Technology

Daily Buzz: A Leap in Nonprofit Email Open Rates

A 2019 Campaign Monitor report reveals the latest email marketing trends. Also: AARP uses VR to promote social interaction.

In a year when worldwide email open rates decreased, nonprofits bucked the trend.

According to Forbes, a report by the email marketing software provider Campaign Monitor revealed that nonprofit email open rates rose by almost 5 percent in 2019, jumping to 25.2 percent. Nonprofits were behind only government organizations in email open rates last year.

“For nonprofits, the latest findings reinforce an industry-wide trend toward email marketing,” Chris Strub wrote in Forbes.

When should nonprofits send an email? The answer has changed in the past year. “Campaign Monitor found that, for nonprofits, Wednesday (26.20 percent) was the highest-performing day; in the 2018 report, Sunday (22.9 percent) had been the No. 1 day for nonprofit emails,” he wrote.

Though nonprofits saw a bump in email open rates, the industry’s average click-through rate dropped slightly from 2.66 percent in 2018 to 2.60 percent in 2019. Even with the drop, nonprofits still matched the global average for 2019.

VR Technology Creates Connections at CES

You may not have made it to CES this year, but AARP did. At the show in Las Vegas this week, AARP Innovation Labs unveiled Alcove, an application used with the Oculus Go VR headset that aims to connect family members across generations by bringing them together inside a virtual world.

“The application, released in beta last year and hitting CES this week with many new features, is set up like a virtual home where people can move around in ‘rooms’ and choose destinations to visit together,” AARP’s Christina Ianzito wrote on the association’s website.

The app is about creating a shared experience, says Rick Robinson, vice president of product development for AARP Innovation Labs.

“You can have a 15-year-old in Washington, DC, looking at the Eiffel Tower with his grandparents in California,” he told Ianzito.

Other Links of Note

Software as a service. Wes Trochlil of Effective Database Management describes how SaaS is changing the landscape for association software.

Association community-building takes both online and offline engagement, says Fonteva’s Jake Fabbri in a recent article for Corbin Ball & Co.

Your social media strategy should focus on strengthening connections with customers and turning social data into actionable insights, says Katherine Kim at Sprout Social.

(Redlio Designs/DigitalVision Vectors)

Michael Hickey

By Michael Hickey

Michael Hickey is a contributor to Associations Now. MORE

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