An email marketing campaign for your animal rescue is a PURRfect way to get your important messages out to a broad, yet specific audience. An email marketing campaign may sound like a daunting project. However, once you get the hang of the emails, they can be a simple and helpful marketing tactic for your animal rescue.
An email marketing campaign involves the creation of an email that is sent out to a group of specified people. An email marketing campaign for an animal rescue can be used to reach out to adopters, fosters, volunteers, donors, and more. You can use an email marketing campaign when you have a specific call to action for a group of people or have an overarching message you want to share.
Let’s dive into how to create an email marketing campaign for your rescue! (It’s easier than you think! 😉)
Step 1: Choose an email marketing software to create your animal rescue’s email campaigns.
Using an email marketing software instead of your basic email (like Gmail or Outlook) will allow you to create nice-looking emails and send them out to a large group of people all at once. An email marketing software also allows you to track your email campaign’s success as well as easily personalize the emails. There are several email marketing softwares on the marketing ranging in capabilities and price. Check out this article for a list of free marketing email tools. Once you decide the best fit, sign up to get going.
Step 2: Decide the goal of your email marketing campaign.
Once you are set up with your email marketing software it is time to start planning your first email campaign! You should decide what the goal is for each marketing email that is sent. Maybe you want to gain more fosters, find more adopters, or are looking for donations. No matter the goal, it is a good idea to make the goal specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. For example, the goal of our foster marketing email sent to our current list of fosters is to have 5% of the email recipients fill out our foster form to sign up to foster within a week of sending the email.
Step 4: Build and import your contact list.
Next, you’ll want to decide who will be receiving the email. In this step, Think about who would respond to the email and who your audience is. If you are using Pawlytics, you can easily export a list of these people to import right into your email marketing software. With Pawlytics can filter your list of people out from adopters and fosters to volunteers and donors. Once the list of people is on a spreadsheet, you are able to import the spreadsheet into the email marketing software. Then you name the list, and choose this list to send the email to.
Step 3: Create your marketing email.
Now the fun begins! You’ll get to be creative in how you want to convey your message in the email. The email itself should clearly state the information you want people to know, and provide a call to action, if needed.
In creating the email, each marketing software will work a little bit differently. Most will allow you to use a drag and drop feature to create the email. This means when creating the email, you can drag and drop elements, like text and photos into the email.
The email should include an attention grabbing header. For example, “Fosters Needs for the Holiday Season!”. Then you can add a graphic that ties into the email’s theme, such as an image of a foster and their foster pet. Next, include a short body of text that gives more information and a call to action. For example, explain why you need fosters and how people can sign up to foster. You could include a button that links to a Pawlytics foster sign-up form. Many email marketing software will also have templates available for you to easily fill in with your text and graphics.
Remember that most people only spend a few second reading every email they get. So, make your message and call to action as succinct as possible. A graphic in the email helps grab attention too!
Tip: Email marketing software allows you to personalize emails. People are more likely to open an email that includes their name. Use the “First Name” tag in your email marketing software to personalize each email you create. You can use this tag in the subject line to help with your open rate too!
Step 5: Write a subject line and send the email!
You did it, the email is made! Now, create a subject line that entices people to open your email. For example, “Suzy, our pups need your help now! 🐶💕 Here’s how!”.
Tip: Adding emojis in the subject line has shown to increase opens!
Once your subject line is in the email, it’s time to send! Send a test email to yourself and another person or two so you can confirm it looks good and reads correctly. Then, hit send or schedule your email for the date and time you want to to go out. Then you’re off to the races with your first email marketing campaign sent! Woohoo!
Once you send our your first email, the rest is cake! You can keep creating new emails, or duplicate ones you already have made to make email marketing even easier. Email marketing software will allow you to track your open rate, click rate, and more. You can use this data to hone in your future email marketing campaigns and goals using them.
Good luck!! We’re cheering you and your PAWsome emails on! 😊