How to stay out of spam/promo tabs by donating to charity…

If you usually donate a certain amount of money – every year – to charity…

Then here’s how to use that charitable donation – in a way – which will also help your email deliverability.

(i.e. make you land more in your subscribers’ primary tab.)

Let me explain:

First, you’re going to make that donation (obviously)…

Second, you’re going to send an email to your subscribers notifying them of your donation – and give some kind of proof via either a screenshot or a link…

And then you’re going to say how you like what the charity does… how you stand by their cause… and how if they feel the same way, they can also donate using the link below.

(Why otherwise would you even donate to them if you didn’t?)

Now…

Here’s where this becomes beneficial for ALL THREE of the parties.

(You, your newsletter subscribers, and most of all – the charity of your choice.)

Say – in that same email you send out – how if they decide to donate at least XYZ amount by the deadline you set…

(And you pick that amount…)

You’ll throw them in an XYZ product as a thank you for donating.

Now this is the crucial part:

They HAVE to send you the proof of their donation (a screenshot or something) by replying to your email.

(Yes, that very same email you sent out.)

Why?

Because replies are deliverability gold – nothing signals the Gmails… Yahoos… Outlooks etc. that your emails should be in the primary inbox more than replies do.

(I broke down why they behave this way in my Book: “Emails Without Bite: The 7 Email Marketing Blind Spots Your Sports Nutrition Brand May Be Heftily Paying For“ – so if you want to know precisely why they do this, go through Blind Spot #7 there.)

So let me give you an example of all this:

Let’s say I choose to donate 1% of my gross revenues to the LostCatsBrighton charity.

I’ll send an email to my newsletter subscribers saying how I recently donated to them… and how I support & stand by their cause because I myself had a pet cat who just got lost one day – and how I wish an organization like this existed back when I was a kid.

(Which is true btw.)

Now…

I’ll go and say how if they feel the same way – they can donate to that same charity using the link below.

And how if they DO decide to donate at least 10£…

… I’ll throw them in 10£ equivalent of Protein powder samples – provided they reply to the email, with proof of donation, until the deadline.

That’s it.

You can obviously play around with the minimum amount you want to set… or the thank-you-for-donating gift…

You can gift shaker bottle(s)… sample(s)… clothing…

Or if you’re feeling really generous? Even a full-on supplement – Like a tub of some Creatine.

And if you want to REALLY spice this up?

(And also add a bit of a gamification element to it…)

Make the minimum donated amount Tiered.

For instance:

• At least 10£ -> 8 Protein Powder samples.
• At least 50£ -> Tier 1 + a tub of Creatine.
• 100£+ -> Previous tiers + 5lbs of your finest Protein Powder.

The way you set this up is limited only by your creativity.

With that said…

If you’re looking for more creative ideas to inject into your own email efforts?