Put advocacy email strategy to work for your advocacy campaign
Advocacy emails are a powerful tool. For many groups and organizations, advocacy emails can amplify their message in a positive way. As you are probably well aware, most people use their email for both work and personal use, so communicating with your supporters with this medium is a logical choice. Email is fast, efficient, and relatively cheap. It’s also a great way to make low and high bar asks from your supporters, such as making donations, or sending your legislature an email in a matter of minutes.
Define your advocacy goals: When you are crafting your advocacy email program, it’s important to think through the overall goals and strategy of your campaign. If you are looking to introduce legislation, you will want your supporters to contact their legislators to influence their decisions. If your organization works better in the field and you need money to make that happen, your emails should be focused on fundraising. Email strategy should be part and parcel to your strategy so everything can work together seamlessly.
Focus on conversions: Your advocacy campaign will likely have two main objectives when sending emails out to your supporters: taking action and donating. For donations, it’s important to keep emails simple and clear. Make the ask direct and compelling. Also, make sure the link is near the top of the email and easy to use. Nothing is worse than trying to give an organization money and discovering that the link you’re sent to is broken or difficult to navigate. Or worse, you’re accessing from your phone and realize it isn’t mobile-friendly. Make sure to test all the aspects of your email thoroughly so your supports have an easy time giving you money!
Make it easy: Asking supporters to take action on your behalf is a relatively easy lift, as long as you make it seamless. Make sure you are using systems that connect constituents directly to their correct legislators. There are both free and paid options for this. Sometimes you want your supporters to rally on your behalf in-person. This may be a bigger lift, but with email, you can make it as easy as possible. Include calendar links to serve as a reminder. Make it easy to share with friends and family on social media sites. All these options and tools are easy to add to an email you’re sending out to your list. Better yet, it will result in a stronger turnout for your cause.
Test, test, test: One of the greatest aspects of using advocacy email is all the testing you can do and personalization you can include. Regardless of your list size, you can test things like subject lines, images, different hooks and calls to action. These could easily translate into more support or more money for your organization. Testing with email can be incredibly simple and is free, so take advantage of it! Segmenting your list is a great way to make your emails more personal for your audience. If people on your list are giving $100 or more, they might not respond as well to your asks of $2,500. On the other hand, if people are activists, but not yet donors, you may want to craft the emails they receive to encourage them to donate. There are a ton of different ways you can segment your list through a variety of free tools.
Get help: There are a variety of ways you can use email to your advantage in your advocacy campaign. Make sure you are working with trusted vendors who can help you through the process and have the systems in place to keep your email program running well. Email can be another active supporter for your cause.
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