Fundraising Storytelling To Show Your Impact & 5 Common Email Marketing Mistakes And How To Fix Them

Tony Martignetti
Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I am your aptly named host, and I'm the podfather of your favorite hebdomadal podcast. Oh, I hope you loved last week's show, the 750th. Great fun, great fun. Hope you were with us, and I'm glad you're with us this week because I'd suffer with duodenitis if you inflamed me with the idea that you missed this week's show. Here's our associate producer Kate with what's on the menu.

Kate Martignetti
Hey Tony, I hope our listeners are hungry for more of our 25 NTC coverage. Fundraising storytelling to show your impact. Lots of nonprofits don't have direct monetary impact to promote their work. If that's you, Megan Castle has practical tips and strategies to collect and distribute quality, down-to-earth stories from your real supporters. She'll help you engage your audiences, increase donations, And save team time. Megan is CEO of Soapboxx. Then, 5 common email marketing mistakes and how to fix them. Yes, email performs well, period. But you want your email campaigns to perform best. Are you making typical mistakes with inducing folks to join your list? Welcoming them, bloating your messaging, talking too much about you, and in whose sending. Patty Breech explains these common mistakes and how to correct them. She is founder and CEO of The Purpose Collective. On Tony's Take Two.

Tony Martignetti
Beware of this planned giving scam.

Kate Martignetti
Here is Fundraising Storytelling to Show Your Impact.

Tony Martignetti
Thanks for being with our 25NTC coverage. That's the 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference. We are all together at the Baltimore Convention Center where our coverage is sponsored by Heller Consulting Technology Services. With me now is Megan Castle, CEO at Soapboxx. Welcome, Megan.

Megan Castle
Thanks. I'm excited to be here.

Tony Martignetti
You are?

Megan Castle
I am.

Tony Martignetti
I'm glad to hear it. Your session topic is Show, Don't Tell Your Impact: Using Stories as a Foundation of Your Fundraising. First, before we get into storytelling, your advice and strategies around that. Why don't you just share what Soapboxx is about as the CEO?

Megan Castle
Sure, yeah. So Soapboxx is a software platform that was built for nonprofits to help different organizations collect and share stories from their supporters for advocacy purposes, fundraising, marketing, really anything that you would want to use user-generated style storytelling for. So our mission is really to help organizations that often have low capacity, low resources, low budgets, collect stories that are really authentic and not highly produced, like ad-style videos, but people sitting on their own couch in their own living room talking about ways that they've been impacted by policies or different things in their own communities and leveraging those stories for nonprofits to be able to use them for a number of different ways.

Tony Martignetti
So is your background as a software developer or nonprofits or both?

Megan Castle
Good question. My background is in journalism and nonprofit marketing.

Tony Martignetti
Yep.

Megan Castle
So I started off as a journalist, which this has really been an interesting intersection between storytelling and marketing in my current role, because we do a lot of storytelling, of course, with a lot of different nonprofits. We're working with a little over 70. But it's a lot of marketing too, because once you get the stories, how to get the stories and how to share the stories is all about marketing.

Tony Martignetti
All right. I guess your session is about helping nonprofits that don't have a direct monetary impact to share with folks. Yeah. So the easy case, you know, for $5 a day you can buy lunch for children or pay for spay/neuter, etc. So folks that don't have this kind of monetary impact. What types of organizations are you focusing on in your session?

Megan Castle
Yeah, so it was hard to come up with the learning objectives because I think there's a lot of different ways that we could go with this. But sounds like you read the description. That is true that it's—

Tony Martignetti
I came prepared.

Megan Castle
Excellent work.

Tony Martignetti
Great homework. You listened to some podcasts. You listened to some of our episodes.

Megan Castle
I listened to some episodes, yep.

Tony Martignetti
We were both preparing for each other.

Megan Castle
Trying to be as eloquent and analytical as the rest of them. But yeah, so we work with a lot of organizations, like I said, that are doing advocacy work, and it's really hard to show that there's like a tangible impact to that kind of work, which often disincentivizes donors not only to donate more amounts, but also to donate more frequently or become a recurring donor, things like that. It feels, in a world of instant gratification, it's really easy to want to donate somewhere where you know exactly what essentially product you're buying for that. Yeah. And when it's an organization that says that they're going to work on economic justice or childcare policy, and maybe that's a 15-year fight or something that we're still fighting for, it's really hard to prove that those donor dollars actually went to something that's making a real difference in their own community. And beyond that, even just proving that it's something that's going to impact their family as an independent person and not just like the whole of America, I think a lot of these things become very abstract. So being able to tell somebody that By donating this $20 on a recurring level, it's going to be something that's going to impact your individual family is something that's really, really difficult for nonprofits to prove. And through storytelling, I think that's really the only way to do it is being able to have people that they can relate to and that seem like a real person and a real human kind of show the impacts that they're actually making on like a daily or yearly or quarterly kind of way.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Is there any kind of Infrastructure, I don't mean that in a technical sense, but processes that we need to have in place before we can start to get these down-to-earth good stories? Yeah. Valuable stories?

Megan Castle
Yeah, I think that there is. I think a lot of organizations often go for quantity over quality in this sense, in that they also, because they're usually the bandwidth or the capacity that these organizations have for marketing or communications is Has a big play here. I think a lot of the times when you say you need to be collecting stories, the first thing that nonprofits think is they're like, oh, we don't have a person for that. We don't have the capacity for that. We don't have a video crew for that. And you really don't need any of those things. It's something that almost everybody in the world has a smartphone with a camera on it, and it could be accessible for them to be able to record something right there that can help your organization make a really big difference. Sure. But also meeting people where they are, I think, is really important. If it's a written story that comes through an email or it's a comment on Facebook that you can kind of use to turn into a story or potentially contact that person on an individual level to get a video from them later, I think that's great. That's really what our tool has done in a lot of ways is just make the storytelling more accessible to people so it doesn't feel like such a heavy lift to do it. But I think in terms of the idea of like what kind of process we can have, I think like I said, meeting people where they are to make it incredibly easy. And being okay with it not being perfect. I think a lot of organizations want the really polished end-of-year wrap-up video that looks beautiful and costs like 8 grand for a 3-minute video that they can use for a bunch of different things. But truly, the most impact we've seen with the stories that come in are often, like I said, somebody sitting on a couch in their own living room talking about how expensive childcare is and how a specific organization can maybe help that.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, but— Very low production value, high sincerity, right? People speaking from the heart.

