2016 Nonprofit Email Deliverability Study: Spam Still Costing Nonprofits Thousands
Today, EveryAction released the 2016 Nonprofit Email Deliverability Study, an exploration into just how much spam is negatively impacting nonprofit online fundraising.
Once again, we called on our Email Deliverability Specialist, Brett Schenker (that’s literally his title) to examine data from email programs at over 50 national nonprofits of all shapes, sizes, and internet service providers to determine the benchmarks for successfully engaging audiences + soliciting donations through email.
The report details why nonprofit fundraising emails end up in spam folders, how much damage spam can do on #GivingTuesday and during the end-of-year fundraising push, and offers tips from our expert on reducing your spam rate.
Why analyze email deliverability?
It goes without saying that nonprofits rely heavily on email for online fundraising — in fact, according to M+R, they sent over 2.8 billion emails last year alone.
That said, there’s a growing concern that organizations may be overlooking deliverability, one of the most important metrics for a successful online fundraising program.
What did we learn this year?
Well, there’s good news + there’s bad news.
Yet again, despite all of the time nonprofit marketers spend on cultivating email lists, crafting messaging, testing, and analyzing open + click rates, it turns out that organizations are still losing thousands of dollars every year because of emails landing in spam folders instead of inboxes.
The good news is that this is a slight improvement over last year, when average losses were more in the tens-of-thousands range.
Unfortunately, the data reveals that, while lower than last year, the average rate at which emails end up in junk folders (over 7 percent) amounts to nonprofits losing over $1,000 for each percentage of emails going to spam, which is certainly more than they can afford.
Now you may be thinking, “There’s no way my organization loses that much. We really only send a lot of emails during our end-of-year campaign.”
Remember the bad news I mentioned?
Ouch.
Despite all this, email fundraising isn’t going anywhere — online fundraising continues to be huge money-maker for nonprofits. What is shifting, however, is the way organizations are looking at and prioritizing email metrics.
The reason? Simply put, better email deliverability practices could actually make you money.
Do we have your attention? Good. Now, get your free copy of the 2016 Nonprofit Email Deliverability Study for your next fundraising team meeting and discover what the numbers mean for your nonprofit.
Originally published at blog.everyaction.com.
