Beefree blog

Best Practices for Successful Nonprofit Email Marketing

Emily Santos
Emily Santos
Jul 20, 2023
Best Practices for Successful Nonprofit Email Marketing
Best Practices for Successful Nonprofit Email Marketing

With more than 1.5 million nonprofits in the United States, competition for donor attention can be fierce. As nonprofits often work with low resources and a limited budget, they have fewer opportunities to capture attention, making each interaction essential. 

In this blog, we’ll guide you through creating effective nonprofit emails, a foundational element of any nonprofit email marketing strategy.

Why is Nonprofit Email Marketing Important?

In today's digital era, email marketing for nonprofit organizations serves as an essential connection between an organization and its audience. As a cost-effective marketing tactic, it’s instantly accessible and customizable and delivers your message in a timely manner directly to supporters.

Whether you share inspiring stories, upcoming events, photos, or solicitation appeals, email marketing provides a platform to engage directly with your audience.

The ability to segment audiences also allows them to send personalized messages and further enhance the effectiveness of each communication.

Ultimately, the benefits of successful email marketing campaigns can be huge for a nonprofit, extending far beyond short-term financial gains to fulfill the key goal of building long-lasting relationships with supporters.

What is the ROI of Nonprofit Email Marketing?

The ROI of email marketing is undeniable for nonprofits.

Various research reports have shown that for every dollar spent on email marketing, organizations can expect an average return of $36.When considering email marketing for nonprofits, the returns can be even higher. According to HubSot, up to $40 for every $1 spent, as long as they have successfully fostered emotional connections within its donor base.

The ROI goes beyond money. A successful email campaign leads to greater audience engagement, stronger donor relationships, and enhanced brand reputation—all of which are key to a nonprofit's growth and sustainability in the long run. 

1. Build a Strong Email List

The first step toward effective nonprofit email marketing is to build a strong and clean list of email addresses. When it comes to email addresses, it's not just about quantity—the quality of your list is essential. For instance, a nonprofit would benefit more from having a list of 500 genuinely interested supporters rather than a list of 5,000 individuals who disregard messages. 

So, how can you build a high-quality list? With channels like your website and social media platforms, you can encourage individuals with genuine interest to voluntarily sign up. This way, you ensure your communications are directed toward people who really care about your cause and are likely to support it.

Read more: Creating an Effective Email Sign-up Form

2. Identify Audience Segments

One size does not fit all when it comes to email marketing. 

Your nonprofit’s supporters are diverse, each with unique motivations and preferences. Thus, the ability to segment your email list can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your communication. 

Consider factors such as donation history, interests, demographics, and geographical location when creating segments. An examples of this is dividing your list into past donors versus prospective donors or high-dollar donors versus low-dollar donors. 

With each segment in mind, tailor your messages to be sure you send relevant content to your supporters, increasing the likelihood of engagement and action.

3. Personalize Communications

Segmentation naturally leads to personalization, and in understanding your audience segments, you can tailor your communications to resonate with individual recipients. Personalized emails, which can include the recipient's name and content relevant to them, can greatly improve open rates and engagement.

In fact, personalization is the top tactic used by professional marketers to increase reader engagement. So, stop sending mass messages and opt for personalized, targeted communications instead.

4. Implement Deliverability Best Practices

What good is a well-crafted email if it doesn't reach the intended recipient's inbox (Ugh!)? At least a 95% email deliverability rate is a must-have if your email marketing strategy will see any success. To improve performance, follow these best practices:

  • Maintain a healthy sending reputation. This is done by monitoring your open rates and ensuring they stay above 18%.  
  • Use a reliable email service provider that consistently delivers a high percentage of emails.
  • Craft spam-free content. This means ensuring your images are optimized for emails, including alt tags, and creating short and concise emails. 

Also, use a your organization email address that uses the same domain as your website instead of a generic email address such as @gmail or @yahoo so recipients will not think your email is spam.

An example of this is how Goodwill and Habitat for humanity use “@habitat.org” or @goodwill.org.

​​Read more: Improve Email Deliverability with 3 Design Tips

5. Develop a Consistent Sending Schedule

Consistency is key to maintaining a successful email program. It’s true that too many emails can annoy your supporters, while too few can cause them to forget about your organization.

So, as Goldilocks discovered, you need something that’s in the middle—just right. Most nonprofits send 2-4 emails per month; however, the ideal frequency for your organization can vary based on factors like your audience's preferences, the nature of your content, and key times in your fundraising calendar.

When’s the best time to send nonprofit emails? Late morning and early afternoon can be good times but try testing to find out when your audience responds the best.

6. Create an Eye-Catching Email Design

An attractive, professional design helps your email stand out and increases readability. If you’re not a professional email designer, no worries! Beefree has you covered with a variety of nonprofit email templates perfect for advancing the mission of your nonprofit.

