How To Build An Action-Taking Email List in 2024 with Scott Cohen
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Is your nonprofit making the most out of email marketing in 2024? Open rates are no longer the gold standard for measuring engagement!
Today we’re uncovering the secrets to successful email strategies with Scott Cohen, VP of Strategy and Marketing for InboxArmy.
Scott shares his expert insights on the shift towards first-party data and his favorite tactics for re-engaging and retaining subscribers.
You’ll discover how to assess engagement with click-through and conversion metrics, and learn from a fascinating case study with 1-800-CONTACTS that illustrates the hidden value of “non-openers.” And as much as he hates them, pop-ups on entry or exit DO still work.
Scott also reveals the best email campaign he ever sent that generated $200,000 in ONE day.
P.S. Don’t forget to register for my Monthly Giving Summit coming up on Sept 5-6 from 1-4 pm ET – the ONLY virtual event designed to help nonprofits build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good. RSVP for FREE here!
P.P.S. Join me for my Book Launch Tour at Kendra Scott stores in Atlanta, GA and Sarasota, FL!
RSVP for Atlanta on September 7th
RSVP for Sarasota on September 18th
Resources & Links
Can we meet in Nashville? The 8th annual Raise fundraising conference, hosted by OneCause, will be held at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Nashville, TN September 9-10, 2024 Use code MISSIONS200 to receive $200 off registration, Register: https://bit.ly/4bNqihi
Connect with Scott on LinkedIn and check out his work on the InboxArmy website and new podcast!
Join The Sustainers, my Slack community for nonprofit professionals growing and scaling a recurring giving program.
Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you.
Additional resources for nonprofit email marketing
- Attract Corporate Partners in 30 Days with 2 Cold Emails
- How a Nurture Sequence Generated $61,000 in One Email with Cody Hays
- Copy My Video Strategy To Find Warm Leads In Your Email List
Transcript
Scott Cohen:
Look at the map, find your buckets, fill the holes. If you have those first set up, then it becomes, what does re-engagement look like? What does a retention look like? Maybe they’re a one-time donor and you ideally want to get them on the subscription, so maybe it’s less per month. The goal of fundraising is, and everything, monthly recurring revenue. That’s what you want to get into. I don’t need $100 today if I can have $15 a month, because then it’s consistent and you can budget and you can build off of things like that. So that’s really where I go. What is your life cycle and then what are your buckets?
Dana Snyder:
Hey, there, you’re listening to the Missions to Movements podcast and I’m your host, dana Snyder, digital strategist for nonprofits and founder and CEO of Positive Equation. This show highlights the digital strategies of organizations making a positive impact in the world. Ready to learn the latest trends, actionable tips and the real stories from behind the feed? Let’s transform your mission into a movement. Ooh, I know you are excited about today’s conversation because we are talking about email marketing. Did you just get the tingles? Because this is going to be a great conversation because we despise receiving them.
Dana Snyder:
A lot of times are cautious about sending them and pressing the send button and waiting to hear and see the analytics that come in. But it’s so crucial to the work that we do to build a strong email list and send emails that sound like human beings to get a great response. Today on the show is an email marketing guru, genius, also known as the VP of Strategy and Marketing for Inbox Army, Scott Cohen. It is a full service email marketing agency and he’s worked on both sides of the aisle as a brand side marketer, running email programs at one of my dad’s favorite companies, Purple. Like the Purple Mattress Company. If you haven’t tried a Purple Mattress, it’s the sales pitch. They’re phenomenal. So I’m very excited to talk to you about that as well.
As the agency side of things, working with clients ranging all the way from small businesses to enterprise across multiple industries. He is slightly dangerous on email marketing, SMS and many things CRM and retention marketing and he has hit the send button thousands, if not millions, of times to let us know what’s up. Scott, welcome to Missions to Movements.
Scott Cohen:
I’m going to take a recording of you saying genius and guru, just so I can send it to my mom, but yeah, no great to be here. I’ve been doing email for a long time and you know what my hands still. I still get a little bit of the shakes before I press send and you would think after millions and millions of these things that go away. But maybe it just means I care.
