Presentation from National Religious Broadcasters Convention February 2010

1. Email Strategies That Work
Brad Davies
Director of Web Services
Dunham+Company

2. Overview
• Best
Prac*ces
and
Case
Studies
of
things
that
work
• Email
Execu*on
• Mul*-­‐Channel
Integra*on
• Web
Copy
Guidelines
• Landing
Pages
that
convert
• Social Media and Email intersection
• From
a
visitor
to
donor
• Acquisi*on
musts

3. Email

4. Effectiveness of Email
• Your
donors
and
customers
now
spend
more
*me
reading
and
sending
emails
than
watching
TV.
Source:
Responsys
10
Quick
Wins
for
Email
Marke5ng
• Providing
relevance
is
the
missing
ingredient
in
most
email
marke*ng
ini*a*ves.
• Relevance
=
right
message,
right
person,
right
*me.

5. From Lines:
• Send
emails
from
a
Recognizable
“From”
address.
• Subscribers
are
more
prone
to
open
messages
and
enable
links
from
organiza*ons
they
have
a
rela*onship
with.
• Use
your
organiza*on’s
name
and
a
valid
email
address
in
the
“from”
line
and
then
remain
consistent
in
each
mailing.

6. Subject Lines:
• Personalize subject lines.
• One test found a personalized email achieved a
22% open rate, compared to a non-personalized
email at 16.9%.
• Email Makeover: 7 Email Optimization Tactics to Boost Revenue; MarketingSherpa.com
January 2010.

7. Mail Chimp
Subject Line
Analyst

8. Preheaders
Add a preheader that
supports your subject
line.
Make sure your
headline and your
button copy work
together.

9. Preheaders
Add a preheader that
supports your subject
line.
Make sure your
headline and your
button copy work
together.

10. Button Copy
Calls to action must be
meaningful, concise links that
tell your visitor where they
are going and why they
should go there.
Avoid cliches and over used
links like:
“Read More,” “Click Here,”
“Submit,” “Donate Now.”
Replace them with something
persuasive, use an imperative
verb and an implied benefit.

12. Source: Future Now: www.futurenowinc.com

13. Increased click rate of 27%

14. Integrating Multiple
Channels
• The future of email marketing will involve its
coordination and integration with other data
and channels. Marketers using email as a hub
for other direct marketing spokes are more
successful than marketers using email as a silo.
Mailings that integrate with other data and use
targeting tactics are four times more effective
and efficient than mailings that use broadcast
tactics.
JupiterResearch Report “The Road to Relevance”

15. When to send Emails
• Send them when they are most likely to get
opened.
• Mail and email delivered on the same day can
lift your response rate above 10%.
• 98% of consumers retrieve the mail the day it
is delivered, and 77% sort through it
immediately.
Ray Chin, Gray Hair Software, DMNews Email Marketing Guide

16. Value of integration
Research done by Convio

18. Donors with
online
interactions are
significantly more
valuable than
those without.
Offline-only
donors receiving
email are more
than twice as
valuable life-to-
date as offline
only donors not
receiving email.

19. Writing for the Web

20. Web Copy Guidelines
• You probably have 8 seconds before half of
your Web traffic drops off your page, so the
most compelling copy should be strategically
placed to grab interest.
• The presentation of words through text
size, font type, emphasis (bold, italics,
underline), color, and location can make an
incredible impact on response.

21. Web Copy Guidelines
• Know your audience:
Are these donors?
Major donors?
How did they come onto the file?
Will they get the direct mail appeal?
• Tailor your language with words that strike a
chord with your audience base.

23. Web Copy Guidelines
• Ask yourself, “So what?” before you send each
email.You need to be able to answer “Why do
I care?” “What do I do about it?”
• Tailor your language with words that strike a
chord with your audience base.
• Be Clear, Concise, and Consistent. Visitors
want quick, digestible information.
• Multiple calls to action and unrelated
information on your web pages may cause
confusion and can distract your visitor from
the main objective.

24. Web Copy Guidelines
• Reduce Reading Burden.
• Highlight key words or phrases with bold
lettering or alternating coloring. Increase font
sizes and place key text in a more prominent
position on the page so it’s easy to locate.

26. Test and
Change
Use different templates,
try not to get stuck in a
rut. Keep things fresh.
Audiences may react
differently to the same
message delivered in the
varied formats.

27. Test and
Change
Use different templates,
try to not get stuck in a
rut. Keep things fresh.
Audiences may react
differently to the same
message delivered in the
varied formats.

33. Landing Pages

34. Landing Pages
• Avoid distractions.
• Don’t put full site
navigation and links
on a landing page
that will encourage
visitors to abandon
the page.
• Create a cul-de-sac.

35. Landing Pages
• Use color. Colorful, high-contrast donate buttons work
better than grey buttons.
• Amnesty International saw a 25% increase in their
conversion rate when they went to a red submit button
compared to a grey button and a 29% increase when
they used a red “Donate Now” button compared to a
grey “submit” button.
Source: Perfecting your Page: Can donation page optimization boost online giving? May 9, 2008 Donor Digital www.donordigital.com

36. Landing Pages
• Color does matter
Source: Perfecting your Page: Can donation page optimization boost online giving? May 9, 2008 Donor Digital www.donordigital.com

37. Landing Pages
• Remove unnecessary fields from the
personal information form (“title” or
“suffix”).
• Amnesty International saw a 31% increase in
their conversion rate when they removed
the “title” and “suffix” fields in their donor
information form.
Perfecting Your Page: Can donation page optimization boost online giving?
Donordigital, May 2008.

