According to a national Dunham+Company study1 conducted by research firm Campbell Rinker, nearly 1 out of 2 donors to charity (43%) indicated that the reason they don’t read an email from organizations they support is that it is too lengthy. This is especially true of Generations X and Y, as 48% indicated that the length of an email plays a vital role in whether they will read it or not.

The study also uncovered that another key inhibitor to reading an email is its lack of relevance to the recipient. Of the core donor demographic (boomers, 48-65 years old), 1 out of 3 (33%) said lack of relevance keeps them from reading an email.

These are strategic findings as they provide objective data on what will keep email recipients from engaging with any e-communication.

“We conducted this study because charities are increasing their e-communications and it is vital for them to make those communications as effective as possible,” stated Rick Dunham, President+CEO of Dunham+Company. “Motivating a recipient to actually read an email is the obvious first step in engaging them to click through and take whatever action you are seeking. Yet if you look at most e-communications, they contain way too much information and are often too organizationally focused and therefore, irrelevant to the recipient.”

Other key findings include:

  • Of those donors who receive e-communications, only 65% are satisfied with the online communications they receive from the charities they support.

  • The older the donor, the less satisfied they are with the online communications from the charities they support with more than 1 out of 4 (27%) of boomers saying they were not satisfied.

  • Three out of four donors (73%) were pleased with the frequency of communication, which implies that frequency of email is not the reason donors express dissatisfaction with the emails they receive from charities they support.

  • The most important factor motivating an online gift was the affirmation that the donor’s gift was being used in an efficient manner (40%). This was particularly important to donors under 40 (49%) and for all donors was much more important than the organization telling the donor what has been accomplished with his/her gifts (26%) and demonstrating that the organization will use the donor’s next gift to accomplish goals he/she supports (25%).

  • Nearly half (45%) of donors with household incomes of $75,000 or greater indicated that email length was the primary factor in not reading an email from an organization they support.

The findings are particularly noteworthy in light of Dunham+Company’s research2 which found that one in three donors with household income greater than $50,000 planned to increase their giving in 2011.

The Equation for Email Success: Length + Relevance

Length of email and relevance of the message to the donor were found to most significantly influence a donor’s likelihood of responding to an email from an organization they support. But these two factors must be held in balance. Even if an organization provides relevant email content, if it’s too long, the donor is likely to delete the message without reading it. There are a number of characteristics of an email message that influence relevance, among them are:

Segmentation of the email file
Donor file segmentation has been the gold standard in offline direct response fundraising for decades, yet most organizations—including many that have been using email for years and have very large email lists—still do not meaningfully segment their email file. Segmentation in an email file may start out simple (e.g., donors vs. non-donors) but the more you can tailor your message (subject line, email content, etc.) to a particular donor segment, the more likely you will fully engage them in supporting your cause. Getting the right message to the right donor is the first, and most significant, step in making your email relevant. Dunham+Company recommends testing segmentation to establish the optimum segmentation for your email file.

Email subject line
Relevance of the email subject line is essential to getting the email opened and read. You can have perfectly-executed email design and copy, but if the message isn’t opened, it doesn’t matter. Subject lines can be made more and more relevant as segmentation of the email file is implemented. And most every email service provider’s platform allows for easy A/B split testing of subject lines. Test the subject line in every email you send. Do not assume that the subject line structure (or copy) you used last month will work this month.

Pre-header
The pre-header has come into common use among email fundraisers and marketers as email client platforms (Outlook, Yahoo!, Gmail, etc.) have enabled their users to turn off images in emails. The pre-header is a brief sentence of text, often including a hyperlink that states the essence of the email’s call to action and gives the donor a means to act (the hyperlink).

Headlines (and sub-headlines)
Like websites, emails are often viewed by a scanning eye movement rather than a traditional top-to-bottom and left-to-right movement. Therefore, your email’s headlines and sub-headlines are attention-grabbing elements that should effectively communicate the essence of the message to the donor, even if that is all she reads in the email.

Body copy and graphics
Relative brevity of body copy is not the only factor to consider as you compose your message. Call to action hyperlinks, photos, buttons, and their placement in the layout are important in the overall relevance of your message. Your email should be written and designed to be scanned by the donor’s eye, leading them to an obvious action. Photo images with faces making eye contact with the reader are far more effective in motivating response than are images where humans are not present or where the subject’s eyes are looking away from the camera.

Call to action
The call to action must be clear and concise. As segmentation is implemented, calls to action can become more highly refined and, thus, more relevant to the donor. Consider how specific dollar handles might be effectively used in the call to action.

Testing
As noted above, email provides an opportunity to test virtually every aspect of messaging to your donors, with results delivered in near-real time. Like segmentation itself, testing various elements of an email does require more work than simply creating and sending one message, but consistently refining your online messaging will result in the most relevant communication to your donors, which will cultivate higher donor loyalty, and deeper commitment to your organization.

1The study was part of Campbell Rinker Donor Confidence Survey of 483 adults nationwide who had given at least $20 to charity in the prior year. All respondents were contacted via the internet between February 25, 2011 and March 2, 2011. A sample of 500 has a margin of error of +/-4.4 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
2Dunham+Company New Year’s Philanthropy Survey 2011.