This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 5:55 pm and is filed under Nonprofit Communications, Online Courses, Print Newsletters, Professional Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Five Sure Signs Your Print Newsletter Is Really Boring
This week’s webinar at Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com is “Ten Easy Fixes for Your Boring Print Newsletter.” It’s on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 from 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. Eastern (11:00 a.m. Pacific). Registration is $49.
Not sure if you should take this webinar or not? See if your print newsletter is showing any of these signs of being really boring:
1) The “Letter from the Executive Director” is on the cover or takes up a whole page. This is a tell-tale sign that your newsletter is more about what you think is interesting than what your audience cares about, which is the number one reason that nonprofit newsletters are boring. Even if it is not on the cover, if your executive message fills a whole page anywhere in your newsletter, odds are it’s boring.
2) You’re talking about stuff that happened months ago. Don’t summarize an event that happened three months ago in your newsletter. That tells me that you don’t have enough good stuff going on now and in the future to fill your pages. I’m not against event summaries in newsletters, but make sure they are very recent or that you’ve turned them into some other useful form of information, like a how-to article. Otherwise it’s just boring old news.
3) The photos are all grip-and-grins and fig-leaf lineups. Yes, we want people photos, but the same ol’ award ceremony and big check photos are uninspiring and have nothing to do with your mission. Same goes for the fig-leaf lineups (you know, where everyone is standing with their hands crossed in front of their privates). More on bad photo poses.
4) The word “You” is rarely used. People want to read information that is relevant to them and the word “You” in headlines, subheads, and first sentences of paragraphs signals that the writer is talking directly to the reader. If you aren’t talking to me, the reader, why should I care what you have to say? In other words, talk to me directly, or I’m bored.
5) You’ve reduced the type size to make everything fit. This usually means that you either don’t want to edit what you’ve written or don’t know how, and either way, unedited, rambling text with too many tangential details is really boring.
If you see your newsletter here, register for the webinar on Wednesday. One of my freelancing friends from my days in Washington DC, Ruth Thaler-Carter, will join me in answering your questions. Ruth is a veteran nonprofit newsletter writer, editor and designer and will have lots of great tips to share with us.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:35 am
Kivi, this one really hit home. I have done ALL of this!
I blogged your blog. Thanks for your continued work!
Jeremy Gregg, Editor
The Raiser’s Razor
http://theraiser.blogspot.com/
January 29th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Right on Kivi! I lead a workshop on newsletters and I tell my students to think about what the DONOR will be interested in, not what the staff thinks should go in. Leave out the “Welcome new staff” and instead, include stories about the people you are helping. Make it easy to read, with lots of white space, good headlines, and plenty of photos where we can clearly see the subject’s face.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Kivi,
I would add: Grab your readers IMMEDIATELY, with interesting, specific headlines, subheads, and decks. Replace headlines like “Director’s Report” with “Fundraising Gala Brings in $500,000″ or “Food Bank Feeds 200 Families Per Day.” Put the most important information in the first or second paragraph, not buried deep in the story, since few readers make it to the end.
February 7th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
[...] From Five Sure Signs Your Print Newsletter Is Really Boring: 1) The “Letter from the Executive Director†is on the cover or takes up a whole page. 2) You’re talking about stuff that happened months ago. 3) The photos are all grip-and-grins and fig-leaf lineups. 4) The word “You†is rarely used. 5) You’ve reduced the type size to make everything fit. [...]