Last Updated: March 01, 2024

As you look to enhance electronic communications with your member and donor base, you likely have questions about optimizing broadcast emails.

What exactly does broadcast email entail, when should you use it, and what’s needed to ensure your emails get opened and drive conversions rather than getting ignored or landing in spam?

In your role focused on member engagement or communications, understanding broadcast email best practices is important for distributing emails that grab attention. This guide will provide insights into leveraging broadcast to promote renewals, event sign-ups, fundraising campaigns, and other initiatives relying on community participation.

Read on to uncover the tools and techniques top membership organizations use to engage their audience through impactful broadcast emails.

Key Takeaways

• Broadcast email allows you to instantly reach your entire contact database or specific member/donor segments to share updates, event invites, and campaigns.
• Effective types of broadcast emails include newsletters, fundraising appeals, event promotions, membership renewals, and program registration drives.
• If you want to increase your open rates, creating relevant and individualized content for subscribers is the best way to go.
• A call to action (CTA) is a critical element of your email that serves as a signpost to guide users on what to do next.
• You can use AI-powered tools like Glue Up to write and send broadcast emails that are effective and personalized.

What Is a Broadcast Email?

Broadcast email, also known as bulk email or mass email, is a powerful communication channel that membership organizations like nonprofits, associations, clubs, societies, and unions can leverage to reach their members and donors.

In its simplest form, broadcast email allows you to send the same email message simultaneously to a list of recipients.

It helps you share important announcements, event updates, newsletters, fundraising campaigns, special offers, and other relevant content with your entire contact database or specific segments at once.

Difference Between an Email Broadcast and an Email Autoresponder

An email broadcast is an email campaign that you send to a chosen group of customers or subscribers. It’s a great way of sending announcements in one email to update everyone on the contact list.

On the other hand, an email autoresponder is an automated email sent out after setting up trigger emails. For instance, your autoresponders can send messages that alert readers to:

1. Membership renewals
2. Account reactivation
3. New offering announcements

7 Types of Broadcast Emails (And How to Use Them as a Member-based Organization?)

When sending out a one-time email drip campaign, you can choose from any of the following to make your business stand out:

1. Newsletters

A newsletter is used to send information and communicate with the audience, leading to their inboxes. If your organization has a website or blog page, it’s ideal to build and send one when promoting an offering, event, or article.

It’s also effective in reaching a global market.

It serves the purpose of maintaining a regular large group of contacts, encouraging clicks to your website, increasing site visitors, or distributing relevant content to the target market.

Member of the Month

People want to be recognized to feel good about themselves and being in the spotlight can be a memorable experience.

Celebrating meaningful relationships built through the years with a “Member of the Month” feature in a newsletter is a fantastic way to spread positivity and maintain connections.

However, there’s more involved than simply snapping a photo. You have to determine how you will get the shot.

Industry News

Industry news articles related to organizational performance, economic development, corporate relocation, and offering information worldwide are beneficial to the subscribers.

Reading them can be a great start to the day as they obtain brief knowledge of the actual happenings worldwide. For this reason, be a handy source of ideas and information on various topics and industries.

Improvement in Offering or Services

It is essential to make meaningful changes to your offering and services continuously. This can retain members or even attract new ones, especially when they see that the benefits have increased. 

Upcoming Company Events

Stay connected with the members and continue to provide excellent service.

If you have a full calendar of events, refer to it and check the workshops, webinars, and conferences, you’ll be launching soon. This lets you communicate your brand value authentically and engagingly by encouraging them to join and participate.

Do you want to build an event page and promote it in a few clicks? Book a demo of Glue Up's Event Management Software now and automate your event process for successful execution.

2. Surveys

Email surveys to gather feedback and opinions to guide your organizational strategy and offerings.

Keep surveys concise yet covering key areas of interest. Let your members know upfront approximately how long the survey will take to complete. Offer an incentive such as entering respondents into a gift card raffle.

