How to Grow & Convert Your Email List with Chris Barlow

Summary

Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell: Episode Summary

Episode Title: How to Grow & Convert Your Email List with Chris Barlow
Release Date: April 23, 2025
Guest: Chris Barlow, Founder of Beeline Marketing

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Introduction to Email Marketing in Nonprofits

In this episode of Nonprofit Nation, host Julia Campbell delves deep into the pivotal role of email marketing for nonprofits. She emphasizes that while digital marketing offers various avenues, email remains a cornerstone for building and nurturing donor relationships.

The Importance of Email Over Social Media and Paid Ads

Chris Barlow highlights the inherent advantages of email marketing compared to social platforms:

"[04:42] Chris Barlow: So while, you know, it's really important to keep your eye on social media and be engaged there, the, the biggest downside to social media or paid is that you don't own the platform, you don't own the audience at any point."

Chris underscores that unlike social media platforms, where algorithms and policies can change unpredictably, an email list is an asset that nonprofits fully control. With an average open rate of 20%, email consistently outperforms social media engagement rates, such as Facebook's mere 0.01%.

Common Email Marketing Mistakes in Nonprofits

Julia and Chris discuss two primary pitfalls:

1. Inconsistency:
   Chris dispels the myth that frequent emails lead to unsubscribes. Instead, he argues that consistent communication keeps the nonprofit top of mind.

   "[07:14] Chris Barlow: I would say there are two things and the first one is not being consistent... being consistent helps you stay top of mind as a nonprofit."

2. Lack of Personalization:
   Emails should feel personal rather than corporate. Treating donors like friends fosters trust and engagement.

   "[09:18] Chris Barlow: ...treat them like a friend and someone who you're interested in and like and want to know."

Strategies for Growing Your Email List

Lead Magnets:
Chris emphasizes the effectiveness of offering valuable resources in exchange for email sign-ups.

"[12:07] Julia Campbell: A lead magnet. So that's like free resources or a downloadable that they would then give you their email address and you would send to them."

Promotion Tactics:

• Website Prominence: Ensuring lead magnets are easily accessible on the website.
• Social Media Sharing: Promoting resources when relevant.
• Advertising: Utilizing tools like Google Grants and affordable platforms like Bing for targeted ads.

"[14:09] Julia Campbell: This is how I grew my email list... offering free guides, ebooks, webinars, and partnering with others."

Converting Subscribers into Donors

Once the email list is established, conversion strategies become paramount.

Immediate Communication:
Initiate contact with a welcome series that introduces the nonprofit’s mission and values.

"[15:50] Chris Barlow: ...you want to start communicating with people immediately. And you've probably heard already the importance of a welcome series."

Personal Connection:
Share personal stories and encourage subscribers to engage.

"[25:49] Chris Barlow: ...encourage people to reply. That's a much better metric to aim for. And that will make your emails turn into something personal automatically."

Strategic Asking:
Balance nurturing content with fundraising appeals. A recommended ratio is four nurturing emails to one fundraising email.

"[18:18] Chris Barlow: ...think of it as a friend. Would you ask your friend this many times... I like a ratio of four to one."

Segmentation and Personalization

Tailoring emails based on donor behavior enhances engagement.

Segmentation:
Category donors based on their interaction history, such as first-time donors, monthly donors, or lapsed donors.

"[23:10] Chris Barlow: Well, segmentation is really, really important. It's kind of this big scary word. But all it means is just understanding that not all of your audience and your donors are the same."

Personalization:
Use individualized emails and encourage two-way communication by prompting replies.

"[25:43] Julia Campbell: We just don't talk to our email subscribers like people... email is something we got to get off our to-do list."

Measuring Email Campaign Effectiveness

Understanding key metrics is crucial for optimizing campaigns.

Key Metrics:

• Open Rates: Indicator of subject line effectiveness and overall relationship with subscribers.
• Click Rates: Measure the engagement and interest in the content.
• Replies: Often overlooked, replies can signify personal connection and engagement.

"[26:34] Julia Campbell: We look at them as numbers on a spreadsheet... It’s challenging for sure."

