Sandy Rees - Sales Emails Selling Spots for Retreat

WHAT WE’RE SELLING

Sandy Rees, a nonprofit consultant, connected with me before her annual retreat that teaches nonprofit leaders how to better fundraise. Sandy wanted help with her emails to get more people to register. She wasn’t sure what they needed to hear to know that attending the retreat would be well worth it. 

THE FIRST STEPS

Step 1: Sandy and I talked for an hour about how she helps nonprofit leaders, what the conference offers, her goals, her audience, etc.

Step 2: Sent a survey to her email list. This was designed to understand where her audience was coming from, what they were having trouble with, what they wanted and needed, etc.

Step 3: Sandy connected me with a few people who’d attended her conference before. I got on a 20-minute call with each of them. They told me what they’d been struggling with in their nonprofit before meeting Sandy, how much she’d helped them, how much the retreat had benefited them, etc.

THE STRATEGY

Before writing, I laid out our email strategy. Eleven emails, sent out over 14 days:

Email 1: Show them it IS possible to have a successful, not struggling, nonprofit. This hit on a big limiting belief they held, which was that they’d never be 100% fully funded.

Email 2: Explain why it’s not their fault they haven’t yet raised enough money.

Email 3: Dive into what it takes to keep their nonprofit fully funded.

Email 4: Bust myths about how hard or impossible it is to fundraise. 

These three emails provided a powerful understanding about themselves, their past failures, and nonprofit industry myths.

Email 5: Register for the conference. This was the first time we presented a registration link. Waiting until after we helped them get to a better place helped them see Sandy understands what they struggle with and how to help them. 

NOTE: After email 5, every email included a registration link.

Email 6: Give a client success story and/or testimonials.

Email 7: Give another client success story and/or testimonials.

Email 8: Ask people to reply with questions and concerns about registering.

Email 9: Show how they’re PERFECT for this retreat (and who isn’t).

Email 10: Answer common concerns and FAQs.

Email 11: Last call.