Email

According to a 2018 survey, Williams alumni prefer to hear from their class agent via email. Getting them to actually give in response to an email can be challenging -- typical response rates are just 1-2%. For this reason, we recommend that each class consider sending multiple emails as part of their solicitation plans each year. (For digital natives / young alumni, this may mean a dozen or more email messages, coupled with personal outreach and texting.)

All told, during the 2018-19 fund year, 493 solicitation emails were produced across 60 classes (1959-2019), an average of 8 per class.

Additionally, the Alumni Fund office sends every alum at least one email per year, such as:

Audience/Segment

Who are you planning to email? Full class? All non-donors? All LYBUNTs? All LYBUNTs who have given every year since graduation? LYBUNTs who have given every year since graduation and are leadership prospects?

The Alumni Fund office can help you create a series of mutually-exclusive, collectively-exhaustive segments within your class so that you can create more highly personalized messages to smaller populations. In particular, we can very quickly isolate the following groups, both full populations and just leadership prospects:

• returning 1793 Circle members (5+ consecutive gifts)

• prospective 1793 Circle members (4 consecutive gifts)

• newly (re-)acquired (LYBUNTs whose gift last year was their 1st in the last 5 FYs)

• all other LYBUNTs

• loyal SYBUNTs (no gift last year, but at least 3 gifts in last 5 years)

• all other SYBUNTs (no gift last year, but 1-2 gifts in last 5 years)

• seldom (no gift in last 5 years)

• never yets (no gift in history)

Timing

Desired send date and time. If there is a particular day of week or time of day you would like your message to be sent, please let us know and we will make every effort to meet that request. Otherwise, we will assume it should be sent out as soon as it is ready.

YesWare analyzed millions of messages sent by 60k users of their platform and shared their findings at a 2018 conference. The key takeaway is to send early in the morning or late in the afternoon to improve response rate (below left). You can also check out the full (30 min) presentation from Yesware Founder and CEO Matthew Bellows (below right).

Frequency

You don't want to spam people, but you also want them to see, open, read, and respond positively to your email by making a gift.

Consider using strategic segmentation, as listed above, so that you're providing more frequent reminders to those whose consistent giving indicate they're likelier to respond in the end, and less frequent messages to those who have yet to make their first gift to Williams.

Consider a kicker email or a drip campaign, where a follow up message goes to those who have not responded to an initial email.

Want more on email? Go into the weeds...