Megan Castle
Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
Genuine, real, not actors.

Megan Castle
Not actors. Like, maybe their hair is messy.

Tony Martignetti
It doesn't matter what the lighting is. I mean, as long as they can be seen pretty well and heard pretty well.

Megan Castle
Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
It'll, it'll, it'll be impactful.

Megan Castle
Yep. Maybe they have a cluttered kitchen behind them or kids running around in the background yelling, and that's all the better. People feel the same way about editing the videos when they come in. There's gonna be a lot of ums or ahs or any of these things in them, and they're always like, well, how can we cut these out so that it has a higher production value? But in the end, that's how we all talk on a daily basis. So making it seem really conversational and relatable is actually a lot more impactful than having a highly produced video-style ad.

Tony Martignetti
You just complimented Nonprofit Radio without knowing it. I don't edit out ums and ahs. Somebody on a previous panel today said, you know, there are video editors, I mean audio editors, and there are, that you can just give your file to and they'll spot the ums and ahs. I said, no, but that's human.

Megan Castle
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
That's the way we talk, and I want a conversational show. It's not David Muir.

Megan Castle
And I think it's easier for people to follow along if it sounds like a conversation than it is if it's like perfect.

Tony Martignetti
I think, yeah. I don't know, you think it's easier to follow too?

Megan Castle
I do.

Tony Martignetti
I mean, if it's more listenable, you think?

Megan Castle
We're used to dialogue, right? I think that we're used to having— this is— we're having a conversation right now that I could have with— Of

Tony Martignetti
course, now I'm looking for validation.

Megan Castle
Yeah, I think your podcast is the best podcast on, on the market. Yeah, but you're gonna make me sound perfect later, right? I'll make the exception.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, yes, I'll take out all your— This one's going to be highly produced, but there are no imperfections. Megan Castle comes with no imperfections.

Megan Castle
Thank you.

Tony Martignetti
So there's nothing to do. There's no post-production.

Megan Castle
Thank you for your validation.

Tony Martignetti
Absolutely, yes. All right, so we're mutually— I don't know. OK. All right, so the point is, it doesn't have to be high production value to be sincere. You were saying you think it's more listenable. It's more approachable, right?

Megan Castle
It is, yeah. And I think, just to repeat myself again, I think meeting people where they are is really important. I think a lot of nonprofits have the issue also that their donors aren't always the same people. that their organization is impacting. So creating networking capabilities or just being in the community and making partnerships with community members that are maybe working on the ground with people that you are impacting is a really good way to connect with people to get stories. But this is also something, when we talk about this, we want it to feel— especially my session is specifically about fundraising, how to use storytelling to increase your donor dollars. And we don't want this to feel exploitative. Right. It shouldn't feel like something that's like, We're going to use your really personal story about Medicaid or something like that to be able to get donor dollars. It should be something that feels really empowering. People are really struggling out there, and that's why nonprofits exist, right, is for the common good of people that are having issues or things in their world that they need help with. So empowering people to uplift their voices is really, I think, in a lot of ways empowering to them, but it works really well for nonprofits as well. But it should feel like something that they're a part of. And we often see that organizations that include their donors or people impacted in their own storytelling are actually usually going to donate more, because now they have an attachment or a sense of ownership in the organization, because now they're a part of it. It shouldn't just feel like something that you're going to use in a fundraising ask, but it's also something that the staff is listening to when you're working towards your mission and creating operating values and all these things of having member voices.

Tony Martignetti
All right. After we're conscious and reaching out to folks where they are, we see a potential story, you mentioned maybe a Facebook post or something, or some social post that is a potential story. Where do we take it from there? How do we reach out to the person, again, now from our perspective, sincerely, non-exploitatively? Yeah. But we think that there could be something there that would encourage others to support.

Megan Castle
Yeah, that's an interesting question partially because for the work that I do specifically, we work with so many different organizations and they all have a little bit of a different approach for this because their audiences are so different. I think a really common way we see it is people that are already on a list, like a marketing list. Obviously if you have a really big email list, sending out an ask for stories is really helpful. I like to do anybody that's already taken an action. So donors are obviously great. I think giving money is like the highest bar action. So even in like a donation receipt email that they receive, you can include an ask for storytelling there. Whether it's a Google Form asking for a written story or a link to something where they can upload a video or something like that, I think that's a really good way to do it. Same thing with live events. If somebody's willing, especially in our day and age where everything's virtual, if somebody's willing to physically show up at an event for you, they're for sure going to be willing to record like a 20-second, 30-second story. of something that they are dealing with because they obviously have a deep value or attachment to your organization. In terms of like—

Tony Martignetti
Well, at the events you could ask them right there.

Megan Castle
There, yep. We have a lot of people that do that.

Tony Martignetti
Get them in a quiet spot or something.

Megan Castle
Yep, absolutely. And it helps just add like a little bit of fun to the event too. Like, I don't know, you go to a wedding and there is like a goofy photo thing. You know, like people like to do that kind of stuff. And there are a lot of different ways you can do it. It doesn't even have to be a video. It could just be a photo. Or something. I think that too is like having a little bit of a user journey is often helpful. You don't need to go from 0 to 100 right away. It doesn't have to be like, we heard you have this issue, we wanna get a 30-minute interview-style story with you. Yeah. It could be something like, we would love for you to, even like signing a petition. So you sign a petition first. If they sign the petition, you send them an ask for a written story. And then after they sign on a written story, you could even just send them back their written story and ask for a video. That's actually advice that I got from somebody named Felicia at MomsRising. That's the way that she does user journeys to get videos on Soapboxx, and it's been really effective for them. So it's kind of like, again, meeting them where they're at and then asking for a little bit more every time and getting them into something that they feel really comfortable with. Although the journalism part of me is like, if you see a comment on Facebook of somebody saying something, I personally would reach out to them personally and ask them, just in a message or something, we saw that you wrote this. We'd really love for you to get involved. And I think that's a good way to do it, is not saying we need a story from you to use for this thing, but saying we would love for you to get involved with our mission and it will help us in these ways.

Tony Martignetti
These are great strategies. You gave us like half a dozen methods of gathering story, whether it's in event, face-to-face, or virtual. Other— so this is— I think this is the part where It may break down. We see potential, but we don't take advantage. We don't reach out to the person, not take advantage of the person, we don't take advantage of the potential that's there to support our mission. We just kind of let it go, or, oh, that sounds interesting, and then we're on to the next post or something. Or, I'm glad she said that, but then nothing more comes of it.