Troubleshooting Conversion Issues

When emails fail to convert, it's essential to analyze different components:

1. Donation Page Optimization:
   Ensure clarity in value propositions and simplify the donation process.

   "[28:14] Chris Barlow: If people are clicking but not donating, then I would look at the donation page."

2. Email Content Review:
   Assess whether the email content compels subscribers to take action.

   "[28:08] Chris Barlow: If you're getting opens but not clicks, then I would look at what are we saying in our email."

Actionable Steps for Immediate Improvement

Chris suggests practical steps to enhance email list growth:

1. Website Evaluation:
   Solicit feedback from outsiders about the website's email sign-up appeal.

   "[32:01] Chris Barlow: ...have someone who knows you but doesn't know your website that well... to tell me why I'm signing up."

2. Survey Implementation:
   Incorporate short surveys on confirmation pages to understand subscriber motivations.

   "[32:52] Julia Campbell: Just get some feedback... to understand their thought process and better communicate it."

Conclusion and Resources

Chris Barlow shares resources available at Beeline Marketing, including custom AI-driven tools for tailored marketing solutions.

"[33:11] Chris Barlow: ...go to yourbeline.com and if you go to the resources page, you'll see a bunch of different ebooks and quizzes I offer."

Julia wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to subscribe and engage with the podcast for more insights.

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Key Takeaways:

• Email Ownership: Building and maintaining an email list provides sustained and controllable engagement.
• Consistency and Personalization: Regular, heartfelt communication fosters strong donor relationships.
• Strategic Conversion: Balancing nurturing content with fundraising appeals maximizes donor conversion.
• Data-Driven Optimization: Monitoring and analyzing key metrics ensures continuous improvement of email campaigns.

By implementing these strategies, nonprofits can effectively grow and convert their email lists, fostering long-term engagement and sustainable fundraising.

Transcript

[Julia Campbell]

Imagine nonprofit work transformed by purpose built tools. That would mean less guessing and more connecting, less admin and more impact, less stuck and more go. With the giving platform built for purpose, you don't have to imagine Bloomerang can help you raise more funds, retain more donors, save more time and grow stronger relationships with your supporters so you can spend time on what matters most, your mission. Want to see how over 20,000 nonprofits are using Bloomerang to raise, retain and recruit more supporters? Well, take a free on demand tour of the giving platform today. Go to jcsocialmarketing.com forward/bloomerang. That's jcsocialmarketing.com Forward/Bl O O M E R A N G okay, onto the show. Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hi everyone, this is Nonprofit Nation. I'm Julia Campbell. So happy that you are here with me today. And today's topic, how to grow and convert your email list. So we know that growing your nonprofits email list is very important and that is one thing, but turning subscribers into engaged donors is quite another. So today I'm going to talk with nonprofit digital marketing expert Chris Barlow, founder of Beeline Marketing, to tell us how nonprofits can consistently grow their audience and cultivate relationships that lead to first time donations and hopefully long term engagement and sustainable fundraising. So Chris, welcome to. Well, welcome back to Nonprofit Nation.

[Chris Barlow]

Thank you Julia. It's been a little while. I think maybe two years or something, I can't remember.

[Julia Campbell]

Yes, I think it was 2022, so way too long. I did speak at the Nonprofit Social media summit in 2024. Just always happy to have your expertise on, on these topics. You've been on the show before, but for those who don't know about you, tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to focus on nonprofit marketing.

[Chris Barlow]

I was in corporate sales in a career that I, I liked it, but I didn't see myself retiring in it and I ended up doing sales like kind of falling into it and really enjoying it. I didn't think I even wanted to be in business at all. But knowing that I didn't want to retire in that industry or stay with that long term or even that I would be able to if I wanted to, I just kind of always wanted to start my own business. So I took a course on Google Ads back in 2015 and I knew a nonprofit and I was like, hey, thinking to myself, why don't I just reach out to them and offer to run their Google Ad grant for free? Because, like, the ads aren't costing anything. I can't make any, like, bad mistakes. They're not doing anything with it. And so they were like, yeah, that'd be great. So I did that and then I reached out or they. That gave me some good experience. I got some other clients that weren't nonprofits right away. At some point, we're like, Chris, we want to pay you for what we're doing and really expand it and do more than just kind of, you know, kind of learning with this. We want to actually go somewhere and we like what you're doing. And so that turned, they turned into a client and then they started referring me to other nonprofits they knew. So just kind of fell into the nonprofit space. And I was relieved. I was really happy about it because I. Part of the reason I wasn't interested in business in college is I just always wanted to do something with more purpose. And so being able to combine my love of sales and marketing with purpose is. I don't know. It's just what made me feel like this was a great fit.

