88. Some Personal News (SPN)

Email Deep Dive - the flows, the why and the when

Feb 26, 2024

A very warm welcome to all the new subscribers. I’m thrilled to have you as readers and truly appreciate your feedback and support.

In this week’s SPN:

Data: it’s what you do with it not how much you have
What questions are you asking your data?
Email: deep dive —> which flows I’d set up and why
Are you running donor surveys?
Jobs & Opps

Let’s dig in!

Donor. Experience. Matters.

Fundraise Up allows you to automatically send good-looking, mobile-optimized emails and well designed PDF receipts when your Supporters donate or need to take action.

Customize your email templates, add translations, and send from your own Orgs domain.

Game-changer? It was for me.

Work Backwards from What Matters

One of the biggest challenges facing every nonprofit operator is connectivity in data. We have access to more data than ever before from brand tracking to performance metrics to digital donor journeys, donor analytics to loyalty or attrition.

Most of us catch too much data and get overwhelmed. For those that need the reminder, myself included - we need to ensure alignment on the metrics that matter and figure out what data triggers those metrics - work backwards from what matters, not forwards from what’s available.

Data is all too often presented in a siloed way, especially when you’ve got a brand agency, an agency just for social, one for paid media and one just for big campaign planning... By diving into very granular detail, down whichever rabbit hole one of these agencies wants to take you, we create more questions than answers for ourselves – and more often than not it’s presented without the important factors of the broader business of the Org, brand or donor insights.

Context is critical. Don’t operate or make decisions without it.

The trick is knowing the big questions to ask from the data. And then blending the analytics with other sources of market, historical and donor insight to confidently set the future pathway for any strategy. Only then is data meaningful and actionable.

Some Big Questions to Ponder:

What are our objectives? (the number of times this basic question has been met with blank faces when I’ve asked it is why I’ve put it here)
Who is our Audience, what motivates them?
What does their donor journey look like (vs the one we “want” them to take)?
What trends or patterns can we spot in donor behavior or donation cycles?
Which audience segments are translating to ROI?
How are external factors (e.g. election year, devastating earthquake) influencing performance?
How do factors such as donor satisfaction and engagement influence loyalty and reduce attrition?

Companies that sell digital targeting - Google or Meta, SaaS ad platforms or performance agencies - will promote more is more: the more data you have the more targeted the ad, the more relevant it becomes and the more effective it will theoretically be.

In theory this makes sense but in reality they’re not the ones holding the baton and crafting the campaign sitting across multiple teams in your seat at your Org, it’s a little different. Also, the more ads you have to make, the lower the quality of each ad, so getting the right balance is crucial.

Why aren’t we creating more “mini-stories” that are high craft AND targeted and relevant? It seems largely down to the legacy of time and budget: nonprofits and agencies haven’t been able to make more assets for the same budget. So what could change this?

How about Connected TV. The ability to target audience segments or personalize offers with the higher expected craft of the larger screen and in multiple versions has me salivating.

People were talking about Connected TV in the early 2000’s and only now is it starting to come to fruition. It certainly offers tremendous targeting and could be a game changer for your audience-first advertising strategy. I’d put it up there with the opportunity I see in Retail Media Networks (RMNs). While some peers are being slow to shift their systems and budgets in this direction I’m excited to jump in fast and maximize its potential.

One Closing Thought

Where agencies would do well to focus their energies is helping Orgs see the art in the (data) science. The halcyon days of Don Draper seem a long way away from “now” where creativity no longer pays, for agencies at least. But if agencies could create as much craft around their use of data as they do in their use of creativity they may find a new lease of life.

Jobs & Opps 🛠️

Amnesty International: Head of Data, Digital and Technology Transformation

Cystic Fibrosis Canada: Chief Development Officer

Women Moving Millions: Chief Philanthropy Officer

St John’s Ambulance: Head of DevOps

Save the Children (UK): Director, Data, Analytics & Insights

Deep Dive: Email Flows

Email marketing is retention but with some audiences it can also be a very powerful donor acquisition channel. In response to a much engaged with SPN 73 where I dissected what was both efficient for your Org and a better experience for Supporters, I wanted to take today’s email to go super deep into the world of Email. We’ll save the rest for another Sunday!

No matter the size and stage of your nonprofit, here are the 12 essential email flows that you need to implement or refresh ASAP for your Org.

I’d also set them up in this order:

Step Zero: The Perfect Pop-Up

As I’ve said many times before, the very first thing that every Org needs to do is create a valuable email pop-up on their site. Literally every single dollar that you spend on paid traffic that’s not helping you convert visitors into contactable potential donors (aka emails and phone numbers) is an unoptimized dollar spent.