Megan Castle
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
So anything else at this stage that—

Megan Castle
Yeah, I mean, I think storytelling has to be intentional, like you were saying. I think people will even hear the things that I'm saying now and be like, well, maybe. We'll think about it. Or that's gonna take effort. It is something that you have to consciously think about. It's kinda like, to be honest, I think about this a lot like fundraising. They say on average it takes 7 touchpoints before somebody will actually donate. It might take a couple different touchpoints before somebody's actually going to give you their story, but if we asked once for donations and they didn't do it, no fundraiser would stop asking, right? Like, you have to come up with other strategies to do it. And once you come up with a strategy for storytelling that really works for your specific audience and your organization, it can really help make those asks a lot easier. So it is worth the effort. I do think though, it shouldn't feel— storytelling shouldn't feel like something that's sort of parallel to the that you're doing, it really should feel integrated. It shouldn't feel like, well, I really need a second staff person or something to be doing this. It should be something that feels really in line with the fundraising or the marketing strategy that you already have. Like, for a nonprofit to have a marketing strategy that doesn't include storytelling, I think is a really big loss. It should feel very integrated in that. And if you're doing it correctly, it shouldn't feel like it's the work for 3 people. It should feel like it's integrated into what you're already doing.

Tony Martignetti
It's part of the process. It's

Megan Castle
part of the process.

Tony Martignetti
To see something that could be valuable. You talked about the journey, the content provider journey. You didn't call it that, but I don't know why I'm using jargon. I have jargon jail on my own show, and I'm just, you know, but it's a journey for the person. They may not be a content creator. They are for you, but yeah, no, it's just very low lift and Like you said, it could just be a photograph.

Megan Castle
It should be a low lift.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. Can we just use the post that you— can we just quote the post that you just wrote?

Megan Castle
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Something like that. You've already written it. Can we just— can we use it on our website?

Megan Castle
Can we quote that in an email, in a newsletter? We— that's a really compelling story. We'd love to put that as a pull-out quote in our next newsletter. People love that kind of stuff.

Tony Martignetti
And then maybe go from there.

Megan Castle
Yeah. And people will feel special about it, and then they might even share your newsletter on their own social media. Yes, a

Tony Martignetti
little vanity.

Megan Castle
A little vanity. Yeah, we love to brag about ourselves, especially if we're given a good opportunity.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, look how based we've become. Validation, I need personal validation now.

Megan Castle
Vanity.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, with the ego and no humility on this podcast. Um, okay, so now we're at the step— all right, so we've gathered some content, some folks have said yes, some said no, but that's okay because like you said, you Wouldn't stop asking if it was fundraising. So we've got some stories, different formats. Suppose it's just a written story and we got their authority, their consent to use it in a newsletter. Anything more? We thank them. I just wanted to know the little mechanics.

Megan Castle
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
We thank them before we ask them if they'd take a photo. Further step, like write a paragraph or something, or a little fuller story. Anything else we should be doing?

Megan Castle
Yeah, I think, not to use the classic it depends, but I think it does depend a little bit on like— it does kind of a little bit come down to capacity and volume. Like, we have some, some partners that will be collecting hundreds if not thousands of videos at the same time. So it's really difficult to be able to have a personal touch with like each of those individual individuals, right? But I do think having like an auto-triggered— this is where tech comes in— like having an auto-triggered email that can go to every person that submits it saying thank you for the video or the submission, and also telling them what you're going to use it for, I think is really helpful. I think a lot of nonprofits fall into abstract when they talk about use cases, where they're like, we're going to use this for like tech justice, or to like fight this economic disparity. But that's not really telling them what you're actually going to use their story for, and what it's actually going to do. and that kind of falls into that impact part, is like now they feel like they're submitting it to a black void that's like never gonna happen. So telling them like this is potentially gonna be featured on our social media or embedded on our website, or like do something that's actually gonna tell them where to look for it, I think is often really helpful and deeply incentivizing for them to wanna submit it and also to potentially wanna submit again in the future and to share it, which is helpful. But yeah, otherwise like we see a lot of people that will put stories on, you know, Yeah, like embed it on their website. Or like, we work with a lot of member organizations. If you are looking for members, have members talk about what they like about your organization and embed a bunch of videos on your website under the membership page or take action page. Yeah, otherwise mechanics, I guess it just, it so depends on the people. I think if it is a small group, like if you are asking 5 volunteers, we have a lot of organizations that will do this even with just volunteers. They just have— Yeah. Volunteers talk about different things and ask their friends to submit stories. If it's like a group of just a few, I think even like a handwritten note thanking them or something would be amazing.

Tony Martignetti
I'm a big fan of handwritten notes. Yeah. Thank you for mentioning that.

Megan Castle
I think a handwritten note or like maybe a discount on like an event registration or something, or a free event registration or something, a t-shirt, anything like that. I think it's important to steer away a little bit from being like, Here's compensation for recording a video, because I do think once you compensate, people will kind of say whatever you want them to say, and it does affect the authenticity of it a bit. But providing them a t-shirt with your logo on it, I think, is more than fine.

Tony Martignetti
Our deep thanks. Here's a small gift to show our gratitude.

Megan Castle
It's personal. Some of these stories that we're collecting are really personal about people's use of Medicaid or gun violence or abortion care. And so for people to put themselves out there and really do that, for you to be able to make a difference at your organization, I think deserves a thank you in some way. And that's how you're building engagement, right? Like, so you want them to be a donor in the future. Like, you're just building a relationship with them, and they took a really big step, so you should take at least a medium-sized step to meet them.

Tony Martignetti
You got a good story, case story you can share?

Megan Castle
Um, let's see. Let's see. Yeah, we have lots of places that are using it really effectively right now. I think I keep mentioning Medicaid because it's so topical that we have 4 or 5 organizations right now doing Save Medicaid campaigns for advocacy purposes. Mm-hmm. We work with the National Education Association, and they've been doing a lot of— getting a lot of stories from educators about why public education is important. Why the Department of Education is important, things like that, which have been really great. We worked with— I'm trying to think of volume over quantity a little, or quantity over quality. We have some places that, like I said, will collect thousands of videos on our platform for something. Like Color of Change collected thousands of videos after George Floyd's murder on our platform, basically just saying that they stand with the family and that things need to change. Yeah. But then on the flip side of that, we have an amazing organization called Community Catalyst that they work on health justice, and they've been getting a lot of really, really amazing stories about medical debt that have actually done a lot to impact policy.

