Social media and e-mail marketing do not have to be on opposite sides of the tracks when it comes to marketing your cause. If your Non-Profit is currently running email campaigns it is quite easy and FREE to add in social aspects to email.

1. Add in social media profiles

Having a customized HTML signature is pretty easy to do nowadays. Having a fancier email signature will enable you to grab people's attention and point them in the direction of your social media outlets.

For people that have no HTML skills, use WiseStamp. It allows you to automatically embed a right HTML signature into your email signature.

Here are some examples of what you can muster up with WiseStamp.

2. Adding a PayPal button to your email

Hitting up people for their wallets at every turn might seem over intrusive, but you don't want to miss any opportunity to raise funds for your cause. Adding a heartfelt appeal for funding can go a long way and is a great way to increase donations! (Mmmmmm money!)

3. Add RSS

Adding your Feed to your email will display your site's latest blog post in your signature. This is a no-brainer; adding this to your signature is easy and will drive traffic to your newest content. This is also done with WiseStamp.

http://www.wisestamp.com/

4. Embed Multimedia into your email

Social media is all about leveraging different multimedia platforms as a way to tell your story in a more profound way. The barriers of entry in creating your own content are next to nothing. Add in your links to your YouTube videos or attach a small mp3 sound file with some cool content to spice up the boring, old, text-only email.

5. Add in other methods of contact

Adding your email into your email signature is old school. Instead, point people in the direction of your Skype username, Gchat, or AIM account. Being instantly accessible by many forms of communication helps tremendously due to the fact that everyone consumes content differently and uses different messaging platforms. Don't make people download a new program just to talk to you. Let them engage in the way they feel most comfortable.

6. Adding Retweet to Emails

Adding in social media profiles is the first step. The next is adding in viral RT links within your messaging by using a tool like this twitter link maker from zeek interactive.

This will allow you to add messaging to a link so when people click it they are taken to twitter. When they log in, your message is automatically in the status update box for them to easily share.

Here is an example made from the Link maker. “Tell your Tweeps about us!”

7. Addding events in the right syntax

Many email service providers also serve as calendars to their users (Gmail for instance). By adding your events in the text in the correct way Gmail will automatically detect this event and add a button for the recipient to quickly add it to their calender. This just makes it easier for people to add your events to their calendar and actually remember things!

What Tips or Tricks do You have to make your Email more effective? Let us know!