be conversational and casual. You want people to feel like you are really on the other side of that computer screen. And so if it’s easier for you to like voice memo yourself and then transcribe it and like do some quick edits so that it. Goes on a page. Well, like, by all means do that. Um, and people really do like stories, you know, so I usually I’ll oftentimes start my email with a question.
That’s usually a really good hook or something a little controversial or something a little just spicy. Um, and then I kind of. Get into it. I will say like some most some of the most powerful words in copywriting are Because of you because is really a powerful copywriting word and you is a really powerful Copywriting tool and if you smoosh them all together Because of you, makes for a great subject line, intro to a story, all the things.
The last thing I’ll say about copy is don’t be afraid to put in a P. S. sentence. They’re often the most read line of anything. So if you just want to reiterate, like, what your call to action is in the email, go ahead and do that. Yeah. Talk about use yours. First names versus us, we, ours. Yep. I’ll do a lot of
RHEA 38:55
And if I can add something, I think there’s a very strong tendency to put everything in the kitchen sink in one email. Please don’t do that. And I think, I find this happens when you’re writing by committee. You have the ED, and the DOD, and the board, and everyone has to squeeze something in. It’s like, please Everyone, one email, one thing.
JESS 39:17
One. The power of one is real. Um, one story, one call to action, I’m not lying.
RHEA 39:26
Okay, so you keep referencing this template because I’m listening to you and I’m like, Jess. This sounds awesome. I am not a copywriter. I literally do not have space in my brain in the next three weeks To do all of the things.
How can you help us?
JESS 39:44
Yeah, so you are not alone You were like every nonprofit fundraiser on Planet Earth and I’ve been writing templates for folks for years. They are some of my most popular freebies and opt ins And then I launched a template shop and then I thought, you know, people really need something all the time.
And so I created this fundraising template shop membership. So for 11 a month, or 132 a year, which is less than 3 a template, you get a monthly Monday drop. So today’s Monday when we’re recording this, people got that We Miss You email template with instructions, with a loom video, so that they can go off and implement it in the next 7 to 10 days.
Um, but they range. So sometimes they’re cultivation emails, sometimes they’re donor survey emails, sometimes they’re appeal emails, sometimes they’re text message templates, sometimes they are social caption templates, sometimes They are, um, gratitude or Valentine’s Day. One of the most popular ones I did was one on, um, Halloween.
Um, and it was a warm up email and it was just something really plug and play for people to execute and people loved it. So it’s, it’s. It’s a way to save you time, which is your most valuable resource. And it’s at a super no brainer price for 11 a month and you get four templates a month. Um, and it’s just getting started.
So where I’m assessing now, like, do we make a Slack channel with it? Do we all these do other things? But right now it’s just literally like the templates and they’re working really well.
RHEA 41:27
So And if I buy the membership, do I get access to previous templates as well, or just the, the ones that you sent? You do.
JESS 41:36
Oh my god. No. And it’s cancel anytime. And it’s cancel anytime. So, yeah, I mean, in theory, you could go in there and just download all the previous ones and then say sayonara. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Which you could. Don’t. But you could. Um. But yeah, I am. I’m always, like, trying to assess. What my community needs 234 weeks in advance so that they can get the job done.
So it’s fundraising season. So for example, right this, the last couple of weeks, it’s been about giving Tuesday shortest email ever. As I explained the, we miss you one next week. I think I’m going to drop an email on how to ask monthly donors for a one time gift. This end of your giving season. I’m going to do an appeal strong email.
I’m at, you know what I’m saying? And then we’ll. Transition into like cultivation as we look towards January. All
RHEA 42:27
right, y’all. I don’t know. Maybe you are an expert copywriter, but Jess is literally the best in the biz. There’s no better deal. What? 130 bucks. Take the 130 bucks that you would have used for shots at the end of the year.
And instead, sign up for Jess’s thing. It will save you much time. Much headache. Yeah. Many shots. Your liver will thank you.
JESS 42:51
Yeah, I, I hope so. I mean, that’s the feedback I’ve been getting so far, which is making me so pleased and happy. Um, I love nothing more than being resourceful for different organizations and saving you all time.
And even I’ve had people say like, even if they didn’t use the template exactly, it’s. Barked some ideas, pointed them in the right direction. It’s just so much better than starting with a blank page, you know, I mean,
RHEA 43:15
and for 130 bucks, I, there, I don’t, there’s no better deal. There is no better deal. I mean, like that’s half a trip to Whole Foods guys, All right. So we’ll make sure to put all of that information in the show notes, but if you are listening to this and you are. Looking at your end, when we’re publishing this, what, this is going to be the first full week of December 2023. You can’t afford not to get this template shop. So, listen to your friends, Jessica and Rhea.
JESS 43:48
Do yourselves a favor. Go raise the money. I mean, if there’s anything you’re leaving outside of this template shop, it’s like You still have so much time. There’s much time and there’s way time to course correct or pivot or add and you’ve got this like we are cheering you on so loudly. However,
RHEA 44:07
if you are listening to this December 31st, you don’t actually have that much time just to light a little fire into the buns there.
All right. Thanks. As always, we should, this is like an annual thing. We’ll do this over here. We’ll send the same thing. But, um, but thanks for all this and folks. Go raise some money. Happy end of year.
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