Tony Martignetti
We talked about personal stories. I mean, medical debt. Now you're saying to the world that you're suffering financial difficulties. Things are challenging for you. That's, that's very personal. I mean, a lot of the stuff we're talking about is— we talk about abortion access too. That's also deeply personal.

Megan Castle
Um, they specifically do a really good job of— I think you can use storytelling in a really tactful way to distill really difficult information or like policy, right? Like, we're not— not all of us are really well informed about like what certain policies will mean for us on a day-to-day basis or like for our family. And Community Catalyst particular, I think, does a really good job of taking like high-level decisions and distilling it down to what it actually means on a human level through storytelling. They did a campaign about nonprofit hospitals, and I had no idea like what the impact of nonprofit hospitals were before they did this campaign. It's something that almost everybody has in their community, but we're not really aware of. So storytelling is a really powerful tool to be able to change those kinds of things.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Have you done your session yet?

Megan Castle
I haven't.

Tony Martignetti
You haven't? It's coming.

Megan Castle
Okay. Tomorrow.

Tony Martignetti
Okay.

Megan Castle
I know I'm giving away all my hot tips.

Tony Martignetti
This is not gonna air before— I'm just kidding. Nobody listens to this podcast anyway.

Megan Castle
Nobody listens to this podcast.

Tony Martignetti
You don't have to worry about it. No, we have 13,000 listeners. That's amazing. Yeah, it's good. I'm grateful to have that many people listening each week. Otherwise, I would have asked you some of the questions that you got from the audience. So leave us with something that we haven't talked about yet, or maybe amplify something we did talk about, but you want to go a little deeper. Leave us with some encouragement.

Megan Castle
Leave us with something good.

Tony Martignetti
Empowerment.

Megan Castle
Yeah. I think a big reason why, just like a little bit of my own story, I guess, like I went to school for journalism and a really big part of that was making sure that Voices are being heard that aren't normally being heard by mainstream media or just different things. And I think in nonprofits, it's easy to target people that have a really good story or are already active or have a community following or things like that. But I think some of the most impactful stories are the people who have tried to tell their story a lot of times and felt like it never has gotten heard. And so they just stopped telling it. Yeah. That was a really big part of my sort of journalistic career was talking about the— sorry, I'm stumbling a little bit to explain. I just haven't talked about this story in a minute, but was talking about the healthcare access and federal funding access on Native American reservations in rural Montana during COVID And they had absolutely no belief that the federal government was going to be helpful. Through IHS funding at that time. And there was no coverage in Montana about what was going on in those areas through funding. And it was a really big catalyst for me to be like, I just want there to be a really accessible, super easy way for people to not only tell their story, but feel like that story is being heard and actually get used for something that could be impactful. Mm-hmm. So that's really a big part of why our company is the way that it is now, is just feeling like everybody has the same opportunity to tell their story in a meaningful way.

Tony Martignetti
Megan Castle, CEO of Soapboxx. Thanks very much for sharing all your ideas.

Megan Castle
Yeah, thanks, Tony. It's been fun.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you. My pleasure. And thank you for being with Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio coverage of the 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference, where we are sponsored by Heller Consulting.

Kate Martignetti
It's time for Tony's Take Two.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you, Kate. I have to thank our longtime listener and fan of Nonprofit Radio, Cheryl McCormick. She's been with us for many, many years. She's CEO of the Athens Area Humane Society in Athens, Georgia. And she alerted me to a planned giving scam that has been run in 2 charities in Canada. And the exact same thing story-wise and document-wise happened at the Athens Area Humane Society. What happens is they're preying on small charities that would get excited by a $95,000 planned gift. And they promised to send you the check. And, but Cheryl and her team had some suspicion about the way the conversations were going and the strange email address. It was an AOL address, but the person was claiming to be an attorney. Right. And there was no obituary for the person that they claimed had died. There was no will available. So these are the things that raised their suspicions. The $95,000 check did arrive to the Humane Society, but Cheryl and her team had figured out the scam in advance because they found some news coverage of the exact same scam run against 2 charities in Canada. And I did a LinkedIn post. If you want to go back to my— look at my LinkedIn posts from last week, you'll find a link to the news coverage of that, uh, that scam against the 2 Canadian charities. What is the scam? They send you the $95,000 check, then they tell you, oh, We made a terrible mistake. We sent you too much money. We need you to wire back $70,000 or $75,000. You were only supposed to get $20,000 or $25,000. You wire the money back, and after that, the $95,000 check bounces, and you are out the money that you wired them because they're long gone. So beware, uh, it's people preying on small charities, uh, who would get excited, you know, uh, well, any charity I think would get excited by a $95,000 gift of any type, planned gift or lifetime immediate gift. Take your time. Now you're aware of this scam, but generally trust your intuition. Do your due diligence, research. If you're not sure about something, don't say yes. You know, you don't have to urgently accept a gift of any type, whether it's a lifetime gift or planned gift. Take your time. Make sure you do the research because there are some folks taking advantage of our community. Which boils my blood. Those miserable fucking scammers picking on our community. Damn you. Damn you, scammers. That is Tony's Take 2. Kate.

Kate Martignetti
Weird that scammers would be going after small nonprofits and not like Rich people.

Tony Martignetti
Well, they can do both.

Kate Martignetti
Go after like Jeff Bezos or something. Go after like Amazon. And

Tony Martignetti
well, yeah, I think they've got enough protections, uh, Jeff Bezos. But, uh, you can do both. It's not mutually exclusive. So I want folks to be aware that, uh, there are people preying on nonprofits.

Kate Martignetti
My favorite scam is, uh, one that Dad got— your brother. He got in the In the mail that he was like some long-lost relative of some prince overseas and he has to claim money or something and he's like royalty now.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, yeah. I think he told me about that. I think he asked me about that at the time. That was a few years ago. Yeah, I remember we're descended from royalty or something like that. Yeah.

Kate Martignetti
Martignettis.

Tony Martignetti
The Martignetti scions, the Duke and Duchess.

Kate Martignetti
Oh yeah,

Tony Martignetti
I would be the Duke. Your dad would be the Duchess.

Kate Martignetti
Well, we've got beaucoup buttloads more time. Here is 5 Common Email Marketing Mistakes and How to Fix Them.

Tony Martignetti
Hello and welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio coverage of 25NTC, the 2025 Nonprofit Technology Conference. We're all together in Baltimore, Maryland. Our 25 NTC coverage is sponsored by Heller Consulting, technology services for nonprofits. With me now is 3-time, 3-timer back on Nonprofit Radio, Patty Breech, founder and CEO of The Purpose Collective. Welcome back, Patty Breech.