38. Landing Pages
• Horizontal gift string layouts performed
significantly better than the vertical giving
string layout.
• Amnesty International USA found a
horizontal gift string performed 21% better
than the vertical gift string.
Donordigital, Landing on Gold, Optimizing your donation landing pages to
increase giving: a bright spot in a tough economy. April 2009.
www.donordigital.com

39. 21%
Increase

40. Landing Pages
• Supporters with no giving history respond better to
more conservative gift string values, e.g. $35 to $250,
than wider range gift strings, e.g. $35 to $1,000.
• A donation page with a conservative gift string had a
15% better conversion rate than larger ones. The
conservative string also brought in 1% more revenue
than the page with broader gift strings. Average gift
was 13% lower, but that is to be expected.
Donordigital, Landing on Gold, Optimizing your donation landing pages to increase giving: a
bright spot in a tough economy. April 2009. www.donordigital.com

41. Landing Page
• To solve the problem of too many unqualified
leads vs. creating a complex lead form with
dozens of questions, create a two-part lead
form.
- On the first page ask the minimum amount of
questions possible to have a visitor become a
lead.
- On the second page ask several more optional
questions that will better help qualify the lead.
Make sure the content is saved from page one
to page two.

42. Two Page
Form
Premier Christian Radio
Promise to Vote Campaign

44. Email and Social Media

45. Email and Social Media
8 Steps to Getting Started
1. Determine your goals and objectives for
email campaigns and Social Media Marketing
(SMM).
2. Determine who will be the owner of your
social media efforts.
3. Create methods for measuring your progress
towards goals.
4. Spend time listening to the conversations on
your target social networks.

46. Email and Social Media
5. Start participating in conversations on those
social networks by providing value-added
comments, suggestions, and information.
6. Find ways to encourage your social network to
opt-in to your email lists. Free newsletters,
create surveys, have free offers, ect.
7. Measure.
8. Optimize and repeat.

47. Share with your Network

48. Email and Social Media
• Social Media Marketing adds valuable
functionality to email.
• Using free SMM widgets increase the
“shareability” of your email message.
• Posts or Tweets about your relevant email
marketing content across your social networks
encourages fans/followers to repost on
LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.
• Share with your network is the new forward to
a friend.

49. Conversion Process

50. Conversion
• Conversion = # of visitors who take the
desired action divided by the total # of site
visitors.
Where do you start?
• Reduce friction first, then focus on
persuading more traffic to get further along
in the process, then go get more traffic.

51. Conversion
• Most ministry sites are lead-generation sites.
Your lead generation is your check out
process.
- Average conversion rate is: 2% - 4%
- A rate of 5% is outstanding
- Above 10% is reason to celebrate
Responsys, What 90 percent of Marketers Don’t Do - But Should.
www.responsys.com

52. Conversion
• Conversion page can not just provide
information, it must clearly guide visitors to a
particular action.
• A page that cannot clearly guide users promotes
unsupervised thinking and reduces the
likelihood of completion. Increasing clarity for
the user increases click-through and conversion.
No Unsupervised Thinking: How to increase conversions by guiding your audience.
Marketing Experiments, 2009

53. Conversion
The three reasons why leads fail to convert
1. They don’t understand the value they get in
exchange for giving their information.
2. They are informationally challenged and collect too
little, too much, or incorrect information.
3.You haven’t established trust and set proper
expectations of what to expect when doing business
with you.
Bryan Eisenber “Three reasons your visitors don’t convert to leads.” Grokdotcom 25 April
2008.

54. Conversion
Include a link to
view a sample
email from your
organization.
People want to
see that the
emails you send
are going to be
valuable to them.

55. Welcome Series

56. Welcome Series
• Constituents who went through a welcome
series process had a 15% higher first gift, than
those who did not go through the process.
• First time donor conversion is 83% higher than
the control group of supporters.
• Rate of conversion from subscribers to activist
increased by 110%.
Common Knowledge, Case Study for International Fund for Animal Welfare. An
integrated email program will take the initial touchpoint into consideration when
creating its email messages.

57. Welcome Series
• Online customer affinity is typically highest for
the first 30 days after the customer opts in.
• During this “honeymoon” period, the customer
typically has a strong and favorable opinion of
the company, and a stronger propensity to
engage with the company.
• This online high affinity phase is characterized
by the new subscriber demonstrating higher
email open rates, higher click rates, and higher
conversion rates.

58. Welcome Series
• The first email a customer receives is the one
most likely to get opened and read, which
means that any un-targeted, irrelevant
messaging will result in a faster decline in
engagement.
• Include bullet points that address the question,
“What’s in it for me?”
• A good first impression is a necessity.

59. Acquisition

60. Acquisition
• The natural churn rate of your in-house list will
be 20-30% every year, even among loyal
customers.
Responsys, Best Practices Guide to Email Acquisition; www.responsys.com

61. Acquisition
Summary of Best Practices:
• Use prominent locations on home page and
landing pages to sign people up.
• Review the script of call center representatives on
the phone. Work to create incentives to gain a
caller’s email address.
• Keep the opt-in process short and painless to
complete.
• Set expectations up front regarding type and
frequency of email content.

62. Conclusion
• Execute the basics well.
• Small changes can make a significant
difference.
• Test - Measure - Change

63. Resources
• MarketingSherpa.com
• MarketingExperiments.com
• Lyris.com
• Responsys.com
• Futurenowinc.com
• Convio.com

64. Brad Davies
Director of Web Services
Contact me at:
Brad@dunhamandcompany.com