[Julia Campbell]

I love that. I feel, I feel very similar. So today we're talking about email specifically, and with so many digital marketing options available to nonprofits, why should we prioritize email over social media or paid ads? And should we prioritize?

[Chris Barlow]

So while, you know, it's really important to keep your eye on social media and be engaged there, the, the biggest downside to social media or paid is that you don't own the platform, you don't own the audience at any point. Any of the social platforms can change how you are able to reach, and they do. Whereas you, you own their email list, you own the permission of those people to contact them. And that's not going away. I mean, obviously there's some laws that could make it. The things could change, but it changed so much more slowly and, and so it's an asset. And so, and everyone, everyone pretty much uses email. And not everyone uses Every social channel. So again, we want to be engaged in social, but we have to find the right one for your audience. Whereas you know that you're going to reach your donors through email. And the data also consistently comes back that email. And I'm going to lump SMS into email. They are approached a little differently. But most email marketing platforms can do SMS and usually you combine the two. Is the most effective channel for fundraising. It has like a. And this even applies in the for profit space. It has like a 40 to 1 return on investment. On average. The $40 put in a $1 put in a dot. Yeah, exactly. That's the average.

[Julia Campbell]

Wow. Pretty amazing. So. And yeah, what. I don't know what. So I should know what the social media averages, but it's definitely not that. What's a typical open rate for a nonprofit?

[Chris Barlow]

I think across the industry, 20%.

[Julia Campbell]

It's around 20% and on Facebook engagement is like 0.01%. Fans. See, I just, I'm teaching as we record this, my social media for social good academy and the whole first module is around the platforms and the trends and what people are seeing. And everyone is always so shocked to hear the incredibly low organic engagement rates, especially on Facebook. It's higher on LinkedIn and Instagram, but still the point being your open rate is 20%. That means you're reaching 20% of your audience as opposed to when you post on your Facebook page, you're only reaching like 1%.

[Chris Barlow]

Yeah, Facebook and algo platforms, they kind of want you to pay to show to more of your audience. And obviously with email it's not based on how much money you put in. It's just based on how effective your email subject line is basically.

[Julia Campbell]

So what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see nonprofits making with email?

[Chris Barlow]

I would say there are two things and the first one is not being consistent. It's kind of this opposite expectation where like, oh, if we, if we email people too often, they're going to get tired of us and unsubscribe. But if you think about your own email inbox, there are people you're subscribed to who you like hearing from and they email you all the time. And the reason isn't you. You don't get tired of hearing from people and unsubscribe for that reason. You get, you unsubscribe because when you hear from someone who you don't we want to unsubscribe from, either they're just, it's not relevant to you anymore or they're draining your emotional bank account. And you only ever hear from them when they want something from you and they're not providing value to you and encouraging you and filling your emotional bank account. And so being consistent helps you stay top of mind as a nonprofit. And so it isn't too much to send people a weekly email and to always just be showing up to them. And they're not going to. If we have a 20% open rate, maybe you have better than that, hopefully. But not everyone in your audience is going to see all your emails anyway. They're just. It's just going to get buried. So they're only going to see some of them and that's going to be a way for you to stay top of mind. So consistency and then kind of tied into that is, are you nurturing people? Are you writing very professionally with a beautifully designed email every time and it looks like this just very organizational email, or does it feel like a personal email from a friend or someone who, you know, has a more personal connection? And are you writing to them in such a way that it feels more like a personal email? And again, I think if our mindset and heart is, I want to write to my donor and treat them like someone I'm interested in and like and want to know. And then that will come through in how you do your emails and how you communicate. And so then your donors won't be tired of hearing from you because it'll feel like this is a personal email from someone I know and I trust and I like and I don't mind hearing from them. And so I think those are the main things, is consistency and being personal. In terms of email strategy, I cringe.

