CASE STUDY
Increasing output for an inactive email program
How we reactivated a disengaged email list to maximize donations and engagement without additional investment.
An unfortunately common approach to building a grassroots digital program is the creation of what over time becomes a burn-and-churn strategy, where you burnout the list too quickly for immediate, short-term impact and then need to constantly invest to replace burned out data in order to continue seeing fundraising potential.
But Triptych doesn’t believe the only way to make money is to spend money, and we don’t believe you have to burn your list to bring in steady grassroots dollars. Intentional messaging, storytelling, and digital strategy can not only maximize results on any budget, but engage your supporters and build community around your organization while doing it. We don’t just look for short term results, we develop strategies and acquisition approaches that last for the long haul and make the most of the donor dollars you invest in building your program.
Triptych was contacted in January 2021 to help a gubernatorial campaign turn their underperforming digital program into a net positive. Our client had a large list but a surprising amount was dead weight. To make it worse, they significantly invested to build without seeing a fruitful ROI in the months leading into a highly contested primary in the national spotlight.
We wasted no time auditing the digital program to make an immediate impact. After just one week, we were able to accomplish:
32% increase in average open rate
150% increase in average click/open rate
400% increase in average click rate
32% increase in average open rate
While immediately improving those indicators, we also went to work to develop and execute an effective reengagement campaign to bring life to more than 700,000 inactive, dormant, and ignored email addresses. The results were a huge win for the client.
We also implemented a reengagement campaign to reactivate list dead weight with 940,000 attempts at contact and were able to reactivate 33,651 email addresses without spending a penny.
Through data analysis, intentional reengagement and onboarding, and consistent message testing, Triptych took an inactive, low performing email list and transformed it into a consistent source of grassroots donations for our client.
We more than doubled our client’s fundraising potential by the end of our first month of working together, and by Primary Day our program accounted for nearly 50% of all online contributions.