Patty Breech
Thank you so much for having me.

Tony Martignetti
Alright, I'm pretty sure it's number 3, right?

Patty Breech
I think that sounds right.

Tony Martignetti
It is right, yeah, trust me. It is, I looked back, yes. And this year, your NTC session is 5 Email Marketing Mistakes You're Probably Making and How to Fix Them.

Patty Breech
That's right.

Tony Martignetti
I think you and I kicked off our NTC journey with the— with your— with an email journey, your email welcome journey. Isn't that what it was called? Your book on email journey?

Patty Breech
Yeah, that's right. I'm a little bit obsessed with email.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. All right. Yeah, your colleagues mentioned that in the previous session. We attributed the 5 Email Journey to you and you've got exact timeframes and the first one should look like it came from the CEO or what, like it was personally prepared. Yes, we've been through that. So the 5 email marketing mistakes, why don't you just tick off the 5? Sure. And then we'll be happy to go into detail. Go ahead. What are the 5 you're probably making mistakes?

Patty Breech
Yeah. So the first mistake has to do with how you're collecting emails for your list. And that is— the mistake that you're probably making is that you're just asking people to subscribe to your newsletter. The second mistake is that after you convince someone to subscribe to your newsletter, you do nothing. You answer that with silence.

Tony Martignetti
You probably don't have the Purpose Collective Patty Breech 5-email welcome journey. Yeah, exactly. You probably

Patty Breech
don't

Tony Martignetti
have that. Right.

Patty Breech
Even just 1 email would be great, but a lot of people don't have that.

Tony Martignetti
You can do that?

Patty Breech
Okay. The 3rd mistake is that your emails are trying to do everything. They're just, they're way too full. And the 4th mistake is that your emails are talking about you. Not talking to me. And then the 5th mistake is that your emails are not coming from a person.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Some of these sound familiar, like talking about you. You like, you like it donor-centric, donor-focused, not about us, the work. Yeah, about you, the donor. But we'll get to that. That's number 4. I'm jumping ahead. Some of these sound familiar.

Patty Breech
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
Including the, uh, how you're welcoming, the welcome series.

Patty Breech
Absolutely.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. But let's start with number 1, how you're, how you're collecting. What, what's, what are we probably getting wrong there again?

Patty Breech
Yeah. So I think, um, most of us are probably just putting something really simple on our website that says subscribe to our newsletter or join our email list with a little box to put your email in. And I argue that That's not very compelling. Nobody really wakes up in the morning thinking, I need some more newsletters today.

Tony Martignetti
And I'm going to go to this organization's website to get my fix.

Patty Breech
I'm so glad they asked me to join an email list. I was really hoping to do that today. So I encourage organizations instead to invite people to be a part of a movement, include a call to action that's really inspiring. Inspiring. What is it that you're offering people? Is it that you're going to provide stories of hope in their inbox every day, which all of us could use a little bit more hope in this day and age? Is it that— I mean, politicians are really good at this. If you go to their websites and see what their call to action is on their email newsletters, it's things like, we're going to dream big. We're going to fight hard. We're going to put power back in the hands of the people. Really inspiring messages where you read that and you think— Yeah. Yeah, I want to do that. Absolutely, sign me up.

Tony Martignetti
Pop-ups, lightboxes, what do you feel about— are pop-ups and lightboxes, are they antiquated? No, pop-ups are still—

Patty Breech
No, I think those are still good.

Tony Martignetti
Can you do those after like, well, you set it for like 15 seconds on the site and then it pops up? How do you feel about those?

Patty Breech
Yeah, I think—

Tony Martignetti
If they're not good, then say you're a matter of No,

Patty Breech
I think those are great. I think what you said is really important, like wait a little bit before a lightbox shows up. So you can either do that with a time delay, or you can do it with scroll depth on the page, depending on your website. So I think something that's annoying is when you go to a site and you're trying to read whatever it is you came there to read, and like almost immediately something's in your face. Yeah, that one. And you're like, stop, I was trying to read that. Get out of here.

Tony Martignetti
I came here for a reason. Just give me 10, 15 seconds with the info that I wanted.

Patty Breech
Right. 15 seconds in the world of websites is actually a long time to spend on a page. So if you're delaying something that long, great. At that point, if they've been there for 15 seconds, they're probably interested in you enough to sign up for your email.

Tony Martignetti
But you want to know what your average time on the site is. If it's 8 seconds, that's pretty bad actually. If people are leaving your site after 8 seconds, that's bad. Yeah. Well, you know what? It depends on the reason they go though. If it was a search, and now that brings in the Google AI summaries that is now reducing organic hits because we're getting it from the AI summary. We don't even scroll past that. If you get past that and people came with a specific question and you've got the answer, then they might only be 8 or 10 seconds. Yeah. I got my answer.

Patty Breech
Yeah. They might also only be 8 seconds on your homepage and then click through to a different page. So yeah, I think, I think lightboxes are great. I would just make sure they're not immediately in your face.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Okay. All right. So you want to, you're trying to draw people into Yes. Inducing them to join you, so not just get a weekly.

Patty Breech
Yeah, you're inviting them to be part of something bigger than themselves, joining a movement, solving a problem, being a part of the solution, being inspired. That's really the call to action that I want every nonprofit to have on their website for their email newsletters.

Tony Martignetti
I have a good consultant friend. I'll credit her because I'm going to use her material, Sherry Quam Taylor. We spend a lot of time together on LinkedIn. And she says that her advice is that you're not giving to us, you're giving to the cause through us. Yeah. So it's to versus through. You're giving to solving world hunger through Feeding America or, you know, Yeah. Et cetera. Do you buy into that? Or you're welcome to agree with Sherry Quamptel. Absolutely. Or disagree. Or disagree, I should say.

Patty Breech
No, I definitely agree. Yeah. I think that's totally right. One of the examples I use in the presentation is a call to action that says, let's end malaria. It's from an organization that's working. And it says, we believe this is possible. Join us. We're going to get rid of this disease. Let's do it. And so the people who are signing up for that email list and donating to that organization, they're trying to get rid of malaria. They're like, oh, is that what you guys are doing? I don't know who you are. I want to get rid of malaria. That's the important thing.

Tony Martignetti
I don't care what your name is. I'll join your list. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. All right, something bigger, right? Something big, the bigger cause. Yeah. All right, all right. That's the sort of inducing an opening relationship. So they hear from us regularly.

