Sprout Nonprofit | the podcast for small shop nonprofits · Rachel Bearbower

66 | Building Relationships, Not Just Lists: Email Marketing Q+A

·31 min·1 clip

Rachel says a cleanup sequence took her list from 2% click-through to 19%.

Rachel opens the conversation in the familiar Sprout Nonprofit style, treating email as part of the everyday load on a small nonprofit team. The tone stays practical and calm. The main point is simple: build a list that helps the organization work, not one that only looks bigger. The guest explains why tagging and segmentation matter. Instead of treating every subscriber the same, tags move people in and out of sequences based on where they are in the journey. That lets the organization send different messages to different people without turning the system into a mess. It also means broadcast emails can still reach the full audience while excluding people who are already in a welcome sequence or another automated series. The episode spends time on the difference between automated campaigns and twice-weekly broadcast emails to the full list. One email leans more story-driven and teaching-focused. The other is also story-based, but it goes to the whole audience. The guest says the setup was built over years. That matters, because the system did not arrive all at once. It came together through repetition, testing, and slow refinement. A concrete example shows why the work matters. By simplifying how subscribers move through the list, the guest says the audience opens more emails and clicks more often. The numbers give the conversation some weight. The guest points to open rates moving from the high 30s to around 60 percent on one email, along with a 19 percent click-through rate. Those results are not framed as magic. They come from clearer structure and a better match between message and reader. The show also admits the limits of talking through technical email systems on audio. Some of the tagging logic is hard to picture while listening. Even so, the episode keeps returning to a basic question: what can a small nonprofit actually sustain? That keeps the advice grounded. The tone stays warm and informal throughout. Rachel uses plain language that helps a listener follow along without feeling talked down to. There is a lot of pressure release built into the conversation. The message is that you do not need to do everything at once. Instead, the episode favors smaller systems that are easier to keep up over time. That fits the show's broader interest in helping small organizations think like systems builders. The practical value is in how the episode turns email marketing from abstract strategy into operating choices. What gets tagged, what gets broadcast, and what gets held back all become decisions a small team can make. The guest's explanation also makes clear that automation is not a replacement for relationship. It is a way to make relationship work at scale. Rachel keeps the conversation pointed toward what a nonprofit leader can do next. The result is less theory, more working model. That makes the episode useful for people who are already stretched thin. It does not ask them to build a giant marketing machine. It asks them to set up a system that respects their time and still lets more people see, open, and act on their emails. By the end, the episode lands on a simple idea: better email is not louder email. It is more intentional email.

As heard by us

Plainspoken email strategy for small nonprofits, with useful detail on automations, tags, and list segmentation.

Rachel Baerbauer treats email marketing as a working system for small nonprofits, and she keeps the focus on what actually helps: segmentation, automations, and simple tag management. The clearest part is when she talks through open rate and click-through rate gains.

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Why you'd press play

You want email systems that stay practical, not messy.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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