What is Mass Email?

How many emails have you received today? Were they mostly from friends, colleagues, companies, or nonprofit organizations? Chances are, you received emails from all of these sources, as every connection and group uses email to stay in touch and top of mind.

But unlike your email correspondence with friends and family, organizations — including Sierra Club — use mass email for communication. Mass email is a powerful tool to distribute digital content from one sender (or, in our case, one person who’s connected to an organization, like the Sierra Club) to many people — ranging anywhere from a couple dozen to millions of people (who, in our case, are members and supporters of the Sierra Club).

The principles of all email though are similar. Whether you’re sending an email from your personal account or sending a mass email on behalf of the Sierra Club, the purpose for sending it is likely the same: to inform or educate your readers, engage them, and then make an ask, also known as a call to action. Whether we’re sending an advocacy email asking folks to add their name to a petition going to their local leaders, an event recruitment email asking folks to come attend a local rally or community meeting, or a fundraising email asking folks to donate money, all of our mass emails will always have one clear, action or ask associated with that send.

Why use mass emails?

Mass emails have incredible benefits to a distributed campaign:

• Mass emails allow you to reach massive numbers of people. Sierra Club has about 3.8 million supporters and members — if not by email, how else would you communicate with all of them at once? The same is true for your local teams.

• Mass emails are flexible for your time and resources. You can set emails up in advance, schedule when to send them, and do this all from your couch, with delivery in seconds.

• Mass emails cast a wide net. You can broadcast information that is targeted and customized to a variety of recipients — and then ask those people to take a specific action. You can adjust your message to match your email lists so that people receive information and action requests that they value.

When should you use mass emails?

As mentioned throughout the Communications Guide, knowing your strategy and picking the right communications tactic is important for your time, energy, and effectiveness as an organizer.

By now you should already know what you’re trying to achieve (your campaign goal or milestone), your target (the person who has the ability to help you reach your goal the best/quickest), your timeline (by when you are trying to achieve your goal), and your offline and online campaign strategy (your “game plan”, or the steps or tactics you need to take in order to help you reach your goal).

Read up on Phase 3 (Plan Your Strategy) and Phase 4 (Public Launch) from the Campaign Roadmap if you want to learn more about planning this, or jump back to Digital 101 if you want to spend more time thinking about how to integrate online tactics, like mass email, into your plan.

Parts of an Email

Before you sit down to write your email, you should have a clear understanding of all parts of the email and its role in your strategy. Be prepared to answer:

Why

• Purpose: Why do you want to send this email? What’s it about? And why does your audience want to receive it in their inbox?

• Goal: What are you trying to achieve with it? What is your goal (e.g. # of action takers?)

• Inform: What are you trying to communicate/educate/inform your audience about? That is, what is The Problem? Can you cite any of this information so that folks can learn more about the issue?

• Urgency: Why should anyone take action on this right now? How can you communicate the deadline so that folks feel compelled to act as soon as they read your email?

• Messenger: Why should your audience trust you/us? Think about who might be the best messenger of this content. Have you considered sending from the voice of a volunteer, a coalition partner, or a professional?

• Action: What is your primary ask or call to action that you need your audience to take?

When:

• Date: When should this email be sent? (Feel free to provide a range of time for optimal scheduling flexibility.) What is the last day we could possibly send this email in order to be effective?

Who:

• Audience: Who should receive this email? Be as strategic in your targeting as possible. Is there anyone specifically who should not receive this email (for example, people who have already taken this action or RSVP’d to this event, or people who do not live in the area of impact)?

• Target: If this is an Advocacy Alert, who’s the primary target of the actions? This is the person or group of people who will be receiving alerts from your audience. 

What (email content):

• Email sections:

• Sender (First and Last Name and Role/Title of the person who’s sending this email.)

• Subject Line

• Preheader Text

• Call To Action

• Text

• Button Text

• Link to AddUp Action

• Image: Do you have a high resolution activist/relevant image (approx. 200KB in size, bigger is okay) for the email and action page? If so, please provide the name of the photographer if we need to photo credit them.

• Body:

• Opening line to capture reader’s attention (1-2 sentences)

• Explanation of issue from a local perspective as much as possible (1-2 sentence)

• Call-to-action (1 sentence)

• Further explanation: what will happen if reader takes action (2-3 sentences)

• Call-to-action again (1 sentence)

• Wrap-up/ close-out the email (2-3 sentences)

How to Send Mass Emails

We use a platform called Marketing Cloud to build, schedule, test, and send out our mass emails. Currently only National Staff (such as our Online Organizers) and some Chapters and Groups are able to send these emails on their own.