Patty Breech
Yes. Okay. Exactly.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. So how are you welcoming? Here we are now, the 5 email, the ubiquitous Patty Breech Purpose Collective 5 email welcome journey. Is that what this is? How are you welcoming folks after the first one? Yeah. I'm sorry, after they say yes.

Patty Breech
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
I'll take your email.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
I'll take your newsletter, sorry. Yes, I'll join your newsletter. What should happen first thing?

Patty Breech
Yeah, so what I like to point out to people is that the journey that it took for someone to give you their email address, that didn't happen in a minute. They probably first heard about you through word of mouth or some other means, and so they maybe spent some time poking around on your social media. They liked what they saw, so maybe they ended up on your YouTube channel watching some longer-form videos. Maybe they popped over to your website, read even more about you, looked at your blog, and then decided, yeah, I like this organization. I like what they're doing. I want to be a part of it. Here, you can have my email address. So that process, that might have been days, hours. It was like, by the time they give you their email address, they are fired up about you. They're like, yes, I'm in. Sign me up. Let's do this. Let's end malaria, or whatever it is. Yeah. And if we're not meeting that enthusiasm with our own excitement, then it's a really missed opportunity. So I recommend sending at least one email that just says, yay, you're here. You made a good decision. Welcome.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Okay. That's at least one.

Patty Breech
At least one.

Tony Martignetti
Let's review the 5-email welcome journey. We're not going to go into the 35 emails. 5 minutes that we spent 2 years ago. No, 3. No, 2 years ago. Yeah, this is the third. But remind us what this ubiquitous 5-email welcome journey looks like.

Patty Breech
Yeah, so the idea is to capitalize on the window of opportunity immediately following someone's action. So I recommend sending 3 to 5 emails starting as close to immediately Immediately as possible, so at least within the first 24 hours after this action, and going up to 3 or 4 weeks later. So you can send as many or as few as you like in that window depending on your team's capacity, depending on what you feel like you have to say. But I recommend starting with something simple that's like, congratulations, we're so glad you're here, you made a good decision.

Tony Martignetti
Yay.

Patty Breech
Welcome to the team. Yeah. And then from there, you can go into more content that talks more about what it is that you do broadly. But we always want to make sure we're giving someone something of value. So saying, like, here's our most popular piece of content that we put out in the last year. We thought you might like it. Everyone else told us it was really great. Have you seen it? Have you seen this video? Have you read this blog post? You can invite people to come hang out with you if that's appropriate, like, hey, we have events. We'd love to see you at one of them. We have volunteer opportunities. We'd love to meet you. Something that's really drawing them into the work and making them feel like they're an important part of what you do. And if you want, you can throw in a donation ask as one of those emails as well.

Tony Martignetti
So the second one, certainly not the first one.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
No asking.

Patty Breech
Not the first way. Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Thanks for taking our newsletter. Now support our work.

Patty Breech
Now that I have your attention, can I have your money?

Tony Martignetti
Right. All right. So second or third, you could put in an ask. Yeah. Okay. It could be a different ask too. It could be a volunteer ask. Exactly. It could be a sign— petition is a ubiquitous one. Survey, maybe you have a survey about your interests. Those are all valid calls to action, right?

Patty Breech
Absolutely. Yeah. And they're, like I said, they're very fired up about you at this At this point, it's an excellent time to ask them for something like this.

Tony Martignetti
And the second one should come how long after they initially joined?

Patty Breech
2 to 3 days after that initial action.

Tony Martignetti
Right, and the first one came within 24 hours. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, continue. Why don't we continue? Suppose we have the capacity for a 5-step welcome. What are we doing in 4 and 5?

Patty Breech
Yeah, so I would say that the time between emails should basically start doubling. So you want to have one email immediately, a couple days later another one, 5 days later another one, a week later another one, 2 weeks later the last one. And I think you can't tell too many stories in these email welcome journeys. So I like to do a simple welcome message for the first one, tell a story of impact, Meaning, here's a story of lives that are being changed thanks to supporters like you. Like, this is the work that you're making possible now that you're part of this community. Third email can be some call to action, like volunteer with us, come to our events, take our survey, make a donation, whatever it might be. Mm-hmm. Fourth email, tell another story. And then that fifth email, it could be another call to action. Like, we want you to read this, we want you to watch this video, we want you to donate if you haven't asked Okay, thank

Tony Martignetti
you. Good overview of the welcome journey. All right, that's how you should be welcoming. But your advice was at least one that's not just the regular newsletter. At least one personalized thank you, yay, you're with us, thanks so much for joining.

Patty Breech
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, it can be overwhelming to think about creating a 5-part welcome series, so maybe just start with one. Just at least get that going.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, um, your emails are too full, too much, too dense. What does this look like? What are we probably getting wrong here? So,

Patty Breech
um—

Tony Martignetti
It

Patty Breech
sounds

Tony Martignetti
like you could have called this most likely, like, yes, 90% chance that you're getting these wrong instead of probably, but you were being thoughtful to the community. You're probably getting these wrong, but overwhelmingly Very likely. All right. What's the matter with our dense emails?

Patty Breech
Yeah, so one of my mentors describes marketing communications as like throwing ping pong balls at people. And so if I were to throw 72 ping pong balls at you at once, you might just like cower in fear, like, what is happening? You probably can't like focus on catching one of those. And I think a lot of times that's what our emails end up being like in the nonprofit world. Information overload. It's just this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. And it's like, whoa, this is like too much. I don't know what's going on in this message. And a lot of times also, I think they fall into this category that I like to call the phone call to mom, which is if you could imagine, you know, a mother figure in your life calling you and saying like, hey, how are you? What'd you do today? What'd you do yesterday? What'd you have for dinner? Yeah. Where are you going tomorrow?

Tony Martignetti
This is a phone call from mom.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
From, right? Yes, that's a better way to describe it. Yeah, but I think it's better if mom makes the call. Yeah. Which, as rare as that is, we know mothers never pick up the phone. No mother's phone makes outgoing calls. They only receive calls. You only receive. They only receive calls. But if, you know, but the phone call from hell or the phone call from mom. Ian, can I have a cup of tea? Thank you.