[Julia Campbell]

Sometimes when I hear my clients say they send a quarterly email. The first thing I think of is, first of all, how packed is that email and overwhelming to read if it's got an entire quarter's worth of news in it. And then what if I delete that email by accident or it goes to spam and I don't get it? I won't have heard from the organization for six months. I do agree we need to be sending more email. What you said just really stuck out to me. I think of my email inbox, the people that email me consistently that I want to hear from. I don't always read every email, but I want to stay informed and I like hearing from them. It's like you said, it's relevancy, it's timeliness, it's something of value to me, something of interest to me. So So I don't have to open every single email that is sent to me. I just don't want, you know, I want to be in the loop. Like, I want to be in the know of what's going on. And I think that that is something that organizations can really jump upon, especially right now where people are seeking out truth and information, especially around, like, the causes that they care about. So I think that's a really great point. So what are some effective ways for nonprofits to consistently grow their email list?

[Chris Barlow]

There's, there's. Yeah, there's a lot of options here. Start with the deep heart principle, and that's find how your values, your values shape what you know, how your mission plays out. Your core values of like, okay, we value the life of every animal. We believe animals are valuable. So therefore we have a shelter and we, you know, care for animals that are not cared for. I'm just making this up. Well, how does that care for animals and the value that they bring to people and just their own intrinsic value? How does that inform how you can serve people who don't yet know you can? You serve people in a, in a practical way through your marketing that gets them to feel interested in hearing from you. So, for example, putting together some kind of resource or guide that will help pet owners to be better owners, to care better for their animals or whatever it is, you know, whatever your, your nonprofit's focus is. So that taking what are our values and how can we put together something that furthers those values, but it does it in a way that serves people who could be our donors. And so instead of just telling people to sign up for your newsletter, which there are some nonprofits who are very news more oriented. And so you can just say sign up to get news updates. And people are interested in that. But most nonprofits, there aren't any news to report. And so getting your newsletter isn't that interesting. So offering something of value to people is a much more powerful way and effective way to get people to join your email list. So that's. I usually will push like something like a lead magnet of some kind.

[Julia Campbell]

A lead magnet. So that's like free resources or a downloadable that they would then give you their email address and you would send to them.

[Chris Barlow]

Yes.

[Julia Campbell]

How do you get people, how do you promote these lead magnets? I guess that's where the other digital marketing facets come in. Is there a pop up on your website? But then you also have to drive people to the sleep magnet.

[Chris Barlow]

Yeah, I mean, there's again and There's a lot of ways you can do that. My favorite ways to do that, obviously. Yeah, making it really prominent on your website so that people can find it. So any of your traffic gets it. Posting it on social media when it's relevant. And then of course, advertising are some of the main ways. And with, with regards to advertising, you know, a great place to start is the Google Grant because it's free ads. And the Google Grant is people are looking, going online to look for a problem, a solution to a problem, or an answer to a question. You know, how do I help train my cat to stay in a, in a, in a kennel for a night or whatever. Like you can answer some of those questions. You know, you can do Facebook ads. Facebook is a very effective, low cost way to grow your email list. There are now new ways actually to reach audiences on LinkedIn. If you go George, at whole whale just posted on LinkedIn about this. And I have, we haven't run in this with any clients yet. But Bing has just, you know, Microsoft owns Bing, it's there and they own LinkedIn. And now you can do what's called a performance max campaign on Bing and say, I want to target my, these ads on LinkedIn. And so you can do video and image ads through your Microsoft ad account and it will show video and image ads on LinkedIn. So you're going through a Microsoft ad account rather than through LinkedIn's ad manager. And the costs are like 30% of what, you know, one third of what you'd be paying directly on LinkedIn. So that's another new opportunity for nonprofits anyway. I love that there's a lot of different ways you can go about it. I usually will recommend or start with the grant and maybe some Facebook as a good place to start.

