The numbers don’t lie. According to a recent study conducted by ExactTarget, 77% of consumers prefer to receive marketing communications through email.
Email marketing has been around since the first email was sent in 1971, and while its effectiveness has been called into question in recent years, the truth is, email marketing is here to stay as a lead generator for years to come.
The problem many nonprofits run into, causing them to call email marketing's effectiveness into question, is they are unable to build a robust email list, filled with the email addresses of people who will be receptive to their message. And it’s true, cultivating an email list filled with individuals who are all interested in your nonprofit’s mission can be difficult.
But keeping with the age old mantra K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid), that proves pertinent even today, and keeping your nonprofit’s email net simplistic, your nonprofit could start building a colossal email list today.
And if you, or anyone else, ever questions the effectiveness of email marketing again, here’s another question for you to chew on, from Experian: For ever $1 spent on email marketing, the average rate of return is $44.25.
So how exactly do you go about increasing that email list? And how do I keep it simple? It all lies in the power of your nonprofit's website. It's safe to assume that the majority of the people who land on your website have at least a slight interest in who you are, and what you do. These are the same people who might not mind receiving the occasional email from your nonprofit. Here'
How to build your email list
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Know your landing pages, and ask
A landing page connotes the first page a web visitor sees when they land on your website. This is important because typically, a nonprofit’s website hovers around 2 pages views per visit. With that in mind, you need to ask for the email address on that initial landing page.
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Keep it short
Make it easy for your web visitors to give you their email address. No one wants to fill out 10 fields worth of information. An unobtrusive popup window with a short call to action message, and a field for the email address is just enough for the casual web visitor.
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Make it obvious
By unobtrusive, we don’t mean invisible. As long as the ‘X’ is intuitively obvious, your popup call-to-action can show in the middle of the screen, but showing up in the bottom right hand side of the screen works well, too.