How the email marketing landscape is changing in 2024
Dana Snyder:
Yeah, that’s right, we do care about what people are thinking on the other end of the. So much thought goes into an email and so many times you’re just disregarded. So I want to jump right in with you with some questions on my mind that I think might be on others, and I want to start with kind of an open ended fill in the blank, which is Scott email marketing in 2024 is blank.
Scott Cohen:
Vital, ooh, vital, okay. Multiple reasons. One, it’s still incredibly effective, it’s efficient, it’s cost-effective. It’s also necessary. That’s why I call it vital. I mean, if you think about third-party cookies going away, they’ve already started it, right. I mean by the end of this year, supposedly they’ll all be gone. Now the cynic in me goes Google’s just going to do their own thing and make people pay for it. But the reality is that a lot of the things that help other channels run is going away by the end of 2024, into 2025.
Dana Snyder:
Quick pause. If people don’t know what you’re talking about with third party. Can you explain a little bit about what’s happening?
Scott Cohen:
So you’ve probably heard the term cookie.
Dana Snyder:
Yes.
Scott Cohen:
It’s a little pixel, little bit of information code that goes on websites that essentially tracks you. So when people show up to your site you can see these are some of the people. You don’t necessarily get full information on everybody. Everybody has different levels of privacy settings already.
Dana Snyder:
Oftentimes you’re asked do you accept the cookies on the site or decline?
Scott Cohen:
That’s often a problem Requirement in California, requirement in the EU, all that fun stuff. So, yeah, the reason you get annoyed with that oh my God, yes, you can track me is because it’s the law. But even that, those third-party cookies, in terms of tracking, are largely going to go away. So the social channels are going to get hit. Like I said, the cynic in me is going to go. Well, it’s just going to become another one of those funny walled gardens where Google goes oh we still have it, you just have to pay for it now. Yeah, so the need for first-party data is crucial. And really, who stewards that data? It’s people like me, us email marketers, who can gather that data, control that data, collect it in the right way, use it in the right way, track purchase behavior all that fun stuff. So still vital. It’s also harder, let’s be fair.
Scott Cohen:
I mean, February 1st, Gmail and Yahoo came out with their new guidelines I’m using quotation marks because really some of them they kind of already had but didn’t tell anybody about, In particular, like spam, complaint thresholds, things of that sort but the authentication requirements, those technical things that prove if you’re sending through MailChimp or Shopify or Constant Contact or HubSpot or wherever they’re sending on your behalf and you have to set up all the stuff that proves to Gmail that it’s actually you sending that email.
Scott Cohen:
That’s sort of the long and short of that authentication piece and the one-click unsubscribe that you’ve probably seen in Gmail, where it says, hey, you can unsubscribe, and when you open an email it just shows up there. It’s not in the actual body of the email. That’s going to be a requirement. I believe June 1st they pushed that back a little bit to give email server providers time, because it’s really done by your ESP, not by you, Not by you, and so they gave a little bit more time. But you kind of think everybody wants relevance and privacy at the same time and those two things fight each other, right? Because to be relevant you have to know things about people, but people don’t like to be forthcoming openly.
Dana Snyder:
We want personalization.
Scott Cohen:
We just don’t want to pay for it with our data.
Tips for creating a solid foundation for nonprofit email marketing
Dana Snyder:
Right, okay. Second question yeah, what’s often missing in an email marketing strategy is blank.
Scott Cohen:
The foundations.
Dana Snyder:
Ooh, okay.
Scott Cohen:
So a lot of times you’ll get very basic things in place for those first time hand raises. I always look at a customer journey, right, and it’s when do people raise their hand and go? My name is Scott, you can message things to me. It’s when they sign up on your site. If you’re running, you’re selling something e-commerce related. It’s when they fill a cart, when they complete that purchase. Any of those times they could be raising their hand for the first time with you. You don’t.