Patty Breech
So that type of reporting of like, this is what our nonprofit has been doing, we bought new computers, our CEO won an award, we— that is only interesting to your mom. No one else wants to hear those kinds of updates. So I really challenge nonprofits to look hard at what they're putting in their email newsletters and see if they can cut it down. to just things that are relevant to their supporters. Like, a story of impact could be relevant. Why do you think— And saying, like, you know, here's this wonderful uplifting story that we wanted to share with you. It's so heartwarming. It's so inspiring. And you're a part of this work with us. So thank you for being here. And also, you know, inviting people to come to an event, sharing a resource that might be helpful to them. That's the type of content That I'd like to see more of in these newsletters. And it can be really simple, just 3 pieces of information in an email. You could even just do one. You could have a newsletter where you send one topic, one story.

Tony Martignetti
You can, you can do that.

Patty Breech
You can do that.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, you can. Edit, like cutting. Okay. Yeah, your supporters don't need to know everything, right? Like,

Patty Breech
yes,

Tony Martignetti
new server rack.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
We moved the server rack out of the ladies' room. Now we have a devoted Thank you for your support.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
All right. See, the audience likes our idea. That's the keynote session going on in the background, but we persevere. Okay. Yeah. So take a deep edit to your bloated emails. Like, so is it— all right. So some info just doesn't need to be shared, like the new laptops on the server room. Yeah. That doesn't need to be shared. Yes. But if, if we feel the information is relevant, are you saying it's better to maybe send more frequent emails that are each less dense?

Patty Breech
Exactly. Yeah. So if you're an organization that is frequently updating your constituents, maybe you have a lot of events, maybe you have a lot of free resources, there's a lot going on, I would recommend sending more emails that are shorter.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. What's the maximum, and maybe there isn't a hard rule, maximum number of emails, let's not even say a week, I mean in a month? How many would be too many thank yous in a month?

Patty Breech
That's a good question. I don't know that there is a hard and fast rule. You could go weekly, so that would be 4 in a month. You could send 2 a week if you have a lot to say, if there's a lot to update your supporters on. I wouldn't do 2 a week if you're just repeating the same content across those emails. You might get people starting to tune out, but if there's a lot going on, yeah, weekly emails I think are good.

Tony Martignetti
What's your advice on resending to non-openers?

Patty Breech
Yeah, great question. That I think—

Tony Martignetti
Finally, it's about time. It's only 18 and a half minutes in, we got a decent question.

Patty Breech
That can be a good strategy. That has more to do with your deliverability, like getting people to interact more with your messages. My answer to that also, I think, would depend on like What is the bandwidth of your team's capabilities? And if getting the newsletter out the door is already a lot of work and it doesn't really feel possible to go back and resend to non-openers, like that's just too much on top of everything, then I think you can skip it.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. I mean, I think it's an auto, like just click a button.

Patty Breech
Depending on your email provider, yeah, it can be.

Tony Martignetti
I use MailChimp. I know it's an option, just tap the button. button, and then they'll ask, when do you, you know, when do you want to resend?

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. All right. So you're not opposed to the idea?

Patty Breech
Nope. Not opposed.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. All right. But you're not enthusiastic about it either?

Patty Breech
Yeah. I mean, I guess I have mixed feelings on it because I think that, I think that sometimes we can get a little fixated on the people who are not opening our emails, people who are unsubscribing. I hear this a lot from nonprofits. They get, um, they're hurt by the people who are unsubscribing from their email list. Oh, are they? Like, why are these people leaving? Like, look at all these people who don't want to hear from us anymore. Like, this is hurting our feelings. Um, and I really want our attention and energy to go to the people who are opening your emails and are engaging with it. Like, those are your supporters who are happy to hear from you. They're excited about what you're doing. And the other people who don't want to read your messages, don't want to open them, don't want to be on your list, that's fine. Let them do whatever they want. Let's focus on the people who are excited.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. All right. Very positive. Positive Purpose Collective. I guess the other thing you could do is look at how the resend does. If it's very If it's too low, then you're just annoying people a second time. But if it, I don't know, if it does like 20% or more of the non-opener, now the population is the non-openers of the first one.

Patty Breech
I

Tony Martignetti
don't know if it does 20% or more, that seems—

Patty Breech
That's pretty good.

Tony Martignetti
Isn't that worthwhile? It was probably worth sending. But if it's like 2

Patty Breech
or

Tony Martignetti
3%, people are blowing you off a second time. Don't resend again. I don't know.

Patty Breech
Yeah. How about now?

Tony Martignetti
You open this thing, 6 months later you're getting the same email you got. All right. Don't do that. That's another one you're definitely doing wrong. If you're doing that, you're— that's definitely a mistake. Okay. All right. So that— did we cover email?

Patty Breech
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
Density. There's almost only so much capacity in.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Could be just one 2 or 3 if you feel it's necessary, but certainly no more than 3. And same thing with calls to action, right? Yeah. Are you— you're a subscriber, I think, or believer, one call to action per message, right?

Patty Breech
Yes. Yeah, yeah, keep it simple. Click rates are, I mean, famously low across email. A good click, an amazing click rate would be 10%, meaning 90% of people are not going to click on your email. And so I think we can do ourselves a favor by making that one click really count and just have the one call to action. So rather than saying, you know, you could do this or that or this or that, like sometimes that creates decision fatigue and people choose nothing.

Tony Martignetti
Or not even just 2, not even 2 choices.

Patty Breech
I mean, you could, you could definitely do 2. Like something that's common is to include a donate button in the footer of every newsletter. So maybe your call to action in the body is something different, like You want people to register for an event, that's your main call to action. I think it's fine to keep that other donate link in the bottom.

Tony Martignetti
Okay, standard. But in the, in the body,

Patty Breech
yeah,

Tony Martignetti
keep it to one.

Patty Breech
That's what I would recommend.

Tony Martignetti
Standard donate button or QR code. You like QR codes?

Patty Breech
Um, yeah, I love QR codes. I don't know how often QR codes are effective in emails. Sometimes you're on your phone. Yeah, that's right.

Tony Martignetti
That's right. Most emails are opened by phone, right? Yeah. It's a very high percentage.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Right. Very true. Okay. Right. Those are more for social, website.

Patty Breech
Yeah. Or paper. You know, if you have like a poster somewhere, if you're handing out a flyer, a QR code is a great way to get someone online really quickly.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Yeah, you're absolutely right. The vast majority of emails are read on the phone. So, all right. Thank you. All right. You're welcome to say no. You're effed up. All right. Talking, talking, the subject matter. The pronouns are wrong.

Patty Breech
Too

Tony Martignetti
much us and we and not enough you and us together.