Consider some of these best practices for your next nonprofit email design:

  • Maintain a good amount of whitespace for easy readability.
  • Use a layout that sections information.
  • Insert colorful call-to-action buttons to initiate user action.
  • Follow your brand standards for color and font selections.
  • Use a mobile-friendly or responsive design template for pleasant reading no matter the device used.

7. Monitor Results and A/B Test

To improve the performance of your email marketing program over time, it’s best to use analytics and monitor open and click rates, then adjust your strategy based on those results. Did you know the best nonprofit emails get around 25% of recipients to open versus just 6% for other types of emails? If you’re not seeing these results yet, try A/B testing various email elements to optimize your campaign's performance over time. 

How to Write an Effective Nonprofit Marketing Email

What does it take to write the perfect fundraising communication? Here are some elements to consider.

Create an Attention-Grabbing Subject Line

Your subject line is like the envelope to your email—if it looks/sounds like spam, it may go directly into the trash without even being read.

Make your subject lines intriguing, relevant, and concise. A well-crafted subject line piques interest and creates curiosity, causing the recipient to want to learn more. For example, a subject line like "Jenny, would you like to plan 100 trees this month?" is personalized, invokes action, and shares the impact of a potential contribution.

Showcase Organization News

Keeping your supporters updated with the latest news, events, or impact stories helps create a transparent environment that fosters trust. This could include an upcoming fundraiser event, receiving a large donation, or sharing personal stories of how funds support your mission. Regular updates can make your audience feel part of your nonprofit's journey and inspire them to contribute further.

Express Gratitude

The importance of saying “thank you” in your emails cannot be overstated. A simple note of appreciation can make your supporters feel valued and recognized. After all, your supporters are part of your mission, and noting their contributions is a simple yet effective way to cultivate long-lasting relationships.

Include a CTA

Every email should have a purpose and a clear, compelling call to action (CTA) to guide your supporters toward that goal. Whether it's donating or signing up for an event, an effective CTA creates an easy way for your supporters to further engage with your organization.

Nonprofit Email Marketing Case Study: Unicef

Unicef's partnership with Beefree shows how email can be used for effective nonprofit marketing. With Beefree’s email editor and in following the best practices outlined above, Unicef achieved substantial engagement and fundraising success for their organization. Read the full case study here.

You can improve your nonprofit email marketing efforts in a variety of ways, many of which can be done for low or no cost and can have a large impact on growing the reach of your mission. Start creating professional, engaging emails for your nonprofit by trying Beefree’s email editor and nonprofit email templates today.

Related posts

Email strategies you’ve likely heard of but haven’t implemented yet

While email marketing has come a long way and is changing faster than ever, there’s only so much you can do within 600x1,500 pixels. However, there are no limits to where your creativity can take you. 
Kruti Shah
Feb 5, 2025

How to Leverage Email Campaigns to Gather Sincere Product Reviews

What do customers think about your brand’s products? The best way to find out is to ask them directly, which you can do via strategic email campaigns. Keep reading to learn how!
Beefree team
Jan 22, 2025

How Beefree is Helping Email Makers Scale Their Production

2024 was a banner year for email markers everywhere. From sleek newsletters to interactive promos, you flexed your creative muscle to new heights and did it with a level of speed and efficiency that made crafting award-worthy emails look easy. Let’s dive into the numbers, trends, and stories that made this year unforgettable for email makers like you.
Beefree team
Jan 6, 2025

Email strategies you’ve likely heard of but haven’t implemented yet

While email marketing has come a long way and is changing faster than ever, there’s only so much you can do within 600x1,500 pixels. However, there are no limits to where your creativity can take you. 
Kruti Shah
Kruti Shah
5 Feb
2025

Now, let's be honest—you’ve likely heard about all of these rotating for the last few years. While email marketing has come a long way and is changing faster than ever, there’s only so much you can do within 600x1,500 pixels. However, there are no limits to where your creativity can take you. 

Let’s get into it.  

#1. Unique, tailored experiences 

Damian Grabarczyk, the co-founder and growth marketer of PetLab Co., says, “We faced the challenge of connecting meaningfully with an audience that expects more than one-size-fits-all communication.” 

When we speak about crafting tailored emails we mean going beyond the recipient's first name in the subject line. We’re talking about optimizing your entire email strategy to design multi-stage touchpoints to nurture leads across the customer lifecycle. As well as, leveraging data to send hyper-personalized, relevant, and engaging emails that feel less like a broadcast message and more like a conversation. 

Many are using AI machine learning algorithms and AI automation to analyze customer interactions, past purchases, browsing habits, website visits, and even social media behavior to curate engaging email content that resonates deeply with the real-time needs of recipients.