Scott Cohen:
It’s not necessarily a linear thing, because people don’t act in linear ways, right, we like to think we do, but we don’t basic. Get a welcome email in place, get a card abandoned in place, get a first purchase in place, but it’s very basic and you’re ignoring the importance of that because you want to chase the shiny objects right and think about the old. That was the Perda principle 80-20 rule, right, 80% happens in those first impressions. So we talk about card abandoned, we talk about checkout abandoned, which I like to say is like if cart abandoned in a welcome program had a baby, right, because I show up, I fill a card, I give you my email address and then I back off. I’m still kind of in that mode of not just get me over the hump but tell me why you’re awesome.
Dana Snyder:
Yeah.
Scott Cohen:
And then again the first purchase stuff, of course order confirmation, shipping confirmation. Those can be a little plain, they’re more like paper trail. But really how do you get people to get over that buyer’s remorse? You know so that, onboarding those how to use the product if you’re selling products, how to use the service if you’re selling service. You know things of that sort that.
Dana Snyder:
Which in our case, is interesting. For any nonprofit orgs, I would say. It’s kind of the opposite, where you’re coming off of like a high for donating and you feel really good about yourself. How do you continue to have people feel good about themselves so that they’ll end up giving again or be more supportive? This is very timely. I became a monthly donor to two new organizations recently and I’m very surprised I haven’t heard a thing A week later. I actually was like searching through my emails, did I miss something?
Scott Cohen:
Yeah, yeah. It’s an opportunity missed, right? Because it’s so focused on getting that first acquisition that you’re not laying the groundwork for a repeat purchase or a repeat donation. Or I gave you my money, now what? What are you doing with it? Even just in that case, free advice, hey. But this donation, you are enabling us to do X, y Z with our organization, right? Or you tell those stories. You’re not just telling the stories to get the initial, you’re telling the stories to go. Oh, now I can trust you even further.
Dana Snyder:
Do you have a process that helps organizations audit where they might be missing some of those fundamentals?
Scott Cohen:
I have a. It’s more e-com focused, obviously, given that as an email agency.
Dana Snyder:
That’s fine. Donation is a purchase.
Scott Cohen:
Exactly so, really, it’s just mapping. So I always look at the map and I always like to say look at the map, find your buckets, fill the holes. That’s how I approach it. So if you have those firsts set up, then it becomes what does re-engagement look like? What does a retention look like? Maybe they’re a one-time donor and you ideally want to get them on the subscription, so maybe it’s less per month, but at least it’s. The goal of fundraising is and everything monthly recurring revenue.
Dana Snyder:
Yes, right, that’s what you want to get into.
Scott Cohen:
I don’t need 100 bucks today. If I can have 15 bucks a month, that’s right. Right, because then it’s consistent and you can budget and you can build off of things like that. So that’s what.
Scott Cohen:
Objectability, exactly. So that’s really where I go is like what is your life cycle and and then what are your buckets? And then it’s like what’s the old cartoon? You start poking your fingers in the wall where the water’s coming through and hopefully you can fill them all before it breaks. That is what email really is, and email is specially built to fill those. I mean, you can help. Sms, of course, can help. If you have an app, push can help. It’s a heck of a lot more expensive to do things like retention through Facebook, right?
Dana Snyder:
But you can be targeted or direct.
Scott Cohen:
Although done right, direct mail is back. I will say that. Okay, I will say that I mean, granted, this was during. You mentioned purple, those during my days at Purple where it’s like, hey, by the way, we.
How to assess true engagement of email marketing for nonprofits
Dana Snyder:
I will say I do agree because I think COVID, when everybody was home, and who doesn’t love getting fun mail, non-bill mail? Everything else is kind of in the fund bucket, so I do. Actually that’s interesting. I do want to talk about direct mail pieces. I want to ask a quick myth or fact on email stats. Yeah, myth or fact? Should we care about open rates and click-through rates anymore?
