OK, not pimping really. More like a gentle noodge to nonprofits and the companies that love them that it’s time to start email marketing.I was invited to a local presentation on email marketing from Constant Contact, the Waltham, Massachusetts email marketing outfit whose target market is small businesses and nonprofits.
They offer a cause-related marketing campaign called Care4Kids meant to benefit children’s causes. Constant Contact customers are invited to nominate worthy 501(c)(3) children’s charities to receive a free account along with the training to create an effective email campaign.
Non children’s charities are probably still eligible for charity discounts. If you’re outside the United States you might be able to induce Constant Contact to consider your cause. Alternately, you could suggest a similar program to email marketing vendors in your home country.
It goes without saying… I hope… that every nonprofit needs an email marketing component. Email marketing is a good deal like direct mail fundraising efforts, only cheaper and more trackable. You’ll know in hours rather than days if a campaign worked. If it didn’t work you can rejigger and have the next campaign ready to go just a few more hours later. It’s a continuous feedback loop.
And like John Arnold, the instructor and author of “Email Marketing for Dummies” said, if someone likes your enewsletter they may forward it to others. But have you ever heard of someone making a copy of a direct mail piece to give to their friends?
Now strictly speaking Care4Kids is more a charitable donation than cause-related marketing. They could make it more of a cause-related marketing by offering donations to charities when new companies sign up, to cite just one possibility.
Bottom line; if you’re a nonprofit and don’t have an email marketing campaign in place, it’s time to get started. And you gotta admit that free is a pretty good price.
Comments
I'd like to thank you for your kind words about Cares4Kids. We're certainly very proud of the program here. I did want to add one point of clarification to your post… The program was designed to provide all of our customers with a way that they could sponsor a local non-profit organization that helps children regardless of where they live. In fact, we have a number of customers in the US that have sponsored organizations helping children in Africa. So no matter where you live or whom you would like to help, if you are a customer of Constant Contact and you want to help an organization that helps children with social or educational programs the Cares4Kids program is the place to turn.
Eric Groves
Constant Contact