Turn followers into contacts and build your database!

Your organisation is ticking along quite nicely.

You have a good online presence, a strong social media following… and you’re doing great things!

But…

Are you missing an opportunity to grow, nurture and connect with your audience in a way that goes beyond a simple thumbs up, or a follow?

One of the things we encourage clients to do, especially when we build websites for them, is to create a mailing list.

This might sound a bit old fashioned, but whether you’re a sustainable business, a charity or an NGO, the more contacts you can gather, the more opportunities you have to engage with them and to “sell” your product or service.

By linking your website to an email marketing platform, such as Mailchimp, or Email Octopus, (there are LOTS of other providers, shop around) you’re able to add a sign-up form and grow a database of contacts you KNOW are interested in your work.

Why?

Because they’ve already made a commitment to hand over their contact information to you, which is much more valuable than a simple like or follow.

It’s not just online.

If you’re delivering events and activities and gathering this kind of information online isn’t practical (think community fair… muddy field… no mobile reception!) a simple paper form enables you to capture the same information for you to input directly into your database later, at your convenience. You can create a spreadsheet and import them, saving you time and reducing the risk of errors.

What information do you need?

At a minimum, we recommend first name, last name and email address. If you envisage contacting people by phone, a mobile number is obviously important.

However, in an era where data protection is critical, the less the better.

What do you do with it?

Email marketing is a fantastic tool, if used correctly.

Using email marketing platforms, you can create professional emails which match your branding and communicate in a way that isn’t always possible on social media.

From newsletters to product launches to fundraising campaigns, you’re able to craft personalised emails to your contacts, using their first name to make things even more tailored to them.

You can add images, buttons and hyperlinks, directing people to more detailed content on your website.

In addition to this, you can segment your list of contacts depending on their source.

For example, if they’re a member of your charity, a regular donor, a client, someone who attended an event… the more information (or tags) you can assign to them, the more it’s possible to break down your audience into subgroups.

An email that’s right for one group might not be right for another.

Analytics

Once the email is sent, you’ll receive a detailed breakdown of who-did-what, from the number of opens, the number of link clicks, the number of unsubscribes, to those who didn’t open at all!

The number of opens and clicks are by far the most important stats, as you’ll see that some emails work better than others.

Recreate the good ones and reconsider the rest!

Don’t overdo it!

Whilst it’s nice to receive emails from organisations you choose to support, it’s important that these aren’t too frequent and run the risk putting people off.

Multiple emails can make people ‘tune out’ at best, unsubscribe at worst.

You know your audience (and sub-audiences) better than anyone, so give this some consideration.

A monthly newsletter, plus one other email might be plenty?

This sounds like a lot of work

It really isn’t.

Once you’ve selected your email marketing platform, you can use their existing templates, or create your own.

You can duplicate past campaigns (emails) and tweak them as you see fit.

So, after a bit of work upfront, you’ll begin to reap the rewards.

And remember, you can use the analytics tools above to figure out what works and what doesn’t!

The important stuff. What are your responsibilities?

In a nutshell, you are legally required to keep people’s contact information – their personal data – secure and not to share it with other, non-authorised parties.

In England and Wales, this is covered by the Data Protection Act and a set of regulations known as GDPR (General Data Protection).

Your email marketing platform (Mailchimp etc) will have its own security, and it should require you to set up 2-factor authentication – via app or text, on top of your account password.

As a general rule, you cannot share this data with anyone outside of your organisation, unless the contact consented to this upon sign-up.

There are also some simple rules you need to follow when handling people’s data.

They MUST know they’ve opted in to receiving communication from you in the first place, and they MUST have the option to opt-out.

A simple unsubscribe button does the job and will be a requirement on any emails you may send.

For full details on your requirements to control personal data – and what category your organisation may fall under, head here.

Ready to give it a try?

The entire process is pretty intuitive, but if you’d like ANY assistance getting started, we’d be more than happy to help.

We could add the mailing list form to your website, create bespoke templates in your email marketing platform and even help you write engaging copy that leaves readers wanting more!

Use the contact form on our site, or email stu@abetterplanet.co.uk for a chat!

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