Save with a non-profit discount: Email Marketing Vendors

Save with a non-profit discount: Email Marketing Vendors

Churches and other 501(c)(3) non-profits have a unique need for discounts. As their name implies…they are not out to make a profit. They do not survive from a recurring source of income provided by products and services. They are a charitable-focused entity. I personally love the fact that they’re given tax breaks and money-saving opportunities. I even give a hourly discount on design and dev work I do for church and non-profit projects.

Partnering with vendors who offer discounts like these is a perfect way equip yourself with some incredibly useful tools and appease the financial powers-that-be on staff at the same time. Remember that before you can take advantage of any of these offers, you need to have your 501(c)(3) paperwork and use your work email for communication with them. Makes things easy.

There will always be the “Vendor A vs. Vendor B vs. blah didi blah didi blah“. This is not in any way a comparison of services. Many of these are all ones which I’ve personally used and know are valuable tools; while others are popular, but untested by me. Here we go…this week deals with: Email Marketing Vendors

Why do I need one?
First off – do NOT send mass emails out using you own in-house servers. I’ll touch on why in a future post, but in short, if you have a spam-reporting issue, it will shut down your ability to send out emails – anywhere. You don’t want this. To counter that concern, sign-up to with an email marketing vendor. They basically handle the heavy-lifting – spam handling, list management, html templates for your emails, reporting, etc. Using them is more than recommended. It’s essential to running things right in your organization.

Vendors

 

Now this is a nice vendor…and their name is awesome. Their product is equally awesome. A slick interface, intense compliance to standards, beautiful templates and template management, on top of exceptional support and customer service make this a strong candidate to use. Something EVERYONE should at least signup for, if only to try out the service, is their totally free plan for up to 2,000 suscribers – signup here for your free account. Once you are convinced of the service and it’s usefulness, merely upgrade to one of their paid plans, and request the non-profit discount (15%) by using their contact form (here), and select “Non profit/agency discount request” on the form dropdown, along with your website url. That’s it.

If for some reason it’s not obvious to them, that you are a 503(b), you can call (678) 999-0142 to get approval. Just have your paperwork ready at that time.

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Constant Contact
Discount: 20% (prepay for 6 months) or 30% (prepay 1 year)
Another nice, and popular alternative. They recently upgraded their templating interface, which makes it a much easier manager than the previous version. Efficient list management, that includes pooling all the subscribers for the lists, into one main one. They have a 60 free trial to check out it’s effectiveness, as well. Click here to signup for their trial.

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iContact
Discount: 20% off plans to those outside of North Carolina
Pretty nice, with similar features to the others. Not as slick an interface for email templates, but definately functional. To receive the discount, you must signup for a plan (here), then email billing@icontact.com with your 501 (c)(3) documentation. Personally, from my experience, Mailchimp or Constant Contact are better alternatives. Note: I have only used this one for a short period.

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Emma
Discount: 20% off all plans
This one looks very slick and promising, but is quite a bit more expensive than the other options. Large organizations and churches use them, though, so something must be done right with the service. Note: I have not personally used this service.

 

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Next week, I’ll cover some other web-based solutions offering discounts, but in the meantime please feel free to leave comments with other email vendor options and opinions. This series is to help non-profits find ways of saving on tools they always use.