A lot of the people you’re emailing think you’re a scammer. It’s nothing to do with you, especially. It’s just that there are a lot of scams out there, and people are wary.
The MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog has some advice from the commercial email world on not being seen as a scammer, at Beware of the Online Scammer: 5 Tips for Showing You’re Not One:
- Make sure that you have clear, easy-to-find contact details on your site.
- A clear section about the team will help trustworthiness.
- Client testimonials.
- Professional design.
- Make sure a secure server is used to process order information.
For nonprofits, I’d add one extra thing: Send relevant email. Stay on the topic of your cause and how the recipient can be involved. Don’t send press releases and information that has nothing to do with the recipient. The moment someone has to ask, What does this have to do with me? your message starts to look like a scam. Or like spam.
Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.
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