Three questions to ask yourself about your “e-news”
- Mon, November 21 2011
- Filed under: Marketing essentials
1. Do you need it?
People are inundated with newsletters. Is there something truly special in yours? How about simply sending out something useful to your audience? At Network for Good, we send out weekly free fundraising tips rather than a newsletter about ourselves. Our nonprofits love it! If you’re an organization focused on diabetes, how about weekly tips for managing diabetes?
2. If you have an e-newsletter, are you remembering the “e?”
You can’t just slap your print newsletter into a PDF, email it, and consider yourself the editor of an “e-newsletter.” Write to the medium. Online communications need to be shorter and formatted for the web. People skim online. They don’t read. Don’t make them download a PDF and turn pages on your computer. Grab attention with photos, short text and good stories.
3. Is it about you? Or your donors?
Your newsletter should not be about how great you are. It should be about how great your donor is! Make your donor feel like the center of attention. No one can resist reading about themselves – or about what they accomplished.
Comments
I love #2!! I can’t stand getting a PDF as a substitute for an email newsletter. Or even an invitation. Tell me what you want to tell me in the text!
Glad someone mentioned #2! It’s pretty much a usability issue too. PDFs are already chunky as is, and it just adds extra steps to the whole process.
I think number 3 is easy to forget, for all of us, in e-newsletters, donation solicitations, blog posts and really just about everything. Make it about your reader and they’ll keep on reading.
That’s true. There’s too many newsletters. I think the idea for a few tips work better for busy people.
thank you Katya, for these important points.
I especially agree with #3. I wish that when people put together their e-newsletter, they would think a bit more about “Why would someone want to read this” rather than “I’ve got to tell everyone about my big event and make sure a lot of people sign up right now!” And make it all about themselves.
I also wish people would read copywriting books before attempting to write newsletters. often the enewsletter is just a duty tossed on top of everything else a development director is doing. And it’s difficult to do a good job at it when you’ve also got to be writing grants, getting the invites sent for the event, and going to that staff meeting.
One thing that most people don’t know is that the money really does come from your list, the more people on your email list for your nonprofit, the more you can help people learn about you, and take action. For example 70% of people of all income levels, genders and ages start their day with email. if that’s what you do too, then just imagine the power of your enewsletter, done RIGHT.
Peace,
Mazarine
PS. We’ve got some good webinars coming up on social media at CharityHowTo, love to share them with you, and let me know what you think! http://charityhowto.com/upcoming.php
Katya,thanks for this amazing post.This is really very helpful…:-)