The internet is about relationship, ubiquitous connectivity, having every bit of information at your fingertips. Online donors have integrated the web into other important life behaviors – online banking, vacation planning, shopping.

Sending a single email accomplishes nothing. More importantly, it can actually damage your relationship with readers. It’s false advertising. It’s better to have a plan so that the interactions from one email lend to better decisions in the next. 

Consider a recent email campaign we helped launch for a client. They have about 40,000 email addresses. Here are the emails that were required for just the second week of the campaign:

Two identical email messages, both with the same generic financial ask, but with different subject lines so we could find out which one was opened most. Each test went to ten percent of the house list, selected at random. After 24 hours, we had a clear winner among subject lines, so that subject line was used for the remainder of the list. However, that 80% was further segmented:

• One to donors who haven’t given in over 12 months, asking them to give their previous gift amount, or even half of that. The goal was to get them active again.
• One to those who have given multiple times, encouraging them to sign up for monthly giving;
• Three versions to recent single-gift donors, based on their previous contribution amount, asking them for a similar or greater gift this time;
• Two version to the non-donors on the file, with different appeals aimed at securing a first gift;
• A thank-you email for gifts, and another one for new signups to the newsletter.

That’s ten different email versions for one week of an eight-week campaign. Each has to be written differently, tested, coded, and sent to the properly segmented file. For the next week we took it easy – two subject line tests again, to 10 percent of the file each, and the winning subject line was used to the rest of the file.

Was it worth it? The subject line test for week one showed that the winner had an 18% lift over the loser. In week two, the winning subject line, used with the same e-newsletter as the other subject line, was almost twice as likely to be opened. Interestingly, the e-newsletter with the winning subject line was also twice as likely to get a click-through. It seems that if you tease readers with a great subject line, they’re more likely to click on the related link within the email, compared to those who clicked on a less thrilling subject line about, we presume, a less thrilling article. But we won’t know that for sure without – you guessed it – more testing!

On the appeal language tests to non-donors, it appears that those who were asked to support a very tangible project were more likely to donate, at higher rates, than those who were asked to support a more generic project. We’re not surprised, but we’re happy to see it in black and white.

October 2007