Scott Cohen:
Open rates somewhere between myth and fact. Okay, so it’s directional, at best. It should not be a standalone metric. It actually never should have been a standalone metric. It’s even more true now when Apple iOS 15 came out I know 14, really, I think it was 14.5, crushed Facebook, yes. When 15 came out and they launched mail privacy protection opens became even more nebulous and everybody’s open rates went up, basically Because the way opens it’s like cookies, right, it opens or tracks through a pixel, the way mail privacy protection works, and this is in Apple Mail. Whatever you put into Apple Mail on your phone, ipad, on the computer.
Scott Cohen:
If you use it and you have mail privacy protection turned on, it’ll basically throw out. It’ll show that they loaded the email, whether you opened it or not.
Scott Cohen:
Essentially, so what I saw when they went live with it. I was at Purple at the time and we saw it was like open rates almost doubled within about six months because people would adopt it, of course, with new devices and when it would finally update and everything like that. So what it is good for is really that deliverability piece right. Are you getting to inbox? Are you getting into spam? Because my understanding of it is that if you hit spam it will not auto open the pixel.
Scott Cohen:
If you’re sitting at a level of like, let’s say, 40% open, and all of a sudden you take a nosedive, you can go oh no, I likely have some issues with my deliverability. Now, click rates absolutely, it is fact. You still need to care. I mean, that is somebody going. I want to go see what you have to offer, right. So there is that active engagement. It’s definitive engagement.
Scott Cohen:
But I will caveat that and go don’t just look at only clicks, look at conversions downstream. Whatever your conversions are right. So if it is a donation, if it is a sale, you could have 100% click-through rate and zero conversions. So if I looked at that and that happened, I would go what in the heck is wrong with my website? Like there’s something wrong there or there’s some gap there. That’s happening. So you would look at clicks to conversions as a good metric. So you’d have overall clicks. Click to open is pretty good still. So that’s the percentage of people who open and then click. Now that has come down over the years. Of course, the average has come down. When you have a lot of fake opens. That means you’re not going to get clicks from people who don’t open it actually.
Scott Cohen:
But it’s still’s kind of directional and you have to benchmark it and iterate and get better off of your own benchmarks.
The surprising value of non-openers in email marketing campaigns
Dana Snyder:
Are there certain email platforms that you think do a better job at email analytics?
Scott Cohen:
Ooh, in platform, I mean, yes, I would say there are some that do better than others. I would say that downstream conversion tracking is iffy because it’s really reliant on last-click attribution, which I’ll give you an example of why that’s not the best. I worked at 1-800-CONTACTS for a while and it’s a single-skew business, right, you’re purchasing contact lenses, it’s a prescription and I would sit there and go. We literally are sending the same emails every week. Literally we call it the same damn email syndrome and there’s like four emails and, depending on where you were, you would get that one every week, right, okay? And I went okay, this doesn’t seem right.
Scott Cohen:
Went to my analytics team there and I said give me everyone who got an email from us last week and converted through any channel within 48 hours, and then split it by whether they opened this is pre-iOS 15, so opens were a bit more accurate. Split it by whether they opened or didn’t open the email, and 40% of revenue that week came from non-openers, wow. And 40% of revenue that week came from non-openers, wow. So when there’s this whole, like you can’t look at anything in a bag I’m an email guy and I go. You don’t have to just look at email, right, you can look at the people in your database, and that’s why I say go look at the conversions, go look at that customer level data as best you can, and that’s a hell of a lot easier said than done. But how many times have you gotten an email and been like, oh crap, my bill is due, right, you don’t open it?
Scott Cohen:
You just see the subject line and you go, or how many times have you been like hey, I don’t know, you need to donate by this deadline. You don’t even open the email. But all of a sudden, you get all of these donations from people who didn’t open the email. Are you going to say the email didn’t work? I think the email worked.
Dana Snyder:
That’s very true. Oh, I love that point. That is absolutely accurate. That’s happened to me lots of times. Oh yeah, yeah, that’s very true.
Scott Cohen:
If you go into Google Analytics, look at the time you send an email and look at your email traffic look at your organic search traffic and look at your direct traffic in that time after you send, because those are the three things that are going to go up. Because, again, you see the email, you might just go directly to the site. You might go search for the site because you don’t remember the URL for some reason, or, classic, you type in almost the URL and search and there you go. So those are the things that are going to go up when you send an email.
