E-mail will be one the simplest instruments for welcoming, encouraging, and celebrating your fundraisers.
So how do you construct the proper e-mail programme? It’s easy: you may consider it just like the steps to constructing a home.
On this put up, you’ll discover ways to set the muse, construct the framework, and add the decorations. All full with sensible suggestions you should utilize now for a programme that evokes your fundraisers and helps them elevate extra money! Let’s begin constructing.
Eager to develop your abilities in e-mail advertising and a spread of different matters? Apply for the Digital Studying Grant, 250 totally funded locations to spice up your digital fundraising skillset! Purposes shut quickly. Be taught extra and apply now.
Leap to a bit:
Setting the muse
Let’s begin with the muse: getting your compliance proper and ensuring your emails attain inboxes (and never the dreaded Junk folder).
Staying Compliant
Let’s begin with consent and advertising preferences. To caveat, we’re not authorized consultants and usually are not offering authorized recommendation.
You’ve in all probability heard the significance of GDPR. Within the UK, the ICO units these guidelines for tips on how to gather and use private knowledge. You want clear permission to e-mail folks, regardless of the scale of your organisation. And don’t buy lists: you could be blocked if suppliers suspect you’re utilizing purchased knowledge.
The ICO has fined councils, the NHS, and different public our bodies previously, amounting as much as £17.5 million or 4% of turnover in fines! Be taught extra on the ICO’s Sources for Organisations web page.
Reaching the Inbox (and avoiding the Junk folder)
In case your emails preserve touchdown in Junk, it might be because of your area status.
Test your area well being at SenderScore.org (your Sender Rating is sort of a credit score rating, however for e-mail). The upper it’s (intention for 90+), the extra probably your emails attain inboxes.
Right here’s tips on how to preserve your Sender Rating excessive:
- Take away invalid e-mail addresses to scale back your bounce fee.
- Keep away from emailing individuals who by no means open or click on.
- Ship re-engagement emails asking inactive subscribers in the event that they nonetheless wish to hear from you.
Constructing the framework
Subsequent, we’ll construct the framework: rising your viewers, constructing the proper e-mail, and creating the correct content material.
Rising your viewers
There’s no level in having a formidable e-mail programme if no person sees it! Search for key alternatives to make signing up simpler:
- Develop your record organically through the use of e-newsletter signups, kinds in your marketing campaign’s thank-you pages, and gated content material (e.g. “be a part of our e-mail record to get our charity’s free fundraising pack”).
- Contact previous supporters to remind them of their influence and encourage them to assist you once more.
- Arrange automations: they’re scalable and have a better ROI! With automation, you may create emails as soon as, then ship them to many individuals mechanically to save lots of effort and time.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to take away subscribers who don’t interact. Emailing somebody many instances with out them taking an motion could make your messages begin to really feel like spam, dock your Sender Rating, and make you much less prone to hit anyone’s inbox (this will likely not apply for non-marketing emails, like receipts).
Constructing the proper e-mail
A terrific e-mail is greater than what it says or the way it seems. It’s additionally about the way it works and the way accessible it’s. Right here’s how to ensure your emails carry out nicely, work in every single place, and look nice.
Design for cell first. Over 50% of emails are opened on cell gadgets, so it’s important yours work and look nice on cell. In case your emails aren’t mobile-friendly, you danger shedding folks earlier than they even learn the primary line. Most platforms supply mobile-optimised templates, like what you may see in these templates from Fixed Contact.
Be certain that your emails work throughout gadgets. iPhone, Android, Gmail, Outlook…all e-mail suppliers show emails barely in another way. It’s not possible to manually examine each platform, however instruments like EmailOnAcid allow you to preview your e-mail throughout platforms, plus flag any spam set off phrases, outsized pictures, and accessibility points.
Prioritise accessibility. Accessibility means making one thing usable for as many individuals as attainable, together with these with visible, listening to, motor, and cognitive difficulties. Right here’s tips on how to make your emails accessible:
- Use a minimal font measurement of 16pt.
- Select high-contrast colors (e.g. darkish textual content on a white background).
- Design with darkish mode in thoughts.
- Use borders to spotlight key content material blocks.
Be taught extra in Validity’s 101 Greatest Practices for E-mail Accessibility.
Digital Studying Grant individuals up their accessibility data by 54%! Apply for one among 250 totally funded locations to spice up your digital fundraising skillset in 2026. Purposes shut quickly.
Creating the correct content material on your e-mail
The content material in your e-mail must be clear, partaking, and straightforward to behave on.