3. Digests

A digest is a short type of broadcast email that’s easy to read. It’s a collection of resources covering a particular area similar to a newsletter format but with a different content structure.

You can opt to send a digest every day or every week.

The topic may be about technology, finance, and health, among others. Also, you can include news articles, blogs, surveys, and videos in the release.

4. Sales and Promotions

A sales promotion can boost sales, acquire new members, and get new business leads. It’s a short-term initiative in membership marketing that creates a sense of urgency to get more leads.

When planning to launch a sales promotion, it is essential to consider the promotion cost, consistency with brand image, and impact on members in the long run. 

5. Fundraising Campaigns

A fundraising email is essential for nonprofits to publicize donation drives and request contributions for specific programs.

6. Welcome New Members

Welcome new members by introducing them to your mission, events, and resources to help them get oriented.

You can also include login instructions for the member portal, an overview of key organizational information, and departments to contact based on needs they may have.

7. Drive Program Registrations

Increase sign-ups for paid educational offerings, certifications, conferences, and training.

Email Broadcasting Tips to Increase Your Open Rate

1. Personalize Each Email Broadcast Campaign

If you want to increase your open rates, creating relevant and individualized content for subscribers is the best way to go. 

Email marketing personalization is when you gather subscriber data and develop content intended for these individuals. Use generative AI to deliver personalized content ideas for your emails.  

Another way to make use of subscriber profiles is to give them a personal shout-out or to personalize images or offers.

2. Segment the Audience

It is essential to divide the audience into segments through segmentation.

You can do this by knowing what they have in common, like age, gender, location, interests, and behavior, which can help you create more suitable offers, and ads.

In addition, you can provide personalized treatment to the audience through segmentation while building meaningful relationships with them.

Check out these steps if you want to know how to segment the audience:

Step 1: Define the ICP you seek to target.
Step 2: List down criteria that differentiate these personas.
Step 3: Evaluate customer data. If you need more information, Get customer feedback through surveys or questionnaires.
Step 4: Make sure that the customer data used as segmentation criteria is available before sending messages from the platform.
Step 5: Choose criteria before segmenting the audience.

3. Keep Emails Short and Simple

Keeping emails short, simple, and to the point allows you to communicate your message better and increases your chances of receiving a timely reply.

Avoid using too many filler words and phrases that interfere with effective communication.

It’s tempting to include all the information in an email but some may no longer be relevant. And to help you summarize it, using bullet points can be helpful.

4. Best Time to Send Broadcast Emails

Studies show that Tuesday is the best day for sending emails. In line with this, the highest email open rates happen on Tuesdays, which allows you to get increased click-through rates and higher site traffic.

If you will be sending two emails, distribute the first one on a Tuesday and then the following email on a Thursday, which is considered the second-highest open rate.

Make sure to not overwhelm your subscribers with a lot of information by sending them emails two days in a row.

5. Add a Concise and Compelling Call to Action

A call to action (CTA) is a critical element of your email that serves as a signpost to guide users on what to do next. Without a clear and compelling CTA, the user may not know how to sign up for a newsletter.

You can add a CTA at the bottom of the post asking them to go to your blog page for more articles or to sign-up for a monthly email newsletter.

Some good call-to-action examples that can provoke an immediate response: sign up, subscribe, try for free, get started, and many more.

6. Maintain Consistent Messaging

Keep in mind that it’s essential to build more trust, motivating prospects to use your services.

For this to happen with your subscribers, a consistent voice in all your newsletters boosts your credibility.

It can also help readers remember and recognize you quickly if the tone in communications is consistent–may it be formal, friendly, or encouraging.

12 Email Broadcast Campaign Examples to Inspire You

1. Yellowstone

An informative email template like Yellowstone’s lets you connect and communicate better with your audience by including all the necessary information they need to know.

This template is effective because readers are kept up-to-date on news, industry articles, new projects, job opportunities, and more.

