Secrets to a 40-50% Email Open Rate with Jess Campbell

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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Newsflash: You’re probably not emailing your list enough!

In Q4 of 2022, Jess Campbell, founder and principal at Out in the Boons, wrote over FOUR HUNDRED emails for nine campaigns! As you can imagine, she learned a lot, and she’s here today to share the nuts and bolts of email marketing – from coming up with creative subject lines, to personalizing and segmenting your email content.

While most nonprofits are emailing their lists one or two times a month, Jess says we need to be more consistent. I have no doubt this episode will inspire you to rethink your email strategy.

Sneak Peek:

In This Episode:

• Why we need to be more consistent with emailing our lists (and 1-2x per month is not enough!) Jess aims for three emails a week for each of her different audiences.
• How emailing your list more often can actually lead to a healthier list, more open rates, more clicks, and more engagement.
• Jess’s origin story of falling in love with nonprofit fundraising, and the “slap in the face” moment that inspired her to launch Out in the Boons.
• Why shorter subject lines (with an emoji!) tend to have higher open rates.
• The industry standard benchmarks for open rates across all nonprofits and the best cadence for structuring a welcome sequence.
• How to convert your social media followers to join your email list (because the people who are paying attention to you across different channels are your most engaged supporters)

Jess’s Ask

Jess encourages listeners to DM her on Instagram at @outintheboons if you have any questions about email marketing. She loves ideation and brainstorming and would love to help!

Notable Quotes from Jess

“When you write really great, entertaining stories that deliver a really fun message, people have invited you into their inbox. It’s like this sacred space that’s totally different than social media where people just start catching you as they scroll by. This is a more intimate space where people really read your words and the message that you’re trying to deliver.”

“There’s certain people that I follow just because their emails are so good. I either get entertained, I get a laugh out of it, I get a message, I learn something from it. Sometimes it serves as a reminder for the podcast I need to go listen to or the blog post I want to read or the thing I’m trying to buy. I think that nonprofits specifically are so worried about annoying people. And I just know from proof that the more I email my list, the higher the open rates, the more clicks I get, and frankly, the more things that people buy, and I’ve seen that from my clients, too.”

Resources & Links

Spend less time posting manually and use Later for all your social media management and analytics needs! Start with a FREE account today.

Learn more about Jess’s company, Out in the Boons and DM her on Instagram at @outintheboons_. She is also on TikTok and LinkedIn.

Jess and I recommend email platforms like Flodesk, ActiveCampaign, and ConvertKit. You can get better conversion rates and inbox placement by using Klean13, a list hygiene software.

Jess recommends Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, and The Prof G Podcast with Scott Galloway. 

What if you could grow your email list with passionate supporters ready to rally behind your mission? My bestselling course, Grow Your Supporter List, is on sale for 20% off, just for podcast listeners. Enter code PODCAST at checkout and learn how to launch two social media ad lead generation campaigns in an hour! This offer is valid through April 30, 2023.

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