5 marketing emails you should be sending

There continues to be a lot of discussion on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on membership management. However, this year’s MemberWise digital excellence reported that “a large number of membership bodies are yet to automate basic systems, processes and tasks”. It therefore seems that many membership bodies are still not making use of the simpler functionality that is readily available to them, such as email marketing automation.

Email marketing is still recognised as having one of the best ROIs available to a marketer, and should be an essential tool in any membership organisation’s effort to grow and communicate with their membership.

At a recent oomi User Group meeting, we invited an email marketing expert, Robin Adams of Chimp Answers, to give his view on how membership bodies could better use email marketing. We’re delighted, with Robin’s permission, to share his insight in this blog.

A straw poll of membership bodies

Robin reviewed 30 membership organisations’ websites and assessed how good they were at capturing prospective members’ details and communicating with them.

Only 33% had some type of form on their website home page that enabled visitors to provide an email address and sign up for a newsletter or further information. In many cases, this was just a generic ‘contact us’ form.

Of these only one 1 had automated welcome email thanking the visitor for their interest with immediate information on how they could benefit from being part of the organisation.

Just 4 had ongoing communication and news but none gave much specific information or incentivised the visitor to learn more about being a member.

So, are you using email to communicate with members on an individual basis? Are you automating, and engaging with new prospective members effectively?

Relevance leads to results

Email marketing turns anonymous web visitors’ statistics into people. When you have someone’s email, the relationship with them changes. They’re no longer just a number on a chart, they’re a real person. You can communicate with them and conversations happen both ways. Also, you can make those communications more relevant, and the more relevant you are, the more likely you can influence someone to take action.

The 5 emails you should be sending

We’d suggest there are 5 type of marketing email every membership organisation should be sending to prospects and members:

Thanks for your interesting, here’s information on becoming a member ( to a new prospect)
Thanks for becoming a member, here’s how to make the most of your membership (new member)
Here’s the latest news, and more reason for joining (ongoing prospect)
Here’s the latest member new (ongoing member)
Sorry to see you go (lapsed member)

Emails 1, 2 and 5 are communications that can be triggered and automated, as the recipient’s status has changed.

The first email matters

The first email you send to someone is the most important one you ever send, especially when you’re encouraging someone to join. On average, welcome emails get 4 times more opens, and 7 time more clicks than any other email you’ll send.

Integration is essential

Critical to automation is the integration between your membership CRM and your email management system (EMS). Being clear on the role of each is important to ensure things work.

Ideally, this should be real time, so that when someone’s status changes, you can send automated target emails to the right people at the right time. Also critical is integration between the data capture forms on your website and your EMS. These forms and email communications should be designed to help you gather more information so that you can send more relevant information to prospective members.

Benefits of email

So, for a membership body, the benefits of email remain significant. It can:

turn statistics into real people
allows membership bodies to be more relevant,
deliver a fantastic ROI compared to other marketing alternatives
improve the prospective member’s experience

So, before you go and start exploring new technology and techniques, consider whether you are already effectively using the tools currently available to you.