Dana Snyder:
I wonder if there’s a way I’m sure there is, using AI to be able to set up some sort of tracking for that.
Scott Cohen:
I’m sure there is Somebody’s working on it somewhere, somebody’s doing it somewhere, that’s right.
Using pop-ups and other innovative strategies to keep your email subscribers engaged
Dana Snyder:
Okay, so speaking of the emails and the list and the importance of the growth of them, I want to talk about acquisition a little bit, and retention, which is important. What have been some of your tips over time on? Let’s go first on growth. What have you seen worked first, and then we’ll go to retention.
Scott Cohen:
As much as I hate them, pop-ups. Pop-ups work on entry and on exit, so somebody ignores it right away. Then they get a couple pages deep and then they want to leave and you go hey, before you leave, those are effective, Even though if you asked everybody to a T if they hate them themselves, they would probably say yes, okay.
Dana Snyder:
So then the question is Okay. So then the question is immediately timing of said pop-up. Do you see a preference on? Like I’ve seen 30% page load 10 seconds later instantly open.
Scott Cohen:
I’m going to give you the diplomatic email marketer answer, which is test it.
Dana Snyder:
Good answer.
Scott Cohen:
Honestly, that’s true. I’ve seen somewhere they go wait 30 seconds, I go.
Dana Snyder:
I feel like that’s way too long, but’s way too long.
Scott Cohen:
But if your page takes 30 seconds to load, maybe you’re fine. Which would mean, if you have site load speeds, you have other issues.
Dana Snyder:
That’s a major problem. If it’s taking that long, that’s a major problem.
Scott Cohen:
yeah, but five seconds after maybe you see a scroll. There’s lots of little rules there. I would say exit of rules there. I would say exit. They have to go at least a page or two deep. I wouldn’t X out. And then they look at the homepage and then start going to the top and hit them again. That’s overkill, that’s just too much. But test it, maybe. Give it 5-10 seconds to start, start somewhere and then establish that benchmark. And then you start going okay now, if you can do 50-50,. And then you start going okay, now, for you know if you can do 50-50, great. If you can’t, you know. Just say okay, there’s seasonality involved too, right? Like if you don’t sit there and like run it for a while and then test it when you know it’s going to either be like a really high period or it’s a known low period. Like make sure that the settings, the environments, are as close as possible to you know, to parity, right, because otherwise you don’t really learn anything.
How to grow and retain your email subscribers with value and trust
Dana Snyder:
Okay, love that Retention. How do we keep people on our list?
Scott Cohen:
Value. Yes, value, value, value, right. So it’s a very nebulous thing and it can get down literally to the individual level. I always say, you know, hey, it’s like I even wrote down my notes here. Retention is a tougher thing to prove out. But how do you create ongoing value? It changes from company to company. It changes from customer to customer. Right Cause, value is a very subjective thing. But that’s that’s why I said earlier, like maybe when you get the people to make that donation, it’s well tell the stories of what they’re enabling right now that they’ve given they have to feel better about it.
Scott Cohen:
There’s a trust factor involved with any sort of purchase decision that you need to back up as well. Yes, I come from the world of purple. What does the next logical product look like? Right, you buy a mattress. What are you going to buy with a mattress?
Dana Snyder:
Pillowcase cover.
Scott Cohen:
Pillowcases, sheets, mattress protector, duvets, all that sort of stuff, in some cases another mattress, because you made somebody in your house really jealous. I mean, I have a mattress, my mom lives with us. She got jealous so I bought her a mattress and then I bought one for my oldest and then my youngest got mad, so now the whole house is purple. So it’s funny how that works, but you just have to and it’s hard in some cases to prove value over time. But that’s the challenge, but it really does come down to just providing value. So they stay interested stay engaged.
Using re-engagement campaigns in your nonprofit email marketing
Dana Snyder:
I totally agree. And then one more question that I wanted to ask you about is re-engagement campaigns. So for those of us that are on the list and we are not active most of the time I’ve heard not active within 90 days and then do a re-engagement. Would you say that’s accurate?