2. Search Engine Journal

Search Engine Journal’s email states that it offers multiple subscriptions for a single user. With relevant and valuable content, their main focus is on SEO.

However, they also include topics like marketing, business, etc.

3. Yelp

The Yelp newsletter discusses terms of service and privacy policy, which can leave readers bored or uninterested. However, it becomes effective by highlighting the main points while keeping them simple.

As you may agree, everyone appreciates simplicity and transparency when giving membership updates.

4. OptiMonk

OptiMonk shares exciting news to the readers by talking about the biggest product enhancement they just did, which covered the admin interface, website, and other features.

5. MonsterInsights

The promotional email of MonsterInsights encourages qualified customers to take action right away. It highlights the 60% discount they can get when they opt to upgrade to MonsterInsights Pro. However, the promo will end the next day.

6. La Public Library

The LA Public Library informs subscribers about the reading activities they’ve launched during spring, including virtual librarian storytimes that may appeal to many.

7. Turo

Turo's broadcast email tells the readers that they created unique Zoom backgrounds for them.

It encourages them to download a clutter-free background that can spark a personality.

8. Gap

Gap’s “Mystery Deals” creates curiosity by not revealing yet what they have in store for them. This provides a glimpse of brand value to them, which can lead to excitement and anticipation.

9. Nike

Nike creates a seasonal email just in time for summer. It has a simple design and straightforward copy that says: summer-ready gears are on their way.

10. Threadless

Threadless uses striking imagery that catches one’s attention right away, which prompts users to shop now. It also increases excitement, saying that there are 25 new designs that will be out.

11. Copyblogger

This email from Copyblogger uses different content strategies to get readers’ attention. It starts with an informative introduction and further drills it down to other facts that support the “ethical marketing” topic.

12. Trello

Readers often encounter call-to-action buttons that state “Read More” and “Click Here”. This email from Trello uses creative and action-driven copy that’s unique and relevant like “Knock Out Decisions” and “Go Undercover”.

What is the Best Tool for Email Broadcasting?

An email broadcasting tool lets you deliver emails fast when compared to a traditional approach. One of the most obvious advantages of it is its lower cost compared to mainstream marketing channels.

Glue Up

Glue Up’s membership management software lets you personalize communications in your organization with branded email campaigns, newsletters, and event invitations with ease. Whether you’re welcoming new members or promoting new services, you can customize an email campaign template that looks great in just a few clicks.

Here are some of the advantages of using Glue Up's email campaigns for your broadcast emails:

1. Personalized Emails

Glue Up's email marketing software makes it easy to create effective, personalized emails. You can choose from a gallery of templates or build your own from scratch using the drag-and-drop editor.

Also, you can use the dynamic content blocks to personalize your emails at scale by pulling in data like first names, full names, and company names to make each subscriber feel special.

2. Advanced Segmentation

Segmentation tools and smart lists allow you to target different groups within your contacts database to send the most relevant content to each subscriber.

3. Customizable Analytics Dashboard

Robust analytics give you insight into your email performance. See opens, clicks, and unsubscribes so you can optimize your campaigns.

Glue Up integrates with your CRM, accounting software, website forms, and more to sync subscriber data automatically.

4. Generative AI for Email Writing
Glue Up also offers AI Copilot to make email marketing even easier.

Copilot helps generate email campaigns, and write subject lines and content in seconds. Simply describe what you want to achieve and Copilot will provide tailored suggestions to save you time.

Thus using the Copilot, you can execute sophisticated email campaigns that feel like they were created by your team. It's like having an email marketing expert right inside your Glue Up account.

So if you're looking for a powerful, easy-to-use email marketing platform with built-in AI assistance, Glue Up is a great choice. Seamless CRM integrations, beautiful templates, in-depth analytics, and Copilot to optimize your efforts make it the best all-in-one solution.

Want to see Glue Up’s robust email features in action? Click here to get a demo and see how you can build a stronger connection with your members through personalized email campaigns.