[Julia Campbell]

This is how I grew my email list. I had a blog for a really long time and then I was posting on social media. But I wasn't really building my email list. I was kind of just offering the subscribe link like you said. Like, no one wants to subscribe to an email newsletter. They want to subscribe to hear information that's relevant to them or they want to get a resource that's valuable to them. Nobody just signs up for an email newsletter. Cause they want more email. Nobody wants more email. And then once I started creating guides, free guides, free ebooks or free webinars, free resources, that was what really helped me grow my list. And going on podcasts, going on, you know, giving webinars to other people's audiences. Partnering with people like you, Chris. I mean, that really helped me grow my list. So I think for nonprofits, I would say I reiterate what you said. Just be proactive rather than reactive. Like, you can't just put a box on your website that says sign up and then complain that no one's signing up. You have to really be a little bit more proactive.

[Chris Barlow]

Yeah, and that's a great point about doing webinars or podcasts. I know a lot of places now are doing like summits like you did. You're more organizing, you're bringing together a bunch of people. And so you could bring together several organizations that are all different angles around the same problem and all talk about that and invite people to come to it for free. And that's one way you can all grow your. Your audiences.

[Julia Campbell]

All right, well, the second part of this is conversion. So what should nonprofits focus on once they have these new subscribers?

[Chris Barlow]

So the main two things I'll say are you want to start communicating with people immediately. And you've probably heard already the importance of a welcome series. I think that's talked about a whole lot, all the time. So a welcome series is just, you know, the first week, maybe five, seven days, you send an email out per day, automated to make, you know, maybe the first email is sending the promised resource or if it was an event, sending them a link to the event and then having some follow up emails that begin to tell your story and segue or draw the line from, here's how we're helping you, here's why we're helping you. Because it's part of our heart, our core values. Here's how we also live out these values. This is what our mission is. And so helping them. See, like this is a small piece of the big picture. We created this guide because it's part of what we do. It's who we are. And we wanted to care for you too. One thing I like with welcome Series two is you don't have to. You can send other resources to your new subscribers that you didn't even create. You can find another org that has a great resource and highlight them so you don't have to be the one that creates everything.

[Julia Campbell]

I do that on Facebook.

[Chris Barlow]

You just curate stuff.

[Julia Campbell]

Yeah, you do that all the time, Chris.

[Chris Barlow]

Yes, yes, because it's saying, hey, here's a trusted resource that's on the same topic and I think it could help you. And then you don't have to feel overwhelmed to create all these different things. And so it's just a great way to also show goodwill to other organizations and like highlight other people. Cause people trust people who like, aren't all about themselves. So showing in your welcome series, we're not about ourselves. We're not all about. We're here to help you. Here's some other resources, here's some stories, here's why we're doing this. And then I do recommend having an ask at the end of that series saying if you would like to support our work and particularly if you would like us to help, help us to get this resource into the hands of more people that we created for you. Has it been helpful to you? Can you help us? If you donate $50 today, we can get this into the hands of 10 more people or of 100 more people, whatever the number is. And so you could try to get them to support your mission too, but you could also just tie the ask directly to the way you helped them. And so asking right away is a good idea.

[Julia Campbell]

I agree. And this is pretty controversial. I don't know about controversial, but this is something that I do get asked all the time. So I'm glad that you mentioned it. How much should we ask? How much is too much? How can we make sure that we're keeping these email subscribers engaged but not overwhelming them with fundraising appeals?

[Chris Barlow]

That's a great question. So first of all, again, think of it as if you were writing to a friend. Would you ask your friend this many times for this? For x, y or z 1 and 2? If you just need a helpful ratio. I like a ratio of four to one. So four emails that nurture, one email that asks. And you don't have to do it in that order. Right. You could have 25 emails that nurture all year long and then 10 to 15 emails at the year end that are all about giving. You're not worried about that because you know people like to hear from you and you know that only 20% of them, or maybe more are, are going to even open each email. So if you've sent 15 appeals in a row at year end with different angles telling stories and stuff, they're not, not everyone's going to open every one of those emails. And people do need to have the repeated message. They might be thinking, oh, I want to give to you. I just don't have time to think about it right now. Oh, okay. This is another ask email. I don't have time to read it today. Okay. It's December 26th. I need to actually make a decision about who I got another Email from you. Okay, yeah, I'm doing that today because now I've been reminded. So there's like, don't be afraid to ask too many times, but what is the overall picture of your relationship? Have you been making deposits in their emotional bank account? Are you treating them like a friend?

