• Time of Day to Send

Best: Weekdays between 10am and 3pm

Worst: Fridays after 2pm, Saturday or Sunday, After Business Hours

• From Email

Best: Include Name in the Email 

Worst: Department Email

• Signature

Best: Person + Headshot with a Direct Email and Phone Number

Worst: Department Signature, 1-800 Number, No Direct Contact Info

• Subject Line

Best: Write Attractive Subject Line & Personalize

Worst: Subject that could be sent to a large group

• Greeting

Best: Includes Name

Worst: Generic

• Keep it Short and Mobile-Friendly

More than 50% of emails are opened and read on mobile devices. Your subject line should accommodate that by remaining short and to-the-point.

• Use Subject Line Personalization

Personalization tokens can be personalized to each recipient. This can have a tremendous impact on open rate and engagement.

• Avoid Spam Words

Are you using spammy words in your subject lines? Did you know that a great number of emails to donors get flagged as spam because of their subject lines? Nonprofits regularly see as much as 12% of their emails flagged as spam, which translates to lost opportunity. One example is using all-caps.

• Lifecycle Stage of Buyers

Separate your prospects, one-time customers, recurring customers and lapsed customers into separate lists. Next, create personalized emails. For instance, someone who donated three months ago will respond differently to a new campaigns than someone who hasn’t donated in three years.

• Location & Demographics

Utilize the information you’ve collected to segment your lists by their geographic location, age, income level, number of children, or other data that you have readily available.

• Campaign Activity

iFOLIO allows you to segment contacts by email opens and clicks, landing page views, website visits, and more. You can also create custom campaigns based on people’s response activity that are subsequently tracked and used for segmentation.

• Keeping it Personal

Emails should come from specific individuals in your organization. If you want to know how to build and maintain client relationships, it is advisable to use a custom signature with a photograph of the sender and personal stories to connect with each donor.

iFOLIO Campaigns can be flexibly personalized for every recipient, all from one spot! Learn how to easily personalize text message & email campaign content, as well as email subject lines:

SUBJECT LINE PERSONALIZATION

CAMPAIGN MESSAGE PERSONALIZATION

The CAN-SPAM Act is a federal law that regulates commercial email messages—those whose primary purpose is to advertise or market a commercial product or service.

Emails that are typically NOT covered by CAN-SPAM include transactional or relationship messages (like personalized impact reports to donors showing how their funds were used), purely informational newsletters with no promotional content or donation asks, and account updates or confirmations. These emails do NOT require unsubscribes or opt-outs.

Examples of transactional/relationship content include:

• confirmations or updates about a donor’s involvement
• membership or subscription updates
• internal account or relationship news

 
If your email campaign includes marketing to make a purchase, it's likely classified as commercial and must comply with CAN-SPAM requirements, including "a clear and conspicuous way for recipients to opt out of future emails".

If you are sending commercial emails, you can easily use iFOLIO to meet CAN-SPAM's unsubscribe requirements by adding an unsubscribe link in your email signature.

To do this:

1. Copy your CRM's unsubscribe link. If you don't have one, you can easily create an unsubscribe form (using Google Forms or another web form).
2. In Step 2 of the iFOLIO campaign builder, add text to your email message like "Unsubscribe from future emails" and paste the link to your unsubscribe form URL. Now your link is included in your campaign.
3. Alternatively, include plain text like "To unsubscribe, reply to this email".