You absolutely must be trying to get your site visitors information every time they visit your site (and then you can exclude them from the pop-up after they opt in). Once you have someone’s email (and/or phone number or both) you can remarket to them with new campaigns and Match offers forever (or until they unsubscribe) with high degrees of deliverability.

When it comes to crafting the perfect pop-up, here’s what I like to see.

1. Capture the visitor’s name, email, and phone number. You want their name for email customization and you want both their email and phone number so that you have two ways to contact each subscriber.

2. Lead with a valuable proposition. This could be a Match offer, a gift with a monthly pledge commitment, or something else. Get creative. Remember: emails and phone numbers are a form of currency to your Org. Make sure that you are offering a fair trade!

3. A lead magnet/educational resource. The other approach I like is to ask the visitor to trade their email and phone number for a really valuable piece of educational content. Consider an Impact report where you share compelling numbers and imagery from your mission in action.

An Absolute Must Email

I’m going to return to the Welcome Flow in a second (i.e the series of emails you should receive just after someone subscribes via your pop-up or 1-2 minutes after they make their first donation even if they didn’t subscribe via your popup.

BUT, before I do that the only other email that you absolutely NEED and that’s even more important than the Welcome Flow is:

The Post-Donation Confirmation Email

Anytime someone donates, they should receive a branded email from you immediately that includes:

A Thank You Note! Start with a thank you message. Bonus points if you include the donor’s name.
Donation Details: i.e a summary of the donation amount, dedication details, product names, quantities, the total cost.
Transaction Number: i.e the unique identifier for the donation or purchase, which is important for any future communication or donor service questions that might come up.
Estimated Delivery Date: An approximate date when the donor can expect to receive their order if you’re sending a product, and confirmation of the address where the order will be shipped.

The Welcome Flow

Ok, back to it - this is the Welcome Flow that subscribers should get via your pop-up or after they make a donation. If you want to take it up a notch, build different flows for each cohort. You need at least some version of this for both to start.

The welcome flow is a hugely important, and for many people it’s the main, introduction to your Org. New subscribers have just given you permission to pitch them on why they should donate to your mission… think of it as your Shark Tank pitch, but for your subscriber’s inbox.

Welcome Flow → 5 emails:

Email 1: Introduce yourself to them

- This email is you introducing your Org, sharing its background and reason to exist, and showcasing some of your value props and attributes - you need to cover the basics.

- Timing: Send this ASAP after someone subscribes on your site OR immediately after they make their first donation even if they didn’t previously subscribe.

- Content: Include a warm welcome message, an introduction to your Org story, and what subscribers can expect from your emails (i.e., program updates, program or impact guides or reports, invites to online fundraisers or community groups etc.).

Email 2: Lead with a donation ask

- Here’s where you explain why you deserve a donation aka, you speak more about the benefits of what makes you unique or why you’re best positioned to deliver on your mission.

- Timing: 48 hours after the welcome email.

- Content: Test a light Match or product discount (or something as simple as free shipping depending on your Org).

- If you use any type of code, make it something easy to remember for later (i.e., DONATE5 or FREESHIP).

Email 3: Show off the mission:

- Timing: 72 hours after the second email.

- Content: Highlight one or many of your programmatic areas of focus. Include beneficiary testimonials, donor quotes, social proof, and reiterate reasons to donate.

Email 4: Bring out the receipts:

- Timing: 72 hours after the third email.

- Content: Bring all the social proof: share your best donor reviews, UGC, influencers who have posted, press coverage snippets, how proud it makes your Mum that you’re a monthly pledge donor, etc. If they haven’t donated yet, this is the email you want them to convert on.

Email 5: Give them a last chance:

- Timing: 1 week after the fourth email.

- Content: Include a compelling call-to-action to get them to donate. Talk about what the Org is known for - share your best known program or hero product, show them what impact looks like, and add more social proof.

Let It Run!

Of course you can test whether leading with a donation ask in 2 vs mission-focused in 3 performs better. It’s irrelevant if you’d prefer email 3 first over email 2 or vice versa. Turn your preference into a hypothesis and test it with different audiences. You’ll likely find that people from different geo’s at different times on different devices etc. are more receptive to one than the other.

Having this setup properly means that you can drive donations in your sleep, which is the ultimate goal of any fundraisers.

It will take a few days (or probably weeks) to workshop the copy and design of these emails and perfect these flows. Still, this alone can dramatically increase your engagement and fundraising revenue without you having to spend another second convincing someone to donate.

It’s all automated and once you build it, test it, and realize that it’s working, it can just run!

