E-newletters don't work, says expert

If you have an e-newsletter, pay attention to this article in Third Sector Online, a UK publication for charities: Charity email newsletters 'a waste of time', says Obama strategist.

It quotes Thomas Gensemer of Blue State Digital, the company behind the Obama campaign's jaw-dropping online fundraising last year. Gensemer says:

Newsletters don't get read, yet they take more effort to prepare than a 250-word email. Email is still a killer application, but only when used properly.

He prefers instead "short, personalised emails to supporters giving clear instructions for participation."

He's right. In my experience, enewsletters don't really work. They get far lower response rates than most other email impacts to donors and supporters. They also get lower open and click-through rates. They aren't good at motivating response. They also aren't good and sharing information.

E-newsletters simply don't function the way print newsletters do. (Print newsletters, by the way, still work very, very well for most organizations.) As far as I'm concerned, repeatedly sending out messages that get no response (or even opened) makes you a junkmailer. You deserve whatever scorn or badmouthing your donors and prospects dish out.

So trash that e-newsletter. Instead, have every email you send out have just one clear call to action. Nothing more.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, nptech, newsletters

Comments

[Cherita]

I just found this post, so I realize I am completely late and may not get an answer, but I'll ask anyway: what is an average open rate for an enewsletter? 30-37% is good? Because I started an enewsletter for the last organization I worked at that had like 50-60% open rates. At the time, I was disappointed and thought it was low, but I guess not?

[Lanell]

Sometimes it's nice just to read about (or scan) what an organization is doing - without having to "do" anything or take any action.

I can't be actively involved in the all of the organizations I support - that's partly why I donate - because I believe that the organization is doing good work and that giving them money helps them do what they are doing.

I don't want to be asked every time (by every org I support) "to do" something. Just tell me what you are up to - and know that I am probably talking about it with friends. And don't bank everything on "open rates" and "clicks." There are still a lot of important things that happen that can't be tracked on-line.

[Kivi Leroux Miller]

I've seen so many people taking Blue State Digital's word as gospel, without considering that a political campaign is vastly different from what nonprofits do. Yes, if you take a traditional print newsletter and throw it into one email and call that your email newsletter, guess what, it WILL be a complete failure, because the formats and how they are read are completely different. But this idea that the only kind of email to send is fundraising email (which is pretty much what the Obama campaign did, even if they don't call it that) is just crazy for nonprofits. There's good email and there's bad email, whether you label it an e-newsletter or e-update or action alert or whatever. It's all about the content. Telling nonprofits to stop doing "enewsletters" because they are a waste is crazy AND confusing to groups who are exploring how to communicate more effectively and cost-efficiently.

[Tad Druart, Convio]

The initial article created some interesting debate where Vinay Bhagat of Convio posted a compelling response and counter-point. You'll see it's consistent with comments like Nancy's. If you know your constituents and are providing compelling information they can be a great way to steward donors: http://www.connectioncafe.com/posts/2009/february/are-nonprofit-email.html

There are also some compelling benchmarks out there that show Higher Education newsletters actually had higher open rates than other types of organizations.

[Kate Snyder]

What would be a good open rate for an e-newsletter? We send out an "update" about once a month, largely pulling from stories on the blog. We usually get 25-30% open rates, which seems good to me. Short, personalized calls to action are great for calling people to action, but not for sharing with donors what actions are being taken, with their support.

[LTA]

Fiddler, I also work for a university - and I don't know that I would lump in university e-newsletters with other charities' e-newsletters regarding effectiveness. I think your built-in audience of alumni want to read the news from your school. Our e-newsletters have an average 37% open rate. To compare, I've seen a stat that says that non-profit email newsletters have an average of 24% open rate.

[Nancy E. Schwartz]

Broad overstatement, that's my take, Jeff. Yes, generic e-newsletters hurt orgs, rather than help them. But e-updates focused on user-defined interests remain a strong way to stay in front of your org's base on a regular basis. Depends how you do it, of course.

[fiddler]

Oh great. We just (in February) ended out print newsletter and on April 28 will send out our first e-newsletter. We're a state-funded public university, and this will save us $30,000/year.

You say "In my experience, enewsletters don't really work." Is there any data? My dean loves data.