Email is the missing piece of your charity marketing

Come on a journey with me - this completely fictional charitable organisation that we’re going to call Mikes Meals for Meerkats sets up a TikTok account to raise awareness for their cause (free meals for meerkats - duh). Mike the owner of Mike’s Meals for Meerkats, has experience with TikTok and is really skilled in creating content that gets great reach (video views) and engagement (likes, comments, shares). In just three months their account has grown to 5k followers and some videos have reached viewing figures in the millions. The views are driving one time donations and Mike is able to bring on more staff and bring even more meals to even more meerkats. Then, suddenly things start to change. Mike notices the views dropping - TikTok seems to be putting their content out to less and less people. In just a week their views have halved. Mike tries everything: he posts more often, then posts less, then he tries longer videos, less meerkats more Mike, he even tries…. a TikTok dance (yikes). Nothing is working. The one off donations stop rolling in and Mike is left with a lot of stress and some sad meerkats. All because the TikTok algorithm changed.

Another completely fictional organisation, Chantelle’s Coffee for Capybaras, is also experiencing big success on social media. Her Instagram followers blew up almost overnight after Hugh Jackman posted about a recent trip to one of her coffee shops for Capybaras and tagged the charity, encouraging people to donate to the important cause. One time donations flooded in and, thankfully, Chantelle had previously set up an automated email sequence, thanking first time donors and inviting them to sign up to her weekly newsletter (which she was sending religiously, even when the subscribers had been a handful of volunteers and her mum). Just like Mike, after a while Chantelle noticed a shift in the Instagram algorithm and reach started to drop. Thankfully, her email community had over 3,000 engaged subscribers and so she continued to nurture those relationships and didn’t sweat it while she tested out different content on Instagram until she found her groove with the new algorithm and reach started to increase again.

Really, I could end this blog here and hopefully you would understand the point I’m trying to get across. But I’ll break it down anyway.

When you build your audience on a social media platform and you don’t send them on anywhere, you are taking a huge gamble. Who sees your content and when, is completely within the control of the social media algorithms - and those algorithms are not designed to support your organisation. Just because your content is performing well right now on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn etc, does not mean it will continue to perform well, next month, next week or even tomorrow. When the algorithm changes, there isn’t necessarily always something you can do to get back to where you were. Social media is rented space.

So, should you even bother with social media if the algorithm could just decide to take away your reach overnight? Yes! Social media is a fantastic way to drive awareness for your organisation and participate in conservations about the amazing work being done for your cause. Sure you could put hours into a reel following all the current trends and best practice recommendations for it to be seen by 10 people and 2 minutes firing up a blurry photo sent to you by a volunteer on site and experience huge engagement - but its one of the best places for reaching new audiences, creating conversation, encouraging supporter advocacy, and reminding people that you exist. The difference between Mikes Meals for Meerkats and Chantelle’s Coffee for Capybaras is that Chantelle had a strategy. The social media content was a way to introduce her organisation to new audiences and then move them along the line, bringing them a few steps closer to becoming long term supporters of the organisation. Often social media may be the first few touch points along the journey, but email can nurture that relationship for months, or years, to come.

If you have different touch points for different stages of a supporters journey you can tailor the content for each stage. When marketing a charitable organisation, there are often a lot of messages you want to communicate with a lot of different people: thanking volunteers; asking for new volunteers; encouraging one off, legacy and recurring donations; showing your impact; sharing the latest research related to your cause… the list goes on and on and on. If you’re trying to communicate all of that through one channel all at the same time, your message can become muddy and content can begin to feel like it’s for everyone and no one. With email, you can create separate lists for where people are in their supporter journey - you could have a list for people who have signed up to hear more but haven’t volunteered or donated yet, recurring givers, volunteers, beneficiaries etc - you can split it out whatever way it works for your strategy. This means you can tailor the messages you’re sending to the people who they are relevant to, rather than posting every message on your FB feed and hoping the right people see it.