How to Use Marketing Cloud

Instructions on how to build mass email for Chapters & Groups

If you have any questions about Marketing Cloud, contact: core.help@sierraclub.org

Plan Your Email Arcs

Just as it is important to develop a digital campaign plan — mapping out different online organizing tactics, such as AddUp actions and events, mass emails, social media, and more — so is it important to think strategically about your mass email strategy. Over the duration of your campaign, you’ll likely have many different short-term objectives and organizing tactics that you will need to achieve, and mass email will be the perfect tool for your success. Each time the tactic of mass email is considered, remember your digital ladder of engagement; consider whether it will be necessary to move your audience up the ladder in order to help you reach your goal most effectively. If so, you are likely going to need to develop an “email arc.”

An email arc is a series of planned emails sent over a period of time (e.g., days, weeks, or even months) that help you reach a short-term objective or organizing tactic. The purpose of planning an email arc is so that each of your emails is sequenced strategically, with each one building on the last.

Of course, this means that you will likely need to plan more time to send multiple emails (potentially even the exact same email two or three times) in order to help you reach your numerical objectives and keep you on track towards reaching your goal. So when you’re scheduling your timing for emails, be sure you’ve planned for several emails over your available timeline.

Let’s work through an example:

Scenario: Say you want to recruit 5 new volunteers to help you at your next big event (say it's a rally in front of city hall).

You're hoping that if you recruit 5 new volunteers, you will finally have:

• One person to do social media recruitment and live tweeting during the event.

• One person to manage the table and check people in.

• One person to float around the event with an ipad (or clipboard) and get more AddUp (or paper) petition signatures.

• One person to be your media coordinator or press spokesperson.

• One person to take great photos and videos for social media, media, and email follow up.

As you do your planning, remember the Rule of Halves,” which states that you’ll need to get at least twice as many people to commit to volunteer in order to get the number of volunteers you actually need to show up. This is what we like to call "Organizer Math." It's a rough — but generally a statistically accurate — calculation for setting goals and knowing if you're on track. Now, working backwards, calculate how you might move supporters on your email list — up the Ladder of Engagement — to get them to ultimately become offline volunteers with you.

For example:

• If I want 5 new volunteers to play a role at my next big event, then I’m going to need to get at least 10 new volunteers to commit to showing up.

• AND if I want to get at least 10 new volunteers to say “yes” to showing up to volunteer, then I’m going to need to ask at least 20 new people at my next in-person campaign meeting for me to ask.

• AND if I need at least 20 new people at my next in-person campaign meeting, then I’m going to need at least 40 new people to have committed to attending when I phone banked them.

• AND if I need at least 40 new people to commit to me that they are coming to my next meeting, then I’m going to need at least 80 new people to have RSVP’d yes on my invite.

• AND if I need at least 80 new people to have RSVP’d yes, then I’m going to need at least 160 new people to be on my support list — i.e. people who have signed my Ready For 100 AddUp petition online — for me to email.

• AND if I need at least 160 people who have signed my petition, then I’m going to need at least 320 people to have received my petition and been asked to sign on. 

In short, if you want to get 5 new volunteers to play a role at your next big event, then first you're going to need to develop an email arc that moves your action takers up your ladder in the weeks leading up to your event. Here’s what a basic email arc might look like:

• Week 1: Ask people to sign your petition — Email #1 (Easy Action)

• Week 2: Ask people to come to your next campaign meeting to learn more about the campaign — Email #2 (Intermediate Action)

• Week 3: Ask people to volunteer to be a petition captain — Email #3 (Hard Action)

If you don’t hit your numerical goals each time you send an email in your planned email arc, you might need to resend your email again, potentially altering your message or your audience, in order to help you reach your desired results. So your arc might need to add a few emails to hit your desired goals.

Tips & Best Practices

Follow these tips for writing emails that will interest and motivate your audiences.

Subject Line Text

• Write out 5-10 potential subject lines before picking the top 1-2 to use.

• The subject should be short, catchy, intriguing, or create a sense of urgency — but it also needs to be accurate.

• “Clickbait” might get you an open, but will generally earn a lower action rate.

• Make sure your subject line answers, “Why do I want to open this email? What am I going to get out of it?

Preheader Text

• This brief summary is the first line of the email that shows up in your inbox after the subject line.

• This can be longer and more descriptive, but needs to immediately get to the point.

Call-to-Action Text

• If they read nothing else, what are you asking your audience to learn and take action on?

• This can be the same as your preheader text or first “ask” sentence.

Body Text

• Have only 1 primary ask: You can use a P.S. or a follow-up ask (after people take action on your first ask), but expect a much lower action rate for P.S. or follow-up.

• Repeat your ask at least 3 times.

• Always have the ask bolded and linked.

• The body of the email should be between 250-400 words — no more than 3/4 page of content.

Footnotes (if applicable):

• Only add footnotes if you are citing information. Please use the correct MLA citation format (Purdue’s OWL provides helpful MLA guidance)

Check out this sample of a well written email from the Grand Rapids Campaign.