[Julia Campbell]

Yes, a deposits in the emotional bank account. And I know that when I first started sort of selling courses and selling anything via my email list, it was a huge struggle for me because I thought, oh, I've just provided all this free value for so long, people are going to not respond. And I think nonprofits think the same way. They think, oh, I don't want to overwhelm them with fundraising appeals. But the thing is, people want to help. Like you said, they want to be part of this, and they want to have agency, and they want to feel like they're making a difference, and they want to put their money where their mouth is very often. So what kind of, like, language, what kind of strategies should we be employing in our fundraising emails to turn these subscribers into donors if they're not donors already?

[Chris Barlow]

I think the. The best, the most powerful things you can do are one, understanding for yourselves, why should someone give to us rather than to some other cause or not at all, and buy something for themselves for the same amount of money? So knowing your value proposition, knowing why I should give to you, and answering that question, thinking through it, having a really powerful elevator pitch and being able to break it down. So there's that. Just being able to answer the why. It's more than just, we need. We have this goal. We have this shortfall. We have this. We need to raise this amount of money. Well, like, why and what impact will they see? And why are. How are you uniquely positioned to accomplish that? So there's that. There's also seeing your donor as, this is their mission. Once upon a time, the Rockefellers of the world, they started these big philanthropic projects, and it was their money and their project. And just because our donors aren't giving, most of our donors aren't giving tens of millions of dollars, millions of dollars to make these things happen. And we see that kind of differently because they're giving $100, $50, $500, we have to still remember that this is their work, and we are the stewards of that work, and we're helping that. That may become reality with their support. And so being able to talk to people in that way helps them take ownership of it. So, yeah, I think the value proposition, of course, telling stories just so you can make it look real or help people see the reality of it, not just talk about it. In theory is another. Obviously we always talk about storytelling, but that's just a way to make it go from, okay, I know what your mission is in theory to people are storytelling creatures and we love stories and we gravitate to hearing stories. And if you're a good storyteller, people want to keep hearing from you. So.

[Julia Campbell]

Absolutely.

[Chris Barlow]

I love that even if they don't give, they'll want to keep reading your emails.

[Julia Campbell]

Yes. And it does take a while. I mean, some people do give after that first appeal, but you know, some people really need to be warmed up. They need that welcome series. They need to learn more about what you do. I think that nonprofits often understand that, you know, or they often underestimate the amount of times they have to ask before they get a gift. And they think that, oh, we know everything that you do, we already know the stories, we already know the great work that you do. But, but we have a lot of stuff going on.

[Chris Barlow]

Okay.

[Julia Campbell]

There's a lot of things coming at us for a normal person in their work day and their regular day. So we do need a lot of different touch points. So I think that's a really great point. What about segmentation and personalization? This is something that I know nonprofits are interested in struggling with. So how can we use segmentation and personalization to make emails more effective?

[Chris Barlow]

Well, segmentation is really, really important. It's kind of this big scary word. But all it means is just understanding that not all of your audience and your donors are the same. So everyone who gave last year, who hasn't given in a year, you could consider a lapsed donor and put them in a different category and talk to them a little differently and treat them differently than people who are your monthly donors. Your monthly donors you need to talk to so differently than people who are just first time donors or haven't given at all. They are the true owners of your mission. Besides, your major donors, like your major donors and your monthly donors are the owners of this mission in a way that no one else is. And so talking to them that way, that doesn't mean you aren't going to make appeals to do a one time gift to your monthly donors. But you do need to look at them that very differently and talk to them differently. So it's just being understanding that, okay, we're trying to talk to a lot of different people and we need to be respectful of who we're talking to and how we approach them. So thinking about those audiences, you don't need to get super complicated about it. But there's just, you know, people who are new subscribers or subscribers who've never given. There's people who've given once or, you know, once this year, you know, and they you want to try to get them to give again, become a kind of an ongoing or a key donor who is going to keep coming back and not lapse. There's other lists you can create too, so there's that. I think one way to do some personalization is obviously to have your emails come from a single person. Whether the like, maybe each audience is a little different. Like people who've never given here from this person and people who've given once hear from this person or monthly donors here from this person who owns our monthly donor community and runs it or whatever. So you could do. But always having that your emails come from a specific individual and let people know, hey, if you apply, we will respond. Yes, like encouraging actual replies is probably one of the best ways to make your emails personal. Like, yes, you're sending out an email to a lot of people. It's not one to one, but you can encourage a one to one conversation. So instead of just going for clicks, go for replies. That's a much better metric to aim for. And that will make your emails turn into something personal automatically. There's no trick there. It's just, hey, I would love to hear from you or what do you think about this? Or what is your feedback? Or why did you choose to give today? Or how do you like to hear from us? Or what do you what input or feedback do you have for how we're fulfilling our mission? Or what made you excited? Or what was the best story we've told or whatever. Any of these questions. And then please hit reply because we're going to respond. And if you get overwhelmed with replies, yeah, you have a really, really good problem.

