Nonprofits Are Sending More Emails During the Pandemic — With Good Results
By Emily Haynes
Senior Editor, Nonprofit Intelligence
June 2, 2020 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Nonprofits upped the number of emails they sent 40 percent in March from the volume they sent during the same month last year, according to new data analysis. The data come from the digital marketing firm Campaign Monitor, which is measuring how people are engaging with emails sent using its technology during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Recipients responded to the higher volume of emails: They opened 17 percent more messages from nonprofits in March than they did during the same month last year. Recipients also clicked on links in nonprofit emails 11.5 percent more that month than they did in March of last year.
Recipients are more likely to engage with emails from nonprofits than with those from other sectors. That’s a change from last year, when Campaign Monitor found that, among its clients in 20 industries, the open rate for nonprofit emails was second only to government emails.
An average of 29.3 percent of recipients opened emails from nonprofits in March — a 4.4 percentage point increase over those who did so during the same month last year. That compares with an average of 21.7 percent people who opened emails from all sectors, including advertising, financial services, health-care services, and media, according to the report.
While the share of people who opened emails from nonprofits fell slightly in April — to an average of 27.4 percent — that proportion still represents an increase over last year and is higher than the average open rate for all sectors.
The study also found that in March a higher proportion of people clicked on links in emails they received from nonprofits than on those they received, and 3.5 percent of recipients opened links in messages from nonprofits, compared with 2.78 percent from all sectors. In April, the proportion of recipients who clicked on links in emails grew for both nonprofits and the other industries as a whole — 3.94 percent for nonprofits and 3.1 percent for all sectors.
Among the other findings:
- Emails sent on Mondays received the most engagement across all sectors during March and April.
- On average, people who in March and April received messages from nonprofits opened more of them than emails from other industries.
