Ten Tips for Raising Money Through Email
WHEN YOU'RE TRYING to raise money online from your members, visitors, or other constituents, keep these ten tips in mind:
- Ask for money for special projects or other hot items, not for general support - and set a deadline. It's generally easier to raise money for something specific with a deadline than for institutional support. "Your gift of $25, $50, $100 - whatever you can afford - will help us get these families through the holiday season." If the gift is tax deductible, say so.
- Ask as many people as you can (without spamming). The more people you ask, the more gifts you'll get. If you don't have a big list, see if other organizations will send your message out to their members for you. In every email, use a "tell-a-friend" feature to make it easy for people to pass along the fundraising appeal.
- Make the "Ask" the main message in your email. While you may be sending a regular monthly e-newsletter and/or activist alerts to the people on your list, when you want money, don't bury the Ask in a longer message with other items - it won't get enough attention.
- Make sure recipients know (and like) the sender of your email. In the "From" line, use a celebrity or your President or Chair if that makes sense, or just use the name of your organization.
- In the "Subject" line, make sure it's clear why you're writing - and don't be deceptive.
- Keep the copy short and punchy, and give people links to the donation page within a few lines of the top. Repeat it every paragraph or so. (Some people get the idea and just want to click to the donation form.)
- Make sure the content of all your messages - fundraising, informational, activist - is interesting and useful to readers, not just to staff and board. Track clickthroughs, so you know what gets read, and send email surveys from time to time.
- "Ask" everywhere you can - on your Web site, in your emails, in the "signature" at the bottom of your email messages, and offline too.
- Build your list. Via every channel - meetings, events, parties, at the workplace, in your emails, and on your sites - ask people for their email addresses, so you can build your list. Put an email signup form on every Web page, and include a link at the bottom of every email.
- Test all components; To: and Subject: lines and various "Ask" amounts. Email makes it easy, quick, and cheap to test different messages. Good luck.
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