Emails 6, 7, 8: The Abandoned Browse, Add to Cart, and Initiated Checkout Recovery Flows

The next essential emails to set up are called Win-back Flows, or I’ve always known them to be called this! Somebody else deserves credit for the naming. And your email platform can for sure help you automate these.

Also, fun fact about abandoned carts - plenty of sources on Google cited that more than 60% of all online donation carts are abandoned. That means that 6 out of 10 people who add a donation to their cart on your site bounce without completing it. That’s at least $1 Billion in fundraising revenue just kickin’ about the internet annually because of cart abandonment!

That’s why these flows matter!! Think of these win-back emails as part of 3 tiers.

Browse Recovery - you send this to someone who was browsing the site but didn’t go to donate.

Add to Cart Recovery - you send this to people who added to cart but bounced before donating.

Checkout Recovery - you send this to people who initiated the donation but bounced before completing it. Obviously every email will have slightly different copy based on which tier it is.

We’ve all experienced shopping online and received abandoned carts and/or abandoned checkout recovery emails, and you’ll likely receive a discount offer. You could test a Match offer in this scenario or double down sharing an Impact report or a piece of multimedia showcasing how impactful a donation could be to something or someone. At UNICEF we had tremendous success telling the “Journey of a Dollar” story. For users who just browsed, you don’t need to add a discount/match/asset. Just a reminder that prompts them to come back and donate.

Email 9: Post-Donation Upsell/Cross-Sell

The next email to add to your toolkit after the Win-back Series is the post-donation upsell email. In general, you can get pretty technical with your post-donation upsells based on data but the best practice is to send this 1-5 days after people make their first donation and again 2-3 weeks after if they don’t convert.

This can all be dynamic and 100% automated for you once you set up the flows. You just have to set up the “if this then that” triggers inside of your marketing automation platform to make it happen.

Email 10: Refer a Friend

After setting up your post-donation upsells, I’d look into adding a Refer a Friend email to drive more word of mouth. Turning your existing donors into affiliates is the fastest (and cheapest) way to scale an Org even without using paid ads.

The name of the game with referral programs is creating a strong enough incentive for someone to want to recommend your Org to a friend. Learning to message and communicate impact is one helluva skill. Once mastered you can get this flywheel working. For some Org’s it’s one of the most powerful engines for growth that exists today.

When it comes to refer a friend campaigns the 3 things that matter the most are explaining what your program is, what new referred Supporters get as a reward and what they as the referrer get in return.

This could literally be anything but these are the key elements that you have to hit.

The general strategy is to keep A/B testing incentives to learn what converts best and then ping your donors with variations of this email about your program every month until they refer someone. If you’re not already, do some math in your head. It’s a tasty prospect.

Email 11: Donor Surveys

The next email to hit is donor surveys (this could also extend to product feedback but it depends a little on the product and use) and you should send this email 2-3 weeks after your donation was received.

These emails/submitted surveys has proven incredibly insightful and had a hand in improving pre-post-donation and web experiences I’ve been responsible for. They also force everyone to go through each step we’re asking Supporters to take to sign up/donate/search for something, which is no bad thing.

You want to know: What and why did the donor like or dislike? What part of the experience could we improve? I like sending these as plain text emails with a link to the survey and a note from the Chief Development/Philanthropy or Donor Experience Leader. It just feels more personalized and typically has a higher opt-in/engagement rate from what I’ve seen.

Email 12: Holiday Campaigns

I’ll only briefly touch on these but after you’ve done everything else above, the last area to tackle (before going deeper and A/B testing all of these flows) is building out holiday campaign templates. You could do this on a quarterly basis or at the beginning of each year.

You want to think about and prep emails for the major holidays that are relevant to your Org or if you plan to run a Match campaign.

Segments

One big macro thing that I wanted to end with is the concept of segments. Within all of these campaigns, you should continue to experiment with segments and RFM: Recency, Frequency, and Monetary Value.

When thinking about segments, the smartest fundraisers I know typically consider these 3 things:

Recency typically refers to how recent a donor’s last donation was (it could also refer to when you sent them their last email).
Frequency typically refers to how frequently they donate.
Monetary value typically refers to how much they donated within a given time period.

Each of these are filters that you can segment by for more targeted marketing campaigns.

There are so many ways to segment subscribers but it’s all based on the concept of “if this then that.” You should also be segmenting based on general email engagement (i.e opens/clicks) and then excluding segments from new emails after they take the action you want them to take within any of these flows.

Segments are a complex but important topic so maybe I should write an SPN on this in the future. If you need help, you know where to find me.