Should You Decide Between Social Media and Email Marketing

Free Social Media Sites for Nonprofits – When running a nonprofit organization, don’t you agree that free is always attractive. Especially when you are working with a tight budget.  First of all Social Media, as part of your marketing mix, should complement your virtual ads, website and Facebook presence.  Social Media essentially gives all nonprofit organizations no-cost marketing potential without limits.

Here is an article you might consider reading, How to Increase Sales Using Social Media,   However, Social Media does not get the job done alone –  complement your Social presence with email marketing.

Statistically, email continues to be the most cost-effective marketing vehicle for acquiring new interest and maintaining ongoing relationships.  When you compare email marketing with social marketing channels; you find that most of these social applications require work on the readers’ part. Email lists ( Discussion Lists, Announcements, and Newsletters) place the message directly in the inbox. No work is involved other than opening the message. The email goes to the list member, the list member doesn’t have to look for it.  And email, when archived, can be searchable.

Email over Social Media has proven to:

• Attract more volunteer participation
• Reach out to people who are supporters and not social media followers
• Help organize big fundraisers
• Maintain employee interest
• Keeps lines of communication open with all facets of your organization

How do you create a good solid email campaign?

Consider:

• Including a story, something that promotes your brand and the heart of your organization
• Showing the results of donor dollars, what you accomplished, what you are working toward
• Using a call-to-action that will inspire your readers to:  pick up the phone – click on a link – make that donation
• Offering white papers, downloads
• Sending a form to capture their interests and availability – keep them engaged with your organization
• Create emails you can analyze with email management tools

Dundee Internet offers a multitude of email management tools including:

• Transactional emails and automated emails. These type of emails are automatically sent in reaction to an event or a transaction. Someone makes a donation
• Triggered email, are set up to send in response to a specific event. An event can include a simple act such as filling out a form on your website which triggers a personalized thank you email.
• Triggered Clauses, where one or more clauses define the terms for the creation of a specific segment.  This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Dates
  • Interests
  • Purchases
  • Text
  • Survey
  • Numeric
• List segmentation sends email to specific demographics or classifications (volunteer, donors, constituents.)

As with any business or organization, to maintain a good relationship with customers and volunteers. It is always smart to follow up with them.  This is especially true if they spent time or money with your organization.  With email marketing. you can follow-up and keep track of all email activities to measure the success of your call-to-action. Your goal may include open rates and click-throughs or how many times your email is shared with a friend. All valuable information for future campaigns.

The bottom line doesn’t overlook the best and cost-effective tool around, Email.  And at Dundee, you can set up a list for as little as $10 a month: unlimited email sends for up to 500 subscribers.