Holiday Email Marketing for Nonprofits: A Quick Guide [2024]

The holiday season is perfect for sharing, caring, and supporting causes we believe in. Starting with Thanksgiving and Giving Tuesday, and extending through Christmas, nonprofits ramp up their fundraising and awareness efforts.

How can you effectively communicate your holiday promotional initiatives? Email marketing campaigns let you reach all subscribers at once or target specific segments with tailored content. They let you get creative with HTML or plain text emails to engage your audience.

Dive into this guide to master holiday email marketing for nonprofits and discover resources to prep your strategy just in time for the season.

Holiday Email Marketing for Nonprofits: Best Practices

From goal setting to tracking email performance, learn how to promote your awareness and fundraising campaigns during the holiday season.

And if you’re new to nonprofit email marketing, feel free to check out this comprehensive guide before diving into holiday-specific practices.

1. Set clear holiday campaign goals

One of the most important steps that will impact your conversions is setting clear goals and communicating them with your team. For example, if you decide to send fundraising emails, determine the donations you’d like to promote and who to target for maximum results.

Then, decide on the exact dates, considering that the rest of the holiday emails, such as Black Friday campaigns, receive significant traction. If you cannot outpace them, align with their schedule. Also, if you’re selling merchandise products to support a cause, you can also join the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales movement for a few days to motivate more people to purchase.

An email marketing calendar will help you manage all campaigns in one place and sync with your teammates in time. Complete it well in advance to give them the time they need to prepare.

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2. Clarify your holiday initiatives

To meet your goals, you need to get your message across straight from the start–the email subject line. Set clear expectations about the email content, to encourage subscribers who’re highly interested in learning more about your initiatives to open the email.

Once opened, the reader should be able to grasp in a few seconds the email’s purpose. Write a captivating title and an interesting intro to hook them and design call-to-action buttons that stand out from the rest of the text to increase click-through rates.

An empathetic and caring tone is essential for these campaigns. Enriching your copy with success stories or case studies will prove how valuable these initiatives are and inspire more people to support them or donate again.

Here’s an amazing example by Charity Water. They inform readers about one of their projects and how they’ve progressed over the years, and invite them to be part of this initiative:

Subject line: This #GivingTuesday, make history with us!

3. Enhance your content with visuals

You already know how powerful an image can be for email engagement. Showcase your cause through visuals or videos, focusing on people’s stories and how they’ve shifted after a donation.

Here’s another email example by Charity Water. The image speaks so loudly that there’s no need for more copy:

Subject line: Today’s the day. Give 100%.

To maintain high-quality, use compressed image files to decrease loading time. As for videos, instead of embedding them, share a static image and a link that redirects them to YouTube or similar sites.

Moreover, many nonprofit organizations choose simple newsletter holiday templates to save time and customize them as needed. These assets are available through well-known email services like Moosend and MailChimp or standalone builders, such as Stripo and Beefree.

Ready to build your next campaigns? Choose one of these nonprofit newsletter templates and customize it based on your needs with user-friendly editors.

4. Personalize your messages

If your nonprofit supports more than one causes, don’t overwhelm your audience. Create separate emails for each cause and promote them to different segments of your audience. This way, you can send targeted emails.

But how do you know what interests every person on your list? Your email marketing software can help. Set up a preference center during the opt-in process to collect important information about your audience to keep them away from the unsubscribe button.

To create an even more personalized experience, add each subscriber’s name to the subject line or greeting through custom fields.

5. Set up automation workflows

One of the best assets of email marketing is automation. Schedule follow-up emails in advance to nurture subscribers who have not clicked and add more urgency to your message to boost conversions. Or suggest a different way to contribute, by purchasing gifts from retailers your nonprofit partners with, if you organize similar actions.

Plus, set up triggered thank-you emails for donors to express gratitude for their contributions. This way, you form stronger relationships with them. It’d also be great to inform them about the progress of the initiative with a heartwarming message.