Patty Breech
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
All right. Expand on your thinking there. There's the team. Here's the team together. Purpose Collective, all 3. Julia and Michelle just joined watching the CEO. All right. You're getting content. All right, digital content. Don't put too much in those emails though. Don't fill those emails. All right, I told them, I told them in the previous— I'll probably run these back to back. Week 1 will probably be them, the panel of 3 with, uh, with, uh, Michelle, Julia, and, um, Sarah. And Sarah from BRAC. Uh, and then, and then this, this will probably be— will probably follow. I told them You're overexposed. The Purpose Collective is overexposed. Like every year now we got 100% of the team is on 2 different sessions. Next year it'll be 4 people and you'll want to bring them all in one session.

Patty Breech
We're taking over your show, Tony.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. No. So you need to sponsor. What you need to do is start sponsoring the podcast. That's what, that's what should be sponsored by Heller Consulting, should be sponsored by The Purpose Collective. So put that in the budget for 2026. Or even a spot opening even this summer. So we'll put it on our agenda. You don't have to wait till next year. All right. So all 3 of you have heard it now. Yes, please do. All right. Pronouns. We're too inward-looking, I think, is what we're probably doing wrong. Yeah. Go ahead.

Patty Breech
So you might have heard me say this before. I believe the most important word you can use in any of your marketing is the word you. And it's really understandable how we end up talking too much about ourselves, too much we-focused language. It makes perfect sense. We want to show our supporters that we're doing a good job. We want to make a strong case for why our organization matters. We want to prove that we're doing what we said we would do with your donations. But unfortunately, that can come across as— I mean, one, it can make it seem like we don't need any support because look at us. Look how great we're doing. We did this and we did that. But the other thing is it doesn't really invite the reader in to say, you have a place here and you're a part of this. It's just— I mean, it comes across as bragging. Like, look at us. Look at what we did. We did this and we did that and we did this other thing. And now we're doing this and we also did that. Aren't we great? And so it's a simple shift. To just use more you-focused language. So, you know, thanks to your support, we were able to do this. You're changing lives. You're helping to make the world a better place.

Tony Martignetti
I like it that you're doing the work, not that you're supporting us in doing the work.

Patty Breech
Yes.

Tony Martignetti
Because they all know that. They know they're not on the ground. They know they're not visiting the homeless camps. They realize that. They don't do that. They know.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
It's not like lying. You're saving lives, you know, whatever. You're improving the climate in Detroit. You don't have to use the, you know, you're helping us do it.

Patty Breech
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And also, you know, just more gratitude. When you add more you language, you end up with more gratitude statements like, thank you so much for being someone who cares so deeply about this. Thank you for making meaningful steps towards this goal. Thank you. I think that can really help your emails feel like they're relevant to the reader. It's not just me talking about myself at this organization. It's me saying to you, you matter. You're a part of this. You're really important. Couldn't do it without you.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Okay. Emails not coming from a person.

Patty Breech
Yeah, so I see this a lot where an organization will put the nonprofit name in the sender line and then the subject line will say something like Spring 2025 Newsletter, and that just feels very corporate. It feels very one-size-fits-all. It feels like, you know, we're just this Nameless, faceless organization that's sending you an update. I think it's much better to remind people that there are humans who work at your organization. So put that— put a person's name in the sender line. You can still include the organization after that name if you want to, um, but say, you know, this is from Patty Breech, and sign the email as if it was from me, Patty Breech. Include my photo, you know. Put something in there that shows people there are real human beings doing this work, and we, those real human beings, we want to talk to you, our very important supporter, and we want to send this message to you from us. I think that personal touch can really help people feel more connected to the work that you're doing, feel more connected to your team. And in the presentation, I include a screenshot that I pulled from my own inbox a few days ago where it's just like corporate message after corporate message. It's like a receipt from the parking structure where I left my car to come on this trip. And it's like Toyota sent me an email and Verizon sends me an email. It's just like we're so used to getting these meaningless corporate emails from companies. So if you put a person's name in the sender line, I think you'll really stand out in the average inbox. Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
In the subject line, you mean? In the subject line?

Patty Breech
In the sender line.

Tony Martignetti
Oh, sender line. Oh, I'm sorry. In the sender line. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Yeah, right, right. Never mind. Yeah. Tony Martignetti. I do that. Okay, good.

Patty Breech
Good work.

Tony Martignetti
I got 1 out of 5. No, this is not about me. All right. Valuable. Yeah. Yeah. It's the person. And then you could say like CEO. I mean, I'd be more apt to open a CEO's email than, you know, if I get— maybe I wouldn't say director of development. I'd probably just leave that out. But yeah, a person. Yeah, person. All right. That's a simple one. That's a simple, very

Patty Breech
simple.

Tony Martignetti
All right. How do you feel about the, uh, yeah, using the name, you know, like addressing, you know, hello, hello Patty, or, you know, hey Patty or something. Yeah.

Patty Breech
Personalization?

Tony Martignetti
Yeah.

Patty Breech
I think it's a really good idea.

Tony Martignetti
It's basic.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
You know, you know, you know, the person didn't write it personally.

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Safe bet, you know, unless— but hey Patty, you know, hi Patty, you know, you're into those. Dear, dear. Yeah.

Patty Breech
Absolutely. Yeah. Personalization is great.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Even just first name?

Patty Breech
Even just first name.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah. Okay.

Patty Breech
Seth Godin says that what our supporters want most is to be seen. And so to use someone's name is one way you can say, like, I see you, I remember you, I know who you are, glad you're here.

Tony Martignetti
Yeah, all right. And now it's person to person. Yes. The sender is a person and they're saying hello.

Patty Breech
Yes, exactly.

Tony Martignetti
All right. How do you feel about leaving it there with personalization?

Patty Breech
That's great.

Tony Martignetti
Is that all right?

Patty Breech
Yeah.

Tony Martignetti
Okay. Patty Breech, spelled like, spelled like Breech birth, not like breach of contract.

Patty Breech
Exactly, double E.

Tony Martignetti
Breech birth, yes. Founder and CEO of the Purpose Collective. The 5 email marketing mistakes you're probably making and how to fix them. That's what we just talked about. And we are sponsored here by Heller Consulting, technology services for nonprofits. Thank you very much for being with our 25 NTC coverage.

Kate Martignetti
Next week, congrats, you're a manager. Now what? And facing feedback. If you missed any part of this week's show,

Tony Martignetti
I beseech you, find it at tonymartignetti.com.

Kate Martignetti
Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I'm your associate producer, Kate Martignetti. The show's social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein.

Tony Martignetti
Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.