How Nonprofits Can Increase Email Open Rates in 7 Seconds

Changing Who Your Email is From Can Increase Opens by 18%

Want to increase open rates for your nonprofit’s emails?

There are three ways to do it that aren’t overly technical:

1) Write better subject lines

2) Add good pre-headers

3) Change your sender name and address

Of these, #3 is by far the easiest. Whole courses could be taught about writing email subject lines, of which pre-headers are a subset. Here’s one helpful guide that teaches 7 types of email subject lines.

But changing your sender name and address? It takes seven seconds!

NextAfter’s Nonprofit Recurring Giving Benchmark Study reveals some startling data about a number of metrics, including the effect of changing the email sender’s name.

They conducted one study where a nonprofit sent out two identical emails to portions of their list. The only difference was, one was from the organization, and the other was from a person in the organization.

The email from the person got an 18% higher open rate.

Why the Email Sender’s Name Increases Open Rates

Emails are simply electronic letters. Aren’t you more likely to open an email from a person rather than an organization? From the organization, it’s obviously not personal. You can tell instantly, and all it takes is a decision that you don’t have time for that right now, and you won’t open it.

But emails from people are inherently more personal, even if you know that person is from the same organization.

Image by 200 Degrees from Pixabay

That’s the behavioral reason why using real sender names increases open rates. But there’s a technical reason too. And as usual, you can blame this one on Google. Google decided some years ago to divvy up inboxes into tabs. You have your main Inbox tab, a Promotions tab, and a Spam tab.

The NextAfter study methodology involved donating to a variety of nonprofits and then seeing how they followed up. They got thousands of emails during the study.

Of these thousands of emails, only 29% made it to their main inbox tab.

That’s astounding. But it also explains a bit more of what’s behind the 18% increase in open rates. It’s not as if 18% more people will open an email just because it’s from a person rather than an organization.

Here’s the proof: NextAfter also found that emails from real people had a higher chance of ending up in the main inbox tab rather than the promotions tab.

Get that? Google’s puppetmasters somehow baked into their code that the filters prefer emails from people rather than organizations. So one reason 18% more people opened the emails with a person’s name as the sender is simply because they saw the email. When banished to the promotions tab, fewer people will see your emails.

So if putting a person’s name as the sender increases your chances of ending up in Google’s Inbox tab, that alone is a reason to do it since so many people use gmail.

Are You Making It Too Easy for Google to Banish Your Emails?

In some ways, I enjoy blaming Google for this kind of thing. But from another perspective, Google is right to do this.

The NextAfter study found that only 1 in 5 organizations – 20% – sent emails from a real person. And the real person shows up not just in the name, but also the sender’s address.

Using email addresses like info@name.org or noreply@name.org makes it easy for Google to send you off to the Promotions tab. Take the time to give your staff personalized email addresses. When you pair those up with their names as the sender, you’re going to end up in more Inbox tabs. And your open rates will increase.

Few things are as guaranteed as this when it comes to email marketing and technology.

Besides pleasing Google, remember that the main reason for doing this is to connect more authentically with your donors and supporters. If Jessica is sending emails to the list, readers will prefer replying to an email address that has her name in it, rather than ‘admin’ or ‘info.’

It’s just human nature.

Change Your Sender’s Name and Email Address – Urgent and Easy Fix!

In the study – 65% of emails went to the Promotions tab, and 5% went to spam. That’s 70% of your emails that are virtually assured of not being seen, let alone opened. You simply can’t afford to be wasting 70% of your email marketing efforts because of a flaw that you can fix in less than ten seconds.

Change your nonprofit’s email sender’s name and address, and increase your open rates.

For even better results, change the sender’s name more frequently. Find a reason to send emails from different people. Your open rates will stay elevated.

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