[Julia Campbell]

I would love to be overwhelmed with replies. I think if people are paying attention and reading your emails.

[Chris Barlow]

In my own welcome series, this so the first email I send is the lead magnet or whatever it is I promised. The second email I send the next day is a total personal email. And I'm like, hey, I sent this to you yesterday. But I didn't really introduce myself. I'm Chris. Here are some things about me. My parents are from New Orleans. I grew up in Colorado. I've got a little bit of Southern roots in me. I've got seven kids. A little bit about that. Just I Tell some facts about myself. And I say, please tell me three things about yourself. I get more replies to that email than any other email I sent because it's personal. So I encourage in your welcome series, like make your. Make one of your emails about who you are as a person and why you're connected to this mission and encourage people to reply.

[Julia Campbell]

Wonderful. We just don't talk to our email subscribers like people.

[Chris Barlow]

Yeah.

[Julia Campbell]

We look at them as numbers on a spreadsheet, I feel like. And just, oh, email is something we got to get off our to do list. Yeah, it's, it's, it's challenging for sure. So when we are measuring the effectiveness of email campaigns, what key metrics should we be tracking?

[Chris Barlow]

Again, I think replies is the one that we overlook. And you're going to look at click rates and open rates too. And you can learn by looking at those metrics. Okay. This subject line was. Because really the open rate is just effectiveness of your subject line. It can also be a measure of the overall relationship. If you have consistently high open rates. People like to. They feel connected to you. They like what you're sending them. They feel like you're bringing value to them. And if you have lower open rates, it might be that they don't feel like that you're taking. You're asking too much. Or it could just be like, well, I just don't have time. This newsletter is too overwhelming that it simply could be you're sending great stuff, but maybe just instead of a monthly newsletter that has like 10 things in it, send an email once a week with one thing in it. Split it up. Send your great content. Split it up. Send it into one thing. Like no one. When you get those amazing newsletters and there's so much in them, it's like, I don't know where to start. I'll just pick one random thing and I'll ignore the rest. I don't have time to look at the rest. Or if you feel overwhelmed at all. It's like, I don't have time to do this today. Delete. Yeah. So splitting it into smaller segments, that doesn't quite answer the question of metrics, but I think that can help you understand what metrics you're seeing and what to do about them.

[Julia Campbell]

So if our emails are not converting, where should we troubleshoot?

[Chris Barlow]

First, if people are clicking but not donating, then I would look at the donation page. Do we explain our value proposition? Do we. Are we testing different elements? Like maybe there's a video on the page and all we really need is just some more text explaining why someone should give. It just depends. Like there's various elements. There's no like one winning strategy. But so I. If you're getting clicks but not donations, I would look at the donation page. If you're getting opens but not clicks, then I would look at what are we saying in our email, why this isn't compelling people, they don't feel compelled to give. And again, like you're also looking at the big picture the whole time. Like, have we been asking this audience to too much or do we just need to make more asks right now? Like maybe some people are giving but we're not getting there quite the response we want. Well, maybe they're just, again, they're not seeing every open email we even send. So that that importance of repeating that message and why they should give during key fundraising times.

[Julia Campbell]

Well, you said is so important because it applies to social media as well as email. If people are clicking on your donate page and you can track this in your website analytics say like 500 people click from an email, but one donates, then that's a problem with your donate page or your website loading time. So I think we tend to blame the messenger a lot of the time, but we're not looking at the back end. Like, are there too many forms to fill out or is it really hard to understand? Because if people are clicking and they want to donate, but then they're falling off when they get to your website or your mobile optimized form, we need to look at that much more strategically.

