“When you open it, we want it to look like an email you would receive from a friend or family. There are no images or buttons. Just plain links and text. We want these emails to look like they come from somebody you know and trust.”
— John J. Walsh
Email fundraising is one of the easiest ways you can build a deep and lasting relationship with your donors.
And it remains one of the most cost-effective tools you can use to increase donor loyalty and revenue.
But most organizations struggle to acquire email addresses from donors or potential donors. And many don’t have a clear strategy on how to turn leads into donors.
One of the simplest ways to increase new donor engagement is to create an automated email welcome series that runs in the background.
And today on the podcast, John J. Walsh is going to show us how he and his team have created two very successful email welcome series we can all learn from.
John is the email marketing manager at a large Christian organization, where he’s in charge of sending out millions of emails every single month.
Listen along today as we hear how John tests, tweaks and optimizes his email campaigns with confidence.
Today we’ll cover:
- [3:16] – What it looks like to looks like to be the Email Marketing Manager at a large organization
- [5:01] – How John’s organization acquires new email addresses
- [8:00] – John’s 5-email Welcome series: Email #1
- [11:55] – What the rest of their welcome series looks like
- [16:10] – How they craft their first offer
- [20:20] – The conversion rates on their first ask
- [22:56] – What happens to the people who don’t give after the series is over
- [26:02] – John talks about the New Donor email series
- [32:00] – Moving donors from first time givers to monthly donors
- [37:23] – Why an email series is such a powerful tool for your nonprofit
- [38:39] – John’s encouragement for nonprofit leaders, fundraisers and marketers
Resources mentioned:
- Ask Method by Ryan Levesque
