On today’s Video Strategy for Nonprofits webinar, I organized my presentation around the barriers that are holding nonprofits back from fully embracing video as the superior communications channel that it is for so many different marketing goals. The amount of time that it takes to produce videos was the biggest barrier among today’s webinar participants.…
If you are a little bit leary of trying live video, you might just be surprised by how much better you like it compared to pre-recorded videos. That was definitely my experience when I started experimenting with live video a couple of years ago. Here are the 7 reasons I like going live: There’s no…
If the results of our informal webinar poll last week are any indication, about 2/3rds of nonprofits can’t or haven’t customized their email unsubscribe pages. That’s the page that people get when they click “unsubscribe” or “manage email preferences” at the bottom of your mass emails. Last week, I shared three great examples of unsubscribe…
You’ve been working so hard on content and trying to keep people engaged, but it’s inevitable: some of them will click that unsubscribe button (or perhaps the “manage preferences” link if you offer it). All is not lost . . . yet. You have a great chance at keeping those people on your email list…
When I look at the top ways that people are joining our email list at Nonprofit Marketing Guide over the last 90 days, the winner is a quiz on our website. You’ll see it in a few different places . . . it’s an announcement bar at the top of our website: You’ll also be…
This week I’ve spent several days working over our marketing metrics here at Nonprofit Marketing Guide, especially related to email engagement. Our CRM tells us who is engaged and who isn’t according to a basic test: If they have opened or clicked any email or filled out a web form in the past 90 days, they…
Should it be this word or that word? Nonprofit communicators debate these kinds of things all the time. For example, earlier this month, I wrote a blog post called Improving Your Open Rate: The From Line. As I was writing, I realized that I was using “from field” in many places, but “from line” in…
Nonprofit work is often a fight against something or someone bad in the world, and that’s coming through loud and clear in nonprofit messaging. Here are five nonprofits using the “fight” language front and center on their websites. American Kidney Fund “Fighting on all fronts” is the American Kidney Fund’s tagline so it makes sense…
Last week, we talked about the importance of your From Line in getting your emails opened. It’s a big one that deserved its own post! Let’s look at five other important factors in your increasing your open rates. Good Subject Lines Coupled with the From Line, your Subject Line is the other bit of text…
Half of the battle with successful email marketing is getting your emails opened, period. The decision to open an email is made in a split second (actually less than that). It comes down to two pieces of information that our brains process nearly instantaneously: Who is this from, and am I generally interested in what…
Litmus is out with a new update to its State of Email Engagement Report. Here are a few interesting findings from their research on more than 10 billion emails worldwide. Where People Open Email Most emails are now opened in Gmail, making it the top inbox provider, with Apple iPhone falling to second place. According…
If you are interested in leveling up your team’s communications work, you should be having these five conversations. Find your team’s Marketing Maturity Level here and get a customized training plan (it’s free). How can we think further ahead? The most effective communications teams are agile and can act quickly as new assignments and opportunities…
