There is an interesting study about the effectiveness of email campaigns that came out recently. M + R Strategic Services and Nonprofit Technology Network published the results of their survey on the use of email by non-profits as a fundraising and advocacy tool. None of the non-profits participating in the study were performing arts related. That doesn’t seem pertinent to the results because the study is more about general behavior in regard to email than responses to specific organizations. They don’t have a lot of tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your email campaigns, but they do tell you what sort of response to expect and some guidance about frequency and timing of campaigns.
There were a couple odds and ends that caught my eye.
-They claim email is superior to social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube for mobilizing supporters but don’t offer any evidence to back it up.
-Existing email technology makes it difficult to accurately measure the rate at which people are opening email. Some email software triggers a pixel embedded in the message to record it as a read, but there is no guarantee that a human has read it. On the other hand, some programs don’t allow images to be automatically loaded so the pixel is never triggered even though the message is read.
“…we have found that up to 25 percent of the actions or clicks in response to a particular email come from people who have never officially ‘opened’ the email!”
-Open and click through (following a link in the message) rates are lowest in December and the unsubscribe rate is highest. But given the volume of appeals being sent out is highest in December, “…the number of people who unsubscribed per individual email was actually about the same or slightly lower than in other months.” Even though people are being hit hard by appeals in December, it pays to time it for the end of year as Oct-Dec was the most productive time for the study participants.
-The response rate to fundraising appeals has dropped a little, but since the amount given remains the same and the size of email lists continues to grow, the total amount raised has increased.
-More of those who choose to donate are doing so online. I would guess this is a matter of people feeling more comfortable with conducting financial transactions online.
You can download the study for free but do need to provide your email address. Even though you can opt out of receiving their newsletter, I didn’t see any promise not to sell your name to their clients.