For example if Mikes Meals for Meerkats had used his TikTok as part of a wider funnel for creating long term supporters their content strategy might look like this:

TikTok used for:

• Raising awareness of the hungry meerkats
• Sharing latest research and reports relevant to the cause
• Happy meerkats bringing joy to people’s feeds and keeping them coming back for more
• Encouraging community conversation

Email used for:

• Automated email sequence used to thank those who have made a one off donation, suggesting other ways they can support the cause
• Weekly newsletter with updates on specific meerkats and the positive impact the support has had
• One off campaign appeals - the ask in the email is tailored to the segment, eg those who have never donated invited to make a one off donation, those who have made one off donations invited to become recurring donors etc
• Important practical information sent out to volunteers (call out for help for events, information and changes to opening hours, thanking them)

With a content split like this, social media becomes the place of discovery and email becomes the place where relationships are built and nurtured.

If you’re someone who helps lead a charitable organisation and your main goals for this year are to grow your IG followers by 5,000 and go viral on TikTok - it might be time to rethink that strategy (and take the pressure off the person running your socials!). It’s not that these goals are ‘bad goals’ per se but what do these numbers translate to when it comes to success for your organisation? It certainly shows that a lot of people are going to know who your organisation is and (hopefully) all about the good work you do - but have you invited them to be a part of the story yet? I would argue that if you are going to set growth targets for your social media, there absolutely needs to be a target that runs along side that for growing your email subscribers. Your social media content might be the first few touch points on someone’s journey to becoming a supporter, but bringing them over to your email list is the next step in that journey to becoming a passionate advocate and supporter for your organisation.

However, one big fat caveat to say: good marketing builds community and building a community isn’t a liner process. Email is a fantastic opportunity to bring supporters deeper into the mission of your organisation, this should hopefully build advocates and, those advocates will end up right back on social media, engaging in conversations about your cause both on your own content and elsewhere on the platform. So make sure you are still present on social media - don’t post and ghost (another blog for another time perhaps?).

1. Start sending a regular newsletter

A weekly or biweekly newsletter might make the most sense for your organisation if there’s a lot going on and plenty to share but if you’re just getting started with regular email marketing I would recommend starting slowly with one a month (or maybe even once a quarter) and building frequency from there once you know you have the resources. This newsletter is an opportunity to encourage your audience to engage in journey, so storytelling and longer form content can be really effective here for developing the relationship compared to short and snappy caption style sentences. Where relevant, provide links through to various areas on your website and make sure if there’s anything coming up the audience can get involved in then you let them know.

2. Set up a welcome sequence

A welcome sequence for new subscribers who have signed up directly rather than signing up through making a donation or registering to volunteer. You might send 3 or 4 emails, starting off with thanking them for signing up, then highlighting the impact of your community (that they are now a part of just by signing up to hear more) and finishing with some more ways they can support (keep these asks relatively small and results focused, eg donate £5 to buy a meal for one meerkat).

3. Automated thank you emails for donations

This is SO important. If someone makes a donation through your website and hears radio silence after they hit that pay now button, you’ve missed a big opportunity. Set up an email (or series of emails) that automatically send to the donor over a period of time with the first email arriving in their inbox the moment they hit that ‘pay now’ button. Your email might be a personal, heartfelt thanks from the founder, it might highlight the various projects their donation will go towards or it might suggest next steps they could take such as becoming an advocate for the cause and sharing about you with their peers.

These are 3 small steps you can take to turn your list of dormant subscribers into an engaged community but there is so much more you can do with email. If you would like any help with your non profit email strategy I would love to help! I can help create a plan specific to your organisation, set up automated email sequences or write and send your newsletters.

One last tip before I leave you in peace and stop banging on about email and marketing strategies. Email is all about encouraging supporters to realise they are part of the community making change happen and nurturing those relationships. Therefore, it’s really important they can respond to what you have to say! At the end of newsletters or automated email sequences, encourage the supporter to write you back. You might ask a simple question and invite their response or you might just chose to highlight how glad you are they are part of the journey and invite them to respond and ask any question they might have or introduce themselves so you can get to know them. However you chose to encourage conversation is up to you, just remember communities are built through two way communication.