[Chris Barlow]

Yeah. Or people are giving but they're not giving monthly. Well, did we actually tell them why they should give monthly? Because that is a different ask and a different appeal than a one time gift and we need to actually make a different case, a different value proposition for why, okay, you're about to give us $100. Would you convert that into a $10 monthly gift? And here's why that's much more impactful. We're not asking you for more money, we're asking you for less money, but just give it to us, make it a monthly gift. And here's the reason this is so impactful for us and actually explaining that instead of just be like, hey, would you like to convert it into a monthly gift? As if like just, just the technology piece is all that was missing. But what's missing in our, in people's minds is why should I give? Or all the, you know, there may be friction or other things like that.

[Julia Campbell]

Does email work really well to convert People to monthly donors.

[Chris Barlow]

Absolutely. If you can make your case about why should someone give monthly on a donation page, we can do the same case in email. In fact, email is a great way to do it because you can have a much bigger message that you want to communicate that you would really do on a donation page. Over time in email you can tell stories, you can highlight monthly donors, you can make your case, you can talk about the impact of the program and you can do all that on a donation page, but you can't. You could make a really long donation page or you can break it up into bite sized manageable pieces in email. And it is a great time when someone's given their first gift, it is a great time to try to convert them into a monthly donor within that next month after they've given their first gift to try to emphasize like would you consider becoming a monthly donor? You just gave us a gift of $50. Here's why it would be we can multiply your impact by far more than just another $10 monthly gift or $5 monthly gift. Here's why the impact and reach you could have. So just thinking about that key time they've just given and they still have you in mind after that during that next month, that is a great time to actually convert them to monthly donor.

[Julia Campbell]

Oh, I love this. So what is one action item a nonprofit can take this week to improve their email list growth?

[Chris Barlow]

To improve the growth it would be look at your website. Why should someone sign up for email list have someone who knows you but doesn't know your website that well, a friend, a colleague who's not at your like go to your website and say tell me why I should sign up. Tell us why you think we're asking you to sign up for emails. What do you get for that? And just get some feedback. Another option is on your confirmation page when someone has opted in, put a short two question survey, something like what did you. You know you could put this for all you have the same survey for all of any kind of newsletter downloads that people are offered. What did you sign up for and why did you subscribe understand from your donors or your subscribers language what caused them to make that decision so then you can understand their thought process and better communicate it to other people.

[Julia Campbell]

Love it. Wonderful. So specific, so easily. Just so easy to understand and just so tactical and practical. And Chris, that is what I love about you and your emails. So where can people find you online and sign up for your list to get more of these amazing tips?

[Chris Barlow]

Yeah, so go to yourbeline.com and if you go to the resources page, you'll see a bunch of different ebooks and quizzes I offer. I've got one on how to find new donors through digital marketing. But even cooler, if you look at the bottom right corner, there's a little B on my homepage and that little B it'll ask you where you want your resource emailed and then it will ask you a question like what is the biggest marketing question you have right now? And you tell it or problem? You tell it what you're looking at or trying to deal with and it will create a custom download for you, custom resource for you on the fly and email it to you. So it's AI based and it's using all of our content and knowledge and stuff that we've put in into it. So it'll create something custom for you and email it to you so you get something exactly what you need. It doesn't even have to be a whole ebook. It could just be like one page. Here's some tips so you could take stuff from different ebooks we've created and get something exactly what you need.

[Julia Campbell]

I'm going to go do that right now. That is such a cool thing. Is it run on ChatGPT?

[Chris Barlow]

It is run on Cos Writer by George of Whole Whale Love Whole Whale.

[Julia Campbell]

That's fantastic. Okay, so your beeline.com, click on the bee. Click on any number of the resources that Chris and his team offers on the website. Thank you so much for being here. This has just been wonderful. Always great to see you.

[Chris Barlow]

You too. Thanks Julia.

[Julia Campbell]

Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then you can find me on Instagram @ Julia Campbell, 77 Keep changing the world, you nonprofit unicorn.