Imagine you’re email program is so organized you save 30 minutes a day.
Imagine never creating another email report from scratch again.
Imagine spending more time writing than in Action Network.
Imagine your internal approval process actually takes 2 days.
Imagine your team has time for a long lunch on Friday.
Do I have your attention?
What would you do with your free time?
Let’s be honest, most of the time email planning can be a headache. It always takes a little bit longer than you expect, while non-comms folks ask what’s taking so long.
“It’s not like email is hard, we send dozens each day!”
“We only need to send a paragraph.”
“Just quick, send one out!”
Hopefully, you’re chuckling more than crying. I’m sure most communications experts have heard some version of these comments.
The simple truth is that building a strategic email campaign takes time and advanced planning, but it doesn’t have to be impossible. Taking small steps to streamline your internal process can give your team more time in the day to create the messaging that will connect with your audience and advance our organizational goals. Sounds like a win-win to me!
Cultivating Connections, Not Credit Card Numbers
The biggest mistake that nonprofits and campaigns make is treating their email program as transactional. Many only see email as a tool to get more fundraising. It’s the watering hole that everyone goes to draw out more donations.
What does your email list have to say about that?
The people behind your CRM data rows wake up every day with different hopes, desires, and fears just like us. They get thousands of emails a day. They pick up their kids from soccer practice. They worry about that unexpected medical bill. They see an average of 4,000–10,000 ads per day. They have full, busy lives.
It sounds obvious, but when you’re a comms staffer with 8 hours to do 15 hours of work, it’s easy to forget about the person behind the screen.
Humanizing your email list is the path to saving time and improving your results.
Why should your email list care? Why should they donate?
Our hectic world doesn’t leave a lot of room to care about the thousands of campaign emails we get a day so how do we as communicators get people’s attention and draw out more funders?
Storytelling! Creating connections and developing messaging that meets people where they are is not only the right thing to do, but it also boosts performance and makes your organization look good to its audience. When you meet your audience where they are, they are more likely to meet you with a donation or an action. It’s very natural for humans to want value from the messages we get and the organizations we support.
When developing your next email campaign, ask yourself humanizing questions so your message resonates and leads to more engagement (maybe even donations!).
- What is the environment in which my audience will most likely receive this message?
- How much time does my audience have? Can I say the same thing with fewer words?
- What messages and topics most relate to my audience?
- Am I making it easy for my audience to take the action I want them to?
- Is my message right for the audience I’m sending this to?
- What value am I offering my audience with this message?
- Does my audience already have a good understanding of my organization?
At the end of the day, communications teams need more time to be storytellers so that we create deeper connections with our audiences.
Save Time on Email Planning
My focus this year has been on how we can build more sustainability into our movement. There’s just so much movement work that needs to be done and not enough money or time to do it all. Our movements are at a disadvantage because we don’t have the resources or capacity that big-dollar donors can pull in.
I believe, that making tedious work easier can empower our movements to be more strategic and tell more stories. If we can cut down our time, we can get back to positively impacting communities and bringing more people into the movement.
To avoid the headache of email planning, I created a tool that has become my one-stop shop for email planning with my clients. I can plan, strategize, draft, review, approve, and report on my campaigns all in one place. I’m excited to share our newest toolkit for email campaigns!
I’m biased, but I’m really excited about this toolkit. It’s visually beautiful and it’s saved me and my clients soo much time. Plus it’s customized for Action Network, NGP VAN, or Mailchimp/other.
The tool is perfect for any Comms expert looking to:
- Add more organization into their email planning
- Make it easier to collaborate with their team
- Speed up their review and approval process
- Create a beautiful report in the blink of an eye
- Easily share an exec summary to their boss
Try just the planning template for free or get the whole package for less than $100. I hope our tools can help teams imagine bigger while working less!
What’s Included:
🍄 2023 Weekly Calendar Tab
🍄 2023 Email Planning Tracker
🍄 Draft Email Library Template
🍄 Custom Reporting Dashboard
🍄 Fundraising Executive Summary
Download the Email Toolkit
What is Roots of Change?
We are a storytelling agency founded to support nonprofits, campaigns, and activists tell empathetic stories that cultivate connection to empower societal change.
We do that by:
🧰 Sharing free and affordable templates, guides, & tools
📝 Sending a weekly newsletter to explore the roots of our world
🧮 Offering affordable messaging and digital audits
📖 Consulting with changemakers to develop their storytelling
Here’s to cultivating a better world! 🌍