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Human beings are wired to pick up visual cues before we pick up textual ones. Social media and the internet love visuals too, because visual communication can travel quickly through networks and beyond the original linguistic group. We did a story on the MKCREATIVEmedia Blog last week about the eBenchmark study of 2012 by NTen and M+R Strategic Services that highlighted the ongoing importance of email outreach. What better way to follow that up than with their infographic showing the power of email.
We call your attention to such metrics as the fact that 35% of all online giving in 2011 came through email, whereas all other platforms together made up the other 65%. Therefore, email remains the single biggest tool in a nonprofit’s outreach toolbox, but it should not be considered the only tool. But how to be successful with email?
Email outreach should be simple and with a clear call to action. It also should be systematic and professional: develop a branded email that makes it visually identifiable as soon as it’s opened. Emphasize calls to action to engage your audience, and provide the necessary nuts-and-bolts that show you have met expectations and standards (like providing the ability to unsubscribe).
Here is a great video to get you thinking about your nonprofit’s next email campaign. It comes to us from DotMailer.org:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jst91gLzRHk[/youtube]
Even for the younger generation, email (probably through a mobile device) remains a critical part of information gathering and online social activity. Your nonprofit should be keeping up the emails, even as you develop your presence on the other social media platforms.
