Short and Long Term Goals

Your association or organization may be involved in providing paid membership services or may be an advocacy entity that derives most if not all of its operating budget from fundraising efforts. In either case, your email based online outreach communications program needs to be devised and implemented in a strategically coherent manner to ensure maximum efficiency. A properly implemented email outreach strategy can provide immediate short term benefits to any association or organization:


Email campaigns are notably effective in assisting associations and organizations in reaching their long term objectives:


The actual implementation of an email outreach campaign is a complex task requiring extensive man-hours from trained personnel. It is imperative that all facets of the campaign are executed in such a manner that they meet ethical prerequisites and do not violate governmental legislation or sector self-regulation standards. As a manager or director of an association or organization you are well aware of the necessity for strict compliance to every aspect of applicable legislation and regulation, both on the governmental and the industry’s own self-compliance standards. The federal CAN-SPAM Act applies severe penalties to every single email that is sent in violation of the law.

There are countless aspects of email campaign compliance that must be properly addressed. Unsubscription must be facilitated to ensure the subscriber can readily and quickly remove their email address and personal information from your list at their request. A specifically written privacy policy must be in place. Soft and hard bounces need to be addressed in a manner that does not land the association or organization on a blacklist of spammers. There are many more aspects to be analyzed in order to bring them into adherence with legislation and regulation. As the manager or director of an association or organization you are already well versed with the necessity for email segmentation, yet nearly a quarter of all of the participants in this statistical compendium did not segment their lists at all, preferring to create a single content package sent out to all subscribers equally. This buckshot approach is not advisable for any association or organization, as it is counterproductive to send out the same missives to your major financial supporters as to an individual who has shown a casual interest by signing up at an event or expo. Gathering personal information from your subscribers is extremely important, as every single bit of data you can collect will assist you in your segmentation efforts. Another aspect demonstrating the necessity of thorough and comprehensive segmentation: If you do not segment your list properly, you cannot legitimately conduct A/B testing, and lose critical determinators for the approach of your email outreach campaign.