For PetLab Co this looked like including content such as an individual’s pet health history or product usage timelines. Damian Grabarzyk expands, “This approach transformed the conversion rate and strengthened customer loyalty. As we look ahead, I see brands in 2025 moving beyond generic personalization to adopt strategies that make customers feel truly understood and valued.”

On the other hand, many are leaning into user-generated content (UGC) for crafting tailored experiences. Customers today are more likely to trust the opinions of peers over branded messages. UGC like customer reviews, testimonials, videos, and photos are the best form of social proof depicting real people using and benefitting from your products or services. 

We see the benefits of using both AI and UGC to get the most out of your email conversions ;). 

#2. AI tools as an addition, not a substitution

Experts at NordPass state, "AI-powered content generation tools are not here to replace email copywriters and marketers. These tools make us more efficient. The smarter the tool is, the better equipped we are to create high-performing email content that drives results." 

AI tools can support us by significantly enhancing the speed, precision, and effectiveness of your emails. For instance while traditionally A/B testing has required a lot of time to analyze small variations with AI you quickly implement and test multiple email elements and make adjustments based on real-time engagement data. There are AI algorithms that can even predict which variations are most likely to resonate with different audience segments, leading to more accurate targeting and faster optimization.

In short, AI tools are revolutionizing the way we craft and optimize our email’s deliverability. There are many different types of AI solutions so we suggest finding the right one for your needs. 

#3. Even more transparency around data

With AI continuing to rise, folks are more and more concerned about where their data is going. That’s where zero-party data collection becomes a key strategy in email marketing, allowing you to gather data directly from customers rather than relying on third-party sources. 

Zero-party data includes information that consumers willingly share, such as preferences, interests, and purchase intentions. This data is often collected through surveys, preference centers, quizzes, or interactive content and is highly valuable because it is shared explicitly, ensuring accuracy and deeper personalization without privacy concerns associated with third-party tracking.

As privacy regulations tighten, zero-party data will empower you to deliver hyper-personalized email experiences while respecting user privacy. This approach will help you build trust, as customers feel more in control of their data, and you gain insights that lead to more relevant and engaging email content.

#4. The death of static emails

With attention span getting shorter day after day, digest-format emails are expected to rise in popularity in 2025. Presenting email content in an easy-to-scan, organized, and minimalistic layout will surely help deliver the most relevant information in a fraction of the time. 

Additionally, interactive emails will allow recipients to directly engage within the email without having to visit a landing page or website. Interactive elements like product carousels, polls, and quizzes create a dynamic experience that keeps subscribers engaged, especially in visually driven industries like fashion brands

So what now? 

You’ve heard these strategies before, but now it’s time to actually put them into action. The brands that win at email marketing in 2025 won’t just be sending emails—they’ll be creating experiences. Whether it’s hyper-personalized content, AI-driven efficiency, zero-party data collection, or interactive emails that break the mold, the key is to stay ahead of the curve.

So, what’s the first strategy you’ll finally implement? Your inbox (and your audience) are waiting.

How to Leverage Email Campaigns to Gather Sincere Product Reviews

What do customers think about your brand’s products? The best way to find out is to ask them directly, which you can do via strategic email campaigns. Keep reading to learn how!
Beefree team
Beefree team
22 Jan
2025

What do customers think about your brand’s products? The best way to find out is to ask them directly, which you can do via strategic email campaigns.

Email makes gathering authentic product reviews quick and easy. By collecting sincere feedback, you can build trust, increase sales, boost loyalty, and innovate product improvements. 

That said, requesting reviews via email requires precise timing, personalized messaging, and lots of engagement optimizations. But don’t worry—we’ll walk you through some key steps to create email campaigns that deliver the valuable feedback you need.

Why product reviews matter

Product reviews do more than confirm that you're meeting customers’ needs. Sincere feedback drives loyalty and sales, offers valuable customer insights, and helps you develop a strategic product development roadmap.

  • Fosters customer loyalty: Requesting and listening to feedback makes your customers feel valued and heard. It demonstrates that you prioritize customer satisfaction, which helps you build stronger, long-term relationships. Review requests also act as re-engagement emails by starting new conversations with customers.
  • Increases sales: Social proof drives sales. According to a recent survey by Power Reviews, 90% of potential customers use online reviews to make purchasing decisions. In fact, reviews have more influence over purchasing decisions than product prices. Turning product reviews into customer testimonials and encouraging reviews on third-party sites can significantly boost sales.
Image sourced from powerreviews.com
  • Builds Customer 360 insights: Customer feedback delivers insights into customer needs and sentiments, enriching Customer 360. Exactly what is Customer 360? It’s a unified, 360-degree view of customer data. It empowers you to tailor products and customer experiences to meet individual needs and preferences. 
  • Drives product improvements: Sincere customer feedback reveals what target customers like/dislike about your products. It provides key insight into their value, functionality, and usability, unlocking large-scale development opportunities.

