How to Build a Great Email Strategy for Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Establishing a strategy for your peer-to-peer fundraising email communications is critically important. Of course, when you have a lot to do, taking time to think about strategy might seem like a luxury. But keep in mind that there’s no point in sending emails just to send emails. They need a purpose.

A strategy establishes the “why” (what you’re trying to accomplish) for your email communications. Then you can determine how your email messages will help you get there.

As part of the recent virtual conference, It’s a Peer-to-Peer World, I worked with peer-to-peer fundraising experts to present a five-session email communications workshop. In the first session, Kari Bodell from Susan G. Komen and Jillian Stewart from Peerworks Consulting helped attendees learn how to build a strong peer-to-peer email communications strategy.

Here are three key steps for establishing a strong strategy for your email communications.

1. Articulate Your Goals

When your campaign or event tries to be everything to everyone, it can fall flat in fully accomplishing what it needs to. Start by articulating your peer-to-peer campaign goals so you can then create your email communications plan to support those goals.

Here are some things to think about as you articulate your goals:

• What is the primary purpose or goal of the campaign? What must the campaign do to be viewed as successful?
• What role does this campaign play in your overall fundraising program? How does it relate to, complement or compete with your other peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns?
• What do the campaign’s goal and role in the fundraising program tell you about what the tone of the campaign’s communications should be?

2. Understand Your Audience

To communicate well, it’s important to understand the typical person in your target audience (their interests, demographic information, etc.) It’s also important to understand the groups of individuals in your audience, so you can develop targeted messages that will inspire and motivate them most effectively.

Be sure to understand the types of information you will need to speak to your audience in a targeted way. For example, look at your audience by their affinity with your campaign. This is what that might look like for groups of individuals in a cycling event (in order from weakest to strongest affinity):

Another way to look at groups of individuals is their role with the campaign or event. For example:

• Top fundraiser
• Board member
• Team captain
• First-time participant
• Survivor

Here are some other examples of insights you can gain from your peer-to-peer fundraising data to help you segment your audience and target your communications:

• First time or returning participant status
• Fundraising status
• Team affiliation (captain, member or none)
• Logged into their fundraising center
• Customized their fundraising center
• Sent an email from their fundraising center
• Changed the pre-set fundraising goal

And, here are some things you might not know, and might need to ask your participants to better understand them:

• What is their affinity to the organization?
• What is their connection with your cause?
• Are they planning to fundraise?
• Would they like to start or join a team?
• What type of team would they like to join?

Here are some things to consider as you think about your audience:

• What is your primary target audience for this campaign?
• What do you know about the primary audience on average?
• What other information might be helpful to know about individuals so you can customize your email communications?
• How can you collect other important information?
• How could you use audience information to build more targeted communications?

3. Be Clear About What You Want Your Audience To Do

An effective email communications strategy defines what the messages need to ask each audience group to do. The messages need to make specific asks and inspire actions that ultimately help you reach your campaign’s goals.

Here is an example of what actions you might try to inspire — and the asks you might make to inspire them — for a walk event:

• Recruit: Will you register? Will you start a team? Will you build a team?
• Activate: Will you fundraise?
• Optimize: Will you continue fundraising?
• Retain: Will you participate again next time?

Bear in mind that these communications also need to inform your audience about what they need to do to take action. And, these communications will all be running at the same time — sent to various audiences depending on what stage they’re in with your campaign or event.

Here are some things to consider as you think about what you want your audience to do:

• What is your ideal email communications timeline for each action step? For example:
  • When does the first message go out? What is the trigger for each step?
  • What (if ever) do you stop communicating about a step?
  • How does this plan differ from your current email communications timeline?
• What calls to action are you currently using? How are they working?
• What tools or incentives do you offer at each action step? How are they working?

With some advance planning, you can ensure you send the right message to the right audience at the right time to improve your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign’s results.

Editor's Note: This is part of a series on peer-to-peer fundraising email communications.

Part 1: How to Build a Great Email Strategy for Your Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
Part 2: Finding the Right Timing for Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Email Communications