Over the last month of shelter in place, I’ve been observing the emails coming through my inbox. Though there have been some that were tone deaf or inappropriate for the current environment, there have been many that were well-crafted and memorable. The ones that have stuck with me were short, [...]
Our Ask An Expert series features real questions answered by Claire Axelrad, J.D., CFRE, our very own Fundraising Coach, also known as Charity Clairity. Today's question comes from a fundraiser who isn't happy with their email click-through rates. Dear Charity Clairity, I’m noticing our click-through rate for our year-end campaign [...]
Our Ask An Expert series features real questions answered by Claire Axelrad, J.D., CFRE, our very own Fundraising Coach, also known as Charity Clairity. Today's question comes from a fundraiser who needs help writing a subject line for their email appeal. Dear Charity Clairity, I’ve got a great email appeal, [...]
Email solicitations continue to be effective, accounting for 28% of all online revenue (Nonprofits Source). However, the average office worker receives over 120 emails per day (The Radicadi Group), so how do you cut through the clutter? As a former development team member myself, I’m much more critical of solicitations [...]
Effective communication with donors and prospects is critical to your organization’s success. This can take the form of vehicles like written mail, face-to-face or phone conversations, electronic communications, or any combination of these. In fact, campaigns that use direct mail plus one or more digital media component like email have [...]
Think about how you get more people to open a direct mail piece. It begins with the outer envelope. It really doesn't matter what's inside, if people aren't moved to open the envelope. The same holds true with an email appeal. In this case, your email envelope is the subject [...]
Digital communications are essential for robust fundraising strategies today. Everything from your emails to your social media posts, blogs to live video streams, how you communicate with your donors and the community at large is becoming increasingly just as important as your message itself. Email is generally the most important [...]
Many nonprofits spend oodles of time developing their direct mail campaign. From theme… to text… to visuals… to design… to who the letter will come from… to envelope teaser copy… to type of stamp… to when the campaign will drop… to how many times you’ll mail… to how you’ll segment [...]
Have you ever found yourself talking back to your television? Or when an annoying ad unexpectedly starts playing on a webpage, do you start asking it questions, like “Why! Where did you come from?!” Even though you know it’s not going to answer you? I know it’s not just me. [...]
It's "newsletter." Let me preface this post by saying that if you send out a recurring (weekly, monthly, etc.) email newsletter and it has the word "newsletter" in the subject line and you're getting amazing open rates, no need to run out and change everything you're doing. Why say no [...]
In 2016, I received 40 email solicitations on Giving Tuesday from a mix of orgs I had given to previously and ones I had never given to (but engaged in some other way with). In 2017, that number rose to a whopping 83 through the normal course of interacting with [...]
If you're like anyone with an office job, you're probably going to write dozens of emails today to an individual recipient. Mix in a few personal emails, and you'll quickly find that a large chunk of your day is spent crafting the subject lines for those emails; subject lines intended [...]