Is your brand ready for #GivingTuesday?

Celebrated on the day after Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving. And with all the attention it generates, it’s a great way to build awareness, not to mention bring in much-needed donations.

While many nonprofits focus primarily on social campaigns for the big event, it’s important for email audiences to get involved in the action too in order to get the word out and reach even more potential donors.

Here are a few of the best #GivingTuesday email examples we’ve seen over the past few years. Marketers, keep these examples in mind.

Cheekwood Estate & Gardens

With a beautiful, mobile-optimized template and a clear call to action, the path to purchase couldn’t be more clear in this email from Cheekwood Estate & Gardens. Plus, the team smartly tied their offering to the holidays, showing subscribers that the membership was both a worthy donation and a easy gift idea for friends and family members.

Oxford American

While we don’t normally advocate for this much copy in an email, a personal letter feels just right for the occasion. And since it’s Oxford American, they know their subscribers are readers. Lay out your goals and big accomplishments from the past year to subscribers and invite them to give back with a note from your CEO, publisher, or another notable figurehead.

Dismas, Inc.

Like this Dismas example, use email leading up to the big day (and not just on it) to help drum up excitement. Better yet, show your subscribers the potential impact of their gifts with an emotion-packed video and quick explanation of how you plan to use their donations in 2018. After all, according to Wistia, including video in your email can boost your click rates by as much as 300%.

Also Read: The Fight Against Fraud: Are You Throwing Good Traffic Out with the Bad?

The Hermitage

People want to feel that their contribution is truly making a difference. Tie different donation amounts to different elements of your organization – “X dollars for X amount of people we’ve helped” or “X dollars for the number of years we’ve been around,” for example – to make their gift feel more tangible and connected to the organization’s unique identity.

Nashville Humane Association

The right images can remind an audience what they love about an organization (like pictures of pets in the below example). Our brains process images 60,000 times faster than text, so forward-thinking design plays a crucial role in forming brand impressions that last with today’s consumers.

OrderUp

#GivingTuesday isn’t just for nonprofits. If you work for a publisher or even a retail brand, encourage your audience to do some good by tying a special promotion to the day’s events. A “buy one, we’ll give one” model works well, or you can even offer to donate a certain amount of money to a great cause every time a subscriber performs an action, like sharing your email or following your organization on social. Be creative!

Also Read: Why the Tug-of-War Will Continue in 2018 Social Marketing