In 2015, nonprofits saw how important a healthy list is. According to 2016 studies, list churn ended at over 11% in 2015 from unsubscribes and bounces. While list churn is unavoidable, there are opportunities to grow your list with new warm prospects.
Acquire emails through your website:
- Add a sign-up form to your newsletter in the footer of your website so it is visible at all times.
- If you a have a blog with updated content, add a CTA button to encourage new subscriptions.
- Incorporate a light box (take over box, pop-up box) onto the homepage of your website, or throughout the website on opportune pages where people spend the more time reading or interacting with your content.
Develop a campaign:
- Start a petition on your website or use a third party vendor like Care2 or Change.org. Additional elements will be needed to promote the petition, such as a light box on your website, posts on social media or online advertisements but you could receive upwards of 5,000 new email addresses.
- Host an webinar, content or competition. Invite social media followers to attend or participate and request an email address as the first step.
Encourage email shares:
- Having social media sharing buttons at the bottom of your newsletter and a “Email to a friend” button, could encourage your subscribers to share your content with their family and friends, who could then sign up to your mailing list.
Use social media:
- Creating a Sign Up form on your Facebook page is an easy way to turn your followers into subscribers.
- Create a simple post with a link to sign up to your mailing list, and boost it to reach a larger audience.
Through your mailings or a data vendor:
- Using an e-append, you can locate and append a matching email address using a name and postal address of individuals.
- Include a checkbox on your direct mail BREs that allow recipients to opt into receiving newsletters and a line where your recipient can add their email address.
Thousands of NGO’s are taking advantage of these opportunities for list growth: lists grew by an average of 14% in 2015 with new joins more than offsetting the losses.
With email attributing to ~29% of all online revenue in 2015, it’s more important than ever to clean your data, segment your lists, gather consistent information and acquire new supporters. Contact us for more information on how to grow your recipient base.
All industry benchmarks are from the M+R 2016 Benchmarks Study