How to create an email campaign to collect product reviews

Want to unlock the power of product reviews? Let’s explore how to create email campaigns that encourage customers to share their feedback.

Segment your audience

Like promotional emails, product review requests shouldn’t be sent to every subscriber.

If subscribers haven’t had the chance to try your product, product review requests will feel irrelevant and may trigger unsubscriptions. So, only send review email requests to customers recently trying your product.

You can do this by segmenting your email list based on where customers are in the buying cycle. Target loyal customers, recent purchasers, and first-time buyers with tailored email campaigns. This ensures that you’re sending emails to customers most likely to respond with insightful feedback.

Write a compelling email subject line

According to Superoffice, 33% of people open an email based on the subject line. 

Image sourced from superoffice.com

To get the click-through rates you want, your email subject lines should be personalized, relevant, and engaging. Here are some examples:

  • Did you love [product]? Or hate it? Let us know!
  • We value your opinion — help us improve!
  • We want YOU to help us make our product better!
  • Up for a discount? Share your feedback for 10% off! 

Learn more > Tips for writing open worthy subject lines.

Optimize for customer engagement

A successful email marketing strategy relies on customer engagement. Here are some key email elements you need to encourage interactions.

  • An attractive email design: With the right layout, color scheme, typography, and images, you ensure easy readability and promote interaction. Use these engagement-boosting email design best practices to help you create a design that boosts conversion rates.
  • Gratitude and value: Thank customers for reading the email and explaining why their feedback is so important. Also, consider including a personalized Gmail email signature with your content details to build trust and encourage customers to engage with your review request. 
  • Personalized, relevant content: Personalized email content motivates engagement. Use customer data platform (CDP) data to tailor messages to individual customers. What is a CDP? It’s a centralized platform that collects and unifies customer information, building comprehensive customer profiles. 
  • Incentives: Offering a small discount can motivate customers to leave reviews, especially first-time buyers. That said, incentives can (sometimes) generate insincere reviews, so stress the importance of honesty. 
  • A strong call-to-action (CTA): Your CTA should direct readers straight to the reviews submission page. Use clear CTAs with bold buttons and typography to make it stand out.
  • Mobile responsiveness: If your emails are slow to load or don’t display correctly on mobile devices, your bounce rate will spike. Leverage solutions that offer advanced mobile optimization features — such as Beefree— to create responsive emails every single time.

Ask specific, concise questions

Complex, drawn-out questions that are too open-ended can disengage customers. So, get straight to the point with concise, direct questions. Here are some examples:

  • What did you think of [specific product feature]?
  • How often do you use our product?
  • What are your favorite/least favorite features?
  • How likely are you to recommend this product?
  • What could we do to improve our product?

Use a mixture of closed and open-ended questions to increase your chances of receiving meaningful responses.

Make it easy to respond

The easier it is for customers to leave a review, the more responses you’ll receive. So, make the process as seamless and convenient as possible. One way to do this is with survey emails.

Email surveys have high response rates. They can be completed within the email with minimal effort, which is a big plus for busy customers. And, they can generate a wealth of quantitative data and metrics that are quick to analyze, leading to faster improvements. BeeFree has an extensive collection of email survey templates to suit every need.

For longer review requests, include a CTA that directly links to the review submission page. Review forms should use simple, clear language, be optimized for mobile, and have a progress bar. 

You could even provide your telephone contact details to allow customers to leave a review via telephone. It’s the preferred communication method for 55% of Baby Boomers according to Hubspot, so it’s worth considering. 

Leverage small business telephone services from Vonage to access call center capabilities like virtual receptionists and CRM integrations, streamlining processes.

Also consider directing customers to leave reviews on popular review sites, such as Google and Amazon.

Optimize email timings

If you send product review requests too early, there’s a chance your customers won’t have tried your product yet. But if you send them too late, your customer might have forgotten their experience. 

So, when’s the best time to request reviews? 

Aim to send review requests within 7-14 days post-purchase. This gives customers a chance to try the product a few times, leading to more sincere, meaningful reviews. Plan for seasonal surges such as Black Friday and incorporate them into your schedules.

Key takeaways

Do email campaigns work for gathering valuable product reviews that drive improvements, boost trust, and increase sales and loyalty? 

Absolutely — but they need to be strategic.

To generate sincere reviews and valuable data, ensure your marketing emails are personalized, engaging, and optimized for convenience. And, use email list segmentation and marketing automation to ensure they’re sent to the right customers at the right time.

Stay informed on all email trends

From the latest creative design strategies that inspire your next campaign to industry best practices and tech advancements, our newsletter is the go-to for all things creation.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
By clicking Subscribe you're agreeing with our Privacy Policy