With new rules for bulk senders coming down from Google and Yahoo this year, more non-profits are beginning to pay attention to a long overdue topic -- email deliverability. It may not be as exciting as the latest social trend, but given that email is the best direct response channel on the internet, it's a topic we all need to care more about.
If you're not sure what 'email deliverability' entails, here is the simplest way to understand it courtesy of Campaign Monitor: email deliverability is the ability to deliver emails to subscribers' inboxes
Now you might be thinking, "We have an email list so of course we can deliver emails to subscribers' inboxes!" Not so fast, my friend. Let's talk about why delivering emails is not as simple as you might think.
Email Deliverability Basics for Non-Profits
Deliverability is comprised of many factors including:
- Too many subscribers marking your emails as spam
- High bounce rates
- Single opt-in (double opt-in is the gold standard)
- Making it difficult to unsubscribe (I have marked a few senders as spam after making no less than 5 attempts to get off their lists and still receiving emails)
- Bad hosting record setup and authentication
- Using a free domain email address (think @gmail.com)
- Lack of subscriber engagement with emails
Lately, many of the conversations about email deliverability have been about the more technical aspects including hosting records because those are some of the new rules Google and Yahoo have rolled out. Those are important things to make sure you have squared away and frankly, they are the easier boxes to check when it comes to improving your email deliverability.
What's missing from our conversations these days is the long-term email deliverability strategy of content subscribers actually want to receive and engage with.
What Email Subscriber Engagement Means for Non-Profit Email Deliverability
Every time a subscriber opens an email and clicks on content, that subscriber is telling their inbox service provider (eg GMail) that this is a sender they trust and like receiving content from. In GMail's robot eyes, this makes you a reputable sender and contributes to a positive sender reputation and ultimately good email deliverability.
But here's the thing - most non-profits aren't planning their email content with this in mind and that can become a problem.
If a subscriber starts to receive content that isn't interesting to them, they stop clicking and eventually, they stop opening. They become an inactive subscriber. Inactive subscribers are just a fact of email programs. We cannot 100% avoid them.
But what if instead we shift our email content strategy to one that tries to strike a balance between what subscribers want and what our non-profit wants? Maybe it's a pipedream, but it's what I do for our email fundraising clients.
Creating Email Content Subscribers Can't Wait To Read
The best way to know what kind of content is working for your email list is to look at your analytics regularly. Here are some questions you can ask of your data:
- Are there emails that had lower-than-average unsubscribe rates?
- Are there emails that had higher than average unsubscribe rates?
- Are there emails that had lower-than-average click-through rates?
- Are there emails that had higher than average click-through rates?
By examining the answers to these questions, you can start to find that sweet spot of content your subscribers like and content that helps you meet your goals.
Case Study: The Difference Quality Email Content Can Make
One of my email fundraising clients, BC Women's Health Foundation, has a goal of marketing its legacy giving program. This year we are assisting them with creating content for their email list that drives traffic to their legacy giving landing page and increasing inbound inquiries about legacy giving.
In the past, they had sent informational emails during awareness times like "Make A Will Month" with information about how to make a will and leave a philanthropic gift in a will. This content performed on par with other emails they'd sent, meaning it wasn't bad but it also wasn't a smash hit.
This year we decided to focus on marketing legacy giving donor stories. The emails contained a short preview of the story with a call to action to read the story on their website. This email had a consistently good open rate for the list, but the click through rate was 1% higher than list average.
This a huge improvement from past legacy giving marketing emails and a clear indication that this is content subscribers enjoyed receiving. But without an eye for data, it would have been hard to identify this win and leverage it as a strategy.
In a recent conversation with one of our email fundraising coaching clients, I reminded them that we don't want to be creating content for content's sake. We never need to send an email just because always have on every Tuesday of the month. Instead, see this as an invitation to step back from our usual way of doing email to consider how we can better align what we say in email with our organization's goals and our subscribers' interests. That is how you start to build a long-term strategy for email deliverability through your content.
If you've read this far, you are awesome! Thank you! Here are a few more links to resources on non-profit email fundraising you may want to check out:
How To Write Fundraising Emails That Hook Readers
How to Plan Your Non-Profit's Stories for the Next 90 Days (a great post if you need some help with content planning)
Want an inside look at a million dollar email fundraising program?
Grab your copy of a case study from our client, Variety BC. You'll get to see exactly what it took to go from sending a handful of emails a year to regularly emailing supporters to build relationships and raise a ton of money ⬇️