Scott Cohen:
It depends on your frequency to start. 90 days is a good place to start. I will say that. So in some cases, if you have a really long purchase cycle, for example, you may go to 180 days. If you are mailing every single day or multiple times a day, mailing every single day or multiple times a day, you might have a three-week activity cycle, right?
Scott Cohen:
So it’s a matter of how, and again, it’s something to test. It’s also it’s key to understand what truly is defined as inactive, right, because you have purchasers, for example. They may not engage with your email, but they’re still buying things, right, true? Or they’re still donating, for example. They may go. I don’t need to engage with these emails all the time. I just believe in the organization and you’re just keeping top of mind that branding moment that’s in the inbox. When you cut that off is when the inactivity becomes detrimental to your deliverability, right? So?
Scott Cohen:
it’s a balancing act of you have all these people on the list who never engage with you. Gmail and Yahoo are going to go. I don’t care if they’ve purchased they’re clearly not caring about your email, but you can’t just throw that away. So the key on re-engagement one they’re inactive for a reason, so know that any special things you do have low expectations, right. Think about it like anything you get out of re-engagement, it’s almost like found money, right? Like hey, we got them back.
Scott Cohen:
And what does re-engagement mean too? Is it opening and clicking, or is it making a purchase of some kind too right? So you have to decide, like in some cases, just getting it open, I go. I mean maybe. Although if they haven’t been opening in a while and they magically bought an iPhone and put an MPP on it, look at that, you have it open, right. So you just don’t. You have to keep that in mind.
Scott Cohen:
And then again, it’s also about breaking through the clutter. If you’ve been sending the same type of stuff all the time and they’re inactive, you have to be different. Yes, what you’re sending has to be different. Maybe it’s asking questions, maybe it’s just being more direct. In some cases, one of your best performing emails there would be like, hey, we don’t want to bother you, do you want out or not? And you could literally ask click here, and it’s a good list hygiene type piece as well.
Scott Cohen:
But it’s a tough road and it’s one of those things that I don’t recommend to clients until they have the other pieces in place, because it’s tough and unless you have something like, for example, when I worked at Purple, we called it the Big 5. It was President’s Day, memorial Day, july 4th, labor Day and Holiday, of course the Big 5, 10th sales people have their wallets open. We would use that as an opportunity to re-engage people because it was also the big sale, right. So it was something different. Like, hey, we’ve been having these little things, but if you’ve been thinking about it, now’s the time right, so I think about it. In nonprofit, are there big events? Are there times of year where you tend to get more?
Dana Snyder:
I mean giving Tuesday right End of year giving Tuesday, of course. But actually I think what’s actually very interesting, as you mentioned, those big tentpole days if they’re looking at making purchases anyways, would that not be an interesting test for giving?
Scott Cohen:
Yes, absolutely, people have their wallets open.
Dana Snyder:
Or post-tax season, if you get money back. It’s really interesting to think about, yeah.
Scott Cohen:
I mean, yeah, I’ve seen tax refund times a year. I mean, you see that all the time where hey, use your tax refund to buy a car and you go okay, but for some people it’s free money. So hey, what are you going to do? I mean, how many people use their COVID checks for? I mean, Purple did well with COVID checks, I’ll tell you that much.
Dana Snyder:
That’s fascinating.
Scott Cohen:
Yeah, because people for I mean Purple did well with COVID checks. I’ll tell you that much. So like hey, yeah, because people had extra money and they went. Now I’m going to go buy a mattress, it doesn’t kill my back.
Dana Snyder:
Go buy a mattress. Yeah, wow, oh, my gosh, Scott, I could talk to you forever about that. I am so appreciative of your time. I have two questions I would love to wrap with you on.
Scott Cohen:
And that is one. What is one thing that this community, this audience, can support you on? What would you like to ask for help or support on? We’ll throw a discount to people on our services for nonprofit work, things like that. You know we’re really that’s what we do, right? I mean, we help everybody with. If it involves email, we help people with it. So we would love to help cool organizations. You know our founders met doing Italian greyhound rescue.