Measurement your banners appropriately. Banner sizes differ by template, however a full width e-mail banner is often about 600 pixels extensive. Take into account that emails with giant file sizes are inclined to get flagged as spam extra usually. Mailjet recommends protecting emails below 200 kilobytes, Wish to examine yours? EmailOnAcid can flag any recordsdata which are too giant to assist optimise your structure.
Maintain it clear and fast. 9 seconds. That’s how lengthy folks spend studying an e-mail on common! Within the first one or two sentences, it’s essential your subscribers know why you’ve emailed them, why it issues, and what you need them to do.
Use visuals to seize consideration. Mixing textual content with visuals (particularly GIFs) is an effective way to face out! Instruments like EZGif allow you to create GIFs from a number of pictures free of charge. Simply add your pictures and it’ll generate a GIF you may drop in.
Make your call-to-action (CTA) stand out. Your CTA (what you need your subscribers to do) ought to be clear, seen, and ideally seem above the fold: which means it’s seen on cell with out scrolling. A number of key suggestions:
- Keep away from utilizing image-based buttons (some e-mail shoppers block pictures by default).
- Use underlined textual content hyperlinks for readability.
- Add UTM monitoring to measure clicks and marketing campaign success.
Including the decorations
Lastly, let’s add the decorations. This contains auditing your journey and A/B testing your e-mail content material to seek out what works finest.
Audit your journey usually
Due to modifications in tech and knowledge rules, efficiency can change over time. We advocate auditing your e-mail journey a minimum of yearly to ensure all the pieces’s working correctly.
Attempt A/B testing with a transparent speculation
A/B testing means sending completely different variations of an e-mail to a share of your record to see which one performs higher. Many platforms allow you to ship a take a look at to half your subscribers, then mechanically ship the best-performing model to the remaining!
A/B checks to enhance your open fee. When you want extra folks to open your emails, discover the perfect topic line by testing variations:
- Query vs. assertion.
- Lengthy vs. brief topic strains.
- Personalisation vs. generic.
A/B checks to enhance your engagement. To get extra clicks, attempt testing…
- The location of your CTA
- A text-only e-mail vs one with a banner picture
- A brief e-mail vs a protracted e-mail
Solely take a look at one factor at a time so you may higher see which made the distinction. By repeatedly testing and optimising our emails at JustGiving, we’ve improved common click on charges by over 80%!
Bettering outcomes additional with third social gathering instruments
As soon as your e-mail programme is optimised and operating easily, you may improve it with instruments that make your emails extra dynamic and personalised.
Instruments like Movable Ink can allow you to incorporate personalised content material primarily based on reside knowledge, like quantity raised, marketing campaign countdown timers, and reside polls! We see nice outcomes by sending fundraisers their reside totals and their place on the Fundraising Heroes boards.
JustGiving’s Fundraising Web page lifecycle
In 2020, we launched a collection of 81 personalised emails to assist fundraisers get donations on their pages, elevate extra money general, and have an superior expertise from begin to end.
Utilizing the ideas supplied on this put up, we spent a 12 months designing and constructing this journey, because it wanted to work for 15,000 charities, a whole lot of various occasions, and varied sorts of fundraising. And it’s been vastly profitable: fundraisers who get the emails go on to boost 6% greater than those that don’t!
Key takeaways
Keep compliant
- Be certain that your area is wholesome.
- Test your Sender Rating and preserve it robust.
Develop your record organically
- Give supporters loads of signup alternatives.
- Design with cell in thoughts.
- Prioritise accessibility.
- Take away unengaged supporters.
Create the correct content material
- Maintain your messaging clear and concise.
- Use visuals and GIFs.
- Make your CTA value clicking.
Check, study, and repeat
- Begin with a speculation.
- Check and optimise your content material.
- Doc learnings and apply to emails sooner or later.
Most significantly, intention to offer fundraisers a tremendous expertise to match the eagerness they’ve for you!
Develop your e-mail advertising abilities by 58%!
Previous recipients of the Digital Studying Grant (supplied by Fundraising In all places and totally funded by JustGiving) report as much as 58% development in abilities together with e-mail advertising!
It’s utterly free and is designed to spice up your data and abilities in key areas of digital advertising that may develop your efficiency. Purposes shut quickly! Discover out extra and apply now under.
DIGITAL LEARNING GRANT
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Get the digital fundraising abilities, confidence, and training you want going into 2026.
Purposes shut 12 September 2025 at 5pm. Programme begins in January 2026.
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