If you’re new to automation, a tool with premade workflows and an intuitive builder will help you save time. Check out what Moosend offers, request a free month to try the features, and set up your first workflow for practice.

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6. Revamp your welcome email

Welcome emails receive high open rates, confirming to new subscribers that the action they took is completed. Make the most of this traction by adding your top seasonal initiatives to your welcome emails during the holiday season.

Considering how warmed up these members are, it’s highly like to convert them to donors or customers on the spot. Just blend your holiday initiative organically inside the email content, inviting new subscribers to be part of an engaged community thriving to make a difference.

Plus, add your social media links on the email footer to nurture them on other channels during the holiday season. Especially if you share festive content to engage with your followers.

7. Monitor your email metrics

When your holiday email outreach comes to an end, it’s time to analyze and reflect. Let’s imagine that your goal was to increase donations. Did you meet it, and if not, why is that so?

Monitor key email metrics to find successful patterns and what needs improvement. Use that data to make informed decisions to improve your deliverability rates:

Here are the key metrics to check:

• Open rates
• Click-through rates
• Click-to-open rates
• Conversions
• Spam complaints
• Bounce rates

For instance, if you spot low open metrics, check out your subject line and grasp how it would have worked better. Or if spam complaints were high, remove spam words that may have triggered those reactions or clean your email list more regularly.

Finally, if you find some patterns but need more evidence before implementing them, conduct A/B testing to find what resonates the most with your audience.

3 Best Nonprofit Holiday Email Examples

Explore three effective email campaigns by popular nonprofits for the holiday season, and why the work:

Deki’s gift voucher email campaign

Subject line: ‘Tis the season of opportunity! Give a Deki gift voucher this Christmas

Deki invited subscribers and donors to purchase gift vouchers for friends and family and unite them with a great cause.

Why we liked it:

• The subject line sets the right expectations about the email content and intent.
• The email design is easy to create, yet festive and visually appealing.
• The gift vouchers start at a low price to cater to different budgets.

Charity Water’s awareness email

Subject line: Introducing the 2024 Tiny Heroes!

Charity Water created an amazing campaign to celebrate 2024 young volunteers and inspire more people to bring their kids on board.

Why we liked it:

• They shared social proof to attract new volunteers and donors.
• They included candid photos of tiny heroes to make the campaign more engaging.
• The yellow CTA button stands out from the rest of the text and is likely to increase click-through rates.

CJ Affiliate Christmas campaign

Subject line: 💗 ‘Tis the Season to Give Back

Even though this campaign is not from a nonprofit organization, the layout by CJ Affiliate is perfect for organizations with different causes or merchandise products for sale.

Why we liked it:

• The emoji in the subject line makes it more engaging.
• They made holiday donation recommendations to let subscribers choose.
• They included warm holiday wishes above the email footer.

Premade Holiday-Themed Email Templates to Save Time

Ready to craft this year’s nonprofit email marketing campaigns? Here are three templates from different builders to choose from:

Moosend’s Merry Christmas template

Use this template to share warm wishes with donors and volunteers and nurture them as the year approaches. Tweak the copy based on your needs using Moosend’s user-friendly builder. To send it to subscribers, you need to have a Moosend account or join the free trial.

Customize this!

Beefree’s Giving Tuesday template

Use this versatile template by Beefree to promote your fundraising activities on Giving Tuesday. Tailor the images and copy as needed. Keep the Donate Now button at the top if you want to create a sense of urgency.

Stripo’s Thanksgiving Wishes email template

Warm up your audience with a heartfelt Thanksgiving email using this simple template by Stripo. Customize it inside the editor and transfer it to popular ESPs, including Moosend, in simple steps.

Make Holiday Nonprofit Emails Count

Dive into the holiday spirit by equipping your email marketing strategy with holiday-friendly resources. Follow our best practices and use your favorite template to put your target audience in the right mood to increase donations.

And if you’re looking for an email marketing service with advanced features at an affordable price, feel free to check out Moosend. Sign up for an account or get a free trial to test its capabilities and schedule your campaigns in time for the holiday season.