Dana Snyder:
Oh, cool yeah.
Scott Cohen:
So you know, there’s a little bit of, like the animal support and, you know, fostering and all that stuff that’s involved. So that’s really cool. I mean, selfishly, we’re starting a podcast ourselves. So you know, any sort of help in how I can build this out and stuff that’s great.
Dana Snyder:
You know the name of it, yet.
Scott Cohen:
It’s called that Inbox Army Podcast.
Dana Snyder:
Okay, there we go.
Scott Cohen:
It’s going live.
Dana Snyder:
Actually, by the time this goes live, it’ll be live. All right, everyone, go check it out, go subscribe.
Scott Cohen:
Yeah, so more email stuff, right. So we have a whole thing around. We’ll have a whole thing around deliverability and all this other stuff. So I like to talk brass tacks and have real takeaways for people.
Dana Snyder:
So I mean, you gave us a ton here today which I’m super appreciative of. So where can listeners connect with Inbox Army? Where can they connect with you?
Scott Cohen:
Real simple inboxarmy.com. We chose the name because we wanted it to be 12 characters or less and easy to remember, so it worked out really nicely and you can find me, of course, at Inbox Army, but Scott Cohen on LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me and happy to help out in any way we can.
Dana Snyder:
Awesome. And, for those of you that are still here, this is the PS on the end of an email, which I’ve been told is one of the best placements to put content. So I just wanted to do like this is the PS of the podcast. We’ve been staying here until the end, Scott. Here till the end, Scott. What should people know about email subject lines?
Tips for creating engaging subject lines for nonprofit email marketing
Scott Cohen:
Oh, test them to death. So you are never going to know what works until you test it. Some people will say it has to be short, has to be super short. Some, you get emojis in there. Test everything right. Emojis could work. Short could work, longer could work. Urgency usually works as long as you use it when it’s actually urgent. Don’t be the boy who cried wolf.
Dana Snyder:
Yeah.
Scott Cohen:
I was going to say one thing with. We talked about frequency a little bit. Don’t be afraid to do resends. If you send in the morning or you’re doing a flash sale or a flash match, like hey, if you donate today, somebody’s going to match 3x I mean thinking more political emails, but I’m sure there’s If you have a one-day only thing, you can email in the morning, you can email in the evening. Don’t be afraid to leverage that.
Scott Cohen:
Urgency and subject lines can help with that Last chance for matching or whatever it might be. I mean you see it a thousand times in your own inbox. Absolutely, and it works for the people that are looking for it. I mean, especially if you mail in the morning and mail in the evening, people may not be ready in the morning, they’re going off to work. Catch them in the evening. Last chance, even if it’s just a little. I mean the cost to send in the platform just isn’t that much the incremental gain you can get for that. I mean one of the best emails I ever sent was a last chance on Cyber Monday when I went it’s not like it ends today, it keeps going. They’re like no, no, no, people have the wallets open. And we sent that email and made $200,000.
Dana Snyder:
Wow.
Scott Cohen:
Before the end of the day.
Dana Snyder:
Because people had their wallets open.
Scott Cohen:
Yes, so Nice. There’s always going to be somebody who complains. Yes, so don’t listen to the one.
Dana Snyder:
But don’t be afraid to just send the email, yeah.
Scott Cohen:
Just send the email. Just get them on the list and then send the email. Send the email, just get them on the list and then send the email. Don’t buy lists, don’t take shortcuts. No, no no Agreed.
Dana Snyder:
Yes, no buying lists. Quality, engaged people added to your email list, that’s a very good point to end on. Thank you for that, Scott. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the work that you do. Can’t wait to start listening to your own podcast.
Scott Cohen:
Well, thank you, I appreciate it.
Dana Snyder:
Can you tell I love talking all things digital. To make this show better. I’d be so grateful for your feedback. Leave a review, take a screenshot of this episode, share it on Instagram stories and tag Positive Equation with one E, so I can reshare and connect with you.
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