Welcome Email Sequence: The Essential Component of Your Nonprofit Marketing Strategy
A welcome email sequence (also known as a welcome email series) is the automated emails you send immediately after someone subscribes to your email list. I recommend sending 3-5+ emails in your welcome sequence. This is an opportunity to introduce your mission, your team, provide ways to get involved, and invite subscribers to become active partners in your mission. These emails set the tone for what they can expect from you, providing a peak engagement window where subscribers are most likely to engage with you.
I find welcome email sequences, anecdotally, to be one of the most effective components of marketing strategies for nonprofits. Let’s see what the data says.
What the email marketing data says about welcome sequences
People expect to receive welcome emails from you after they subscribe to your email list. By opting in, they have permitted you to contact them directly. Welcome emails, across industries, have higher engagement rates than other email campaigns, making this a prime time to establish a strong foundation with your new supporters. Think of these emails as touchpoints for building trust, credibility, and cultivating a community of “your” people.
According to Klaviyo’s email marketing benchmarks, welcome emails
Have an average open rate of 51%
Get click rates up to 15% (a good average click-through rate for nonprofits is 2.9%)
With such a high rate of engagement, you could be leaving key relationships and revenue on the table.
(MailerLite and Feathr also have nonprofit-specific email marketing insights)
Engaging supporters
Welcome email sequences are my favorite way to establish engagement with subscribers. Remember, your call-to-actions do not always need to lead to a link – you can ask subscribers to reply to you directly. I recommend engagement call-to-actions for your first 1-3 welcome emails to further introduce your mission and establish trust. This can include asking them questions and replying to your email with their answer, participating in a poll or survey, or responding with their opinion.
Then, in emails 4+, you can include CTA links leading to resources, your donation page, or other pages on your website.
Segmenting supporters based on interests
Welcome emails are also a great way to get subscribers to segment themselves. You can ask for their interests or other descriptors, get them to click a link, and have that link segment them within your email service provider. Once they are segmented, you can be ultra-specific in what you send them, making sure they only receive relevant emails. For example, if someone joins your email list because they volunteered, send them emails relevant to volunteering, the impact volunteers make in your organization, and provide more ways for them to volunteer.
I recommend segmenting once you have 1,000 subscribers or more. If your email list is smaller than that, you can still tag or group them (the term depends on your ESP) and put them into a segment later. Remember that welcome emails can be a part of your marketing automation, so there’s no need to manually send emails every time someone opts in.
For more insight into choosing the best email service provider for your nonprofit, check out my top platform recommendations.
Looking for a reliable email service provider? Kit can take care of your email marketing needs and seamlessly integrate with your website.
When to use a welcome email sequence in your nonprofit marketing strategy
As I mentioned, you should send welcome email sequences as soon as someone subscribes to your email list. Let’s take a look at how that can look depending on how someone subscribed.
New Donors
New donors may or may not already be on your email list. Regardless, I recommend sending a welcome email sequence to new donors to thank them, boost engagement, showcase your impact, and ask for their feedback. This can help with donor retention and trust building.
After an event
At events, have a sign-in sheet where attendees can put their name and email address. On the form, make sure you have a consent statement for you to send them emails, giving them the choice to input or leave out their email address. After the event, send a thank-you email and, if applicable, the event results. Then, send them a series of emails that further build trust and give them information about your mission.
Opting into your email list
This is one of the most common ways to use a welcome email sequence. Whether you have a pop-up or an inline form on your website, an opt-in to access a report or resource, or a general newsletter opt-in, a welcome sequence should follow the initial delivery email. Use these emails to elaborate on your resource and mission, offer ways to get involved, and ask for their input.
Email welcome sequence for nonprofits: 5 plug-and-play email templates
A welcome email sequence is one of the most powerful components of your email marketing strategy, and writing these emails shouldn’t feel overwhelming. That’s why I created a free 5-day email challenge for you! Each day, you’ll get an email from me with a copy and strategy outline, along with a video walkthrough. By the end of the week, you’ll have an email sequence ready to send to your supporters!
