Fundraisers need to reach folks who will help their organization change the world. Email is an important channel to get out their message. But with industry email open rates hovering around 20%, that means a lot of untapped potential – simply because inboxes are slammed.
But, there’s hope!
Something really cool is happening at a number of institutions across the country. Teams like Cleveland State, Texas State, Bentley University, and the University of Southern Florida are celebrating email open rates above 75%.
So, what is the secret sauce to getting double or even 3x email open rates? In a recent conversation with Dana Alsamsam, Associate Director of Advancement Communications at MassArt, she gave us two things to add to emails that will guarantee higher email open rates.
Dana has overseen a lot of email campaigns at MassArt (like, a lot) – and she’s been analyzing what works and what doesn’t for years. The MassArt team recently sent out an email appeal that resulted in some incredible results. Think: doubled revenue, 10x ROI, and 5-figure gifts from long-lapsed donors.
Dana shared some key takeaways from this super-successful email campaign that any team can adopt. Let’s break down these two “musts” for boosting email open rates.
1. Personalization
Our EverTrue President Brent Grinna is well known for reminding fundraisers (and EverTrue employees!) to keep the Golden Rule of fundraising at the heart of everything we do. In other words: Treat donors like you would want to be treated.
When it comes to emails, that means that before pressing “send,” we should imagine the type of email that we would like to receive from our alma mater (or any non-profit). And, safe to say, we would all want to open an email that was actually written for us.
This makes sense, right? We want people to talk to us like we are people.
Personalization is the key here. Use any chance to personalize your emails – in the subject line, in the preview text, and in the body of the email itself.
“Even though the same video went to everybody, everything else about it was personalized to the person who received it in their inbox.”
Reflecting on how the team made the email appeal feel as human as possible, Dana notes that the email included personalization tokens like…
- First name in the email subject line
- First name in the body of the email
- Reference to the recipient’s relationship to the college in the body of the email (i.e. recent grad, alum, recent donor, parent, student, etc.)
Even though the same video went to everybody, everything else about it the email was personalized to the person who received it in their inbox.
The message here is to connect with your donors, human to human. Use personalization tags in your email merge fields! (You can send yourself a test email via ThankView to see this personalization in action.)
2. Video
If you’re unfamiliar with ThankView, EverTrue’s donor video platform, you may be thinking, “Wait, aren’t email and video two different communication channels?”
Fair question, and, sometimes, the answer is yes. But there’s so much magic when they’re combined.
In MassArt’s super-successful “Art is for Everyone” email campaign, the team used ThankView to record a quick, authentic, heartfelt video from students and faculty. Then they sent the video right from ThankView to donors’ email inboxes. (You can watch it here.)
The team opted to include an animated gif of the video in the body of the email (like the one above) and the email text right above the gif was super short. This means the first thing someone would see after opening the email would be the smiling, waving face of a happy student.
Who wouldn’t click on that?!
Dana points out that the team included a ‘play’ button on the gif (makes that “call to action” much more actionable). AND they added the word “video” to the subject line.
“When there is the word 'video' in the subject line of an email and a 'play' button on an image, the engagement skyrockets."
And now for some ROI.
Thanks to personalization and the use of video, MassArt donors didn’t just open this email—they clicked, watched, gave, and even wrote back.
One long-lapsed donor who had never opened an email from MassArt before made a surprise $10,000 gift in response to the email. Another simply replied, “This made me proud to be part of this community.”
Unrestricted revenue nearly doubled from the previous fiscal year, and the ROI of the appeal skyrocketed by 10x for every dollar spent, compared to previous print appeals.
“This email was different. Something about this made him click on an email when he had not clicked on emails from MassArt in years.”
Takeaways
If your email open rates could use a boost, use these pro tips:
- Share a video via email (we recommend using ThankView, of course).
- Personalize the subject line with the recipient’s first name.
- Add the word “video” to the subject line.
- Personalize the body of the email.
- Add a “play” button to the video image or gif.
Tune in to Dana’s episode of the EverTrue Innovator’s podcast:
How MassArt Replaced Print with Personalized Video, Cut Costs, and Doubled Giving
