There are several special occasions that take place during the winter months, and this makes the holiday season a good time of year to use email marketing software for your fundraising initiatives. It doesn’t matter whether your ideal supporters celebrate Christmas, Chanukkah, or Kwanzaa, a well planned strategy will appeal to just about anyone.

On that note, you can only get as far as your system will allow, so here are a few solid tips on finding the best email marketing software for your holiday fundraising needs:

Figure Out What You Need

So what does your fundraising program call for? What will make it a success? Are you planning to engage your supporters with a newsletter? If so, then customizable templates and other creation tools are probably a priority. Is a trigger-based drip campaign a part of the plan? If the answer is yes, then autoresponders should definitely be on the menu. Do you need to sync your email list with your existing databases? If you do, then you need a solution with an API that will allow you to plug in your current applications. Getting this crucial step out of the way will make everything else much easier.

Read Reviews

One thing you will find out when evaluating email marketing services is that almost every company you encounter looks the part on the surface. Most will look professional and appear to have all the tools needed to make your fundraising program a huge success during the holiday season. However, the last thing you want to do is take these claims at face value. You never really know just how good a particular service is without giving it a try for yourself, and this is why reviews are so valuable. By reading reviews from other users, you can find out what to expect in terms of price, ease of use, deliverability and much more.

Test the Customer Service

The last thing you want to do in the midst of raising funds for a good cause is spend all your time on the phone trying to get a hold of a customer service rep when problems arise. Unfortunately, this could very well be your fate if you do not make quality customer service a must. Should something go wrong, you need to be able to rest assured that you can quickly get in touch with someone behind the scenes to resolve the matter. Whether the help is coming via phone or email, their response time is crucial. Before you buy, test the provider’s customer service with a phone call or email to determine if they’re even worth the trouble.  

The holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year. People are occupied buying gifts for loved ones, getting together with family, and also supporting the causes they deem important. Find the right email marketing software, and you could wrap up this holiday season jollier than ole St. Nick.

Author Bio

Sakura is a writer, and advocate for leading web and permission based email marketing software.