Share Your Newsletter Success or Horror Stories

I’ve been asked to contribute a chapter to an upcoming book called “Nonprofit Management 101: A Field Guide for Social Sector Professionals” that Jossey-Bass will be publishing in early 2011. My chapter will be on crafting an effective newsletter strategy.

I want to include lots of real-world anecdotes and lessons learned in the chapter. Do you have a story you can share about your newsletter experience, either print or email (or both)?

Here’s what I’ll be trying to communicate through the stories:

• Dos and don’ts, especially those that took awhile for you to grasp. What do you know now with some experience behind you that you wish you knew back when you started?
• What’s most challenging about producing a nonprofit newsletter, and how are you addressing those challenges?
• What mistakes have you made that you’d like to spare your nonprofit colleagues from repeating?
• What experiments have you tried with your newsletter and how did they turn out?
• What other words of wisdom would you share about producing a newsletter with someone new to the nonprofit world?

Any stories that help answer one or more of these questions would be wonderful! Please share in the comments or email me directly. If you email, please put Newsletter Story in the subject line.

Thanks!

P.S.  Here’s what’s coming up on the our training schedule . . .

January 21: How to Write a 4-Page Nonprofit Annual Report – A Crash Course Webinar

January 27: Integrating Your Website, Email Newsletter, and Social Media Sites

February 10: How to Write a Quick and Dirty Nonprofit Marketing Strategy

February 16: 10 Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans

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E-Newsletter Makeovers: 5 Easy Design Fixes

This Thursday I’m teaching a webinar called “On-the-Spot E-Newsletter Makeovers: Get Your E-Newsletter into Better Shape.” You can join us to get plenty of tips on how to makeover your own newsletter. Here are the details on participating — after you register, you’ll get directions on how to volunteer your newsletter for a makeover during the webinar.

Here are five easy design fixes that all revolve around making your e-newsletter as easy to read, as quickly as possible. Most people skim through email quickly, so you want to make it easy on the eyes and easy on the brain. I’m still surprised at how many e-newsletters I see that are really tough to read, simply because someone got a little carried away with the design.

1. Don’t use a big image right at the top. Many people have images blocked by default, which means they’ll see only a blank box or a red X where your big beautiful image is supposed to be. If you use a header image across the top, keep it “short” — under 100 pixels high. Otherwise, right-justify a square-ish photo, with text wrapping around it to the left, so you have some text in the upper left where people’s eyes naturally go to start reading.

2. Use one or two columns. If you use more than two columns, you are asking people’s eyes to jump around too much in a relatively small space. Remember, people are usually not viewing your email on a full screen. It’s not like looking at your website, so don’t try to make your emails look like your homepage. Keep it simple and skimmable.

3. Use basic fonts. Avoid using too many different fonts (one will do, or one for headings and one for body text), and use typefaces that are meant for screen reading, like Verdana, Georgia, Arial, Trebuchet, Lucinda Sans Unicode, and Tahoma. Again, the goal is to make it a quick read that’s easy on the eyes.

4. Use dark text on light backgrounds. Reversed text (light text on dark backgrounds) is hard to read, unless the letters are really big. Reverses can work for short headings, buttons, and other places where you want to emphasize a small amount of text, but the majority of your text, and certainly all of your body copy, should be dark text on a light background (good old black on white is great for email.)

5. Use lots of headings and subheads. If I’m only skimming your newsletters, as most people are, can I learn something by just reading the headings and subheadings? Are they both interesting and informative on their own?

Join us on Thursday for more e-newsletter makeover tips. I still need volunteers for the makeovers, so the sooner you sign up and volunteer, the more likely you are to get some great feedback from both me and the other participants.

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I’m Doing a Free Conference Call on Email Marketing – Join Us!

Next week on Thursday, June 25, at 4:00 p.m. Eastern (1:00 p.m. Pacific), I’ll be talking all about the “Seven Steps to Better Email Fundraising and Communications” on a free conference call hosted by Network for Good. Actually, I’m only blabbing for about 20 minutes and then I’m taking your questions for the rest of the hour. Here’s how to pre-register to reserve your spot.

I also need to hear from you about our next free Nonprofit Marketing Guide webinar. What will the topic be? You decide, by voting now. I’ll announce the winner and open registration on July 1 for this free webinar, which will take place on July 23 at 1:oo p.m. Eastern. Sixty-five people have voted so far, and there is a clear preference with 60% of those votes cast for one of the choices . . . is it the one you prefer?

Here’s what’s coming up next in the webinar series:

June 24: Best Practices in Nonprofit Marketing. Perfect for marketers new to the nonprofit world, or nonprofit staff new to marketing. Self-taught? This webinar will fill in your gaps.

July 8: How to Be an Effective Spokesperson for Your Nonprofit. Fear not the media! Learn how to talk to the press so they get your message out the right way with guest speaker Thom Clark from Community Media Workshop.

July 9:  Blogging for Nonprofits: Tips, Traps and Tales. What you need to know before your nonprofit starts blogging.

July 15:  The Personal/Professional Mix: Getting it Right in Social Media. Be yourself, but still represent your organization. See how others are doing it and figure out the right mix for you and your nonprofit. (Rescheduled from July 1)

Each webinar is $35. Or get 12 weeks of live webinars and full access to our Webinar Archive for $97 with the All-Access Pass.

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Does Your E-Newsletter Need a Makeover?

Here are five signs that it’s time to give your email newsletter a makeover (and read on to see how I can help you with that next week):

1) You hate writing it. If writing your newsletter is a total drag or bore, you are doing it wrong! Your newsletter should be a great tool to communicate with your readers about all of the exciting work you are doing and about how important their support is to you. If you have passion for your job and your organization’s mission, you should have passion for your newsletter too.

2) You know it’s too long, but . . . you just can’t figure out how to make it shorter. There’s always something to cut. The problem is that you are either not sure what your readers really care about and/or too invested in all of the stories to look at the newsletter objectively. It’s time to step back and put yourself into your readers’ shoes.

3) You transitioned from a print version to an email version in a hurry. Print and email are very different formats and making that transition takes some careful consideration. If you threw pretty much everything from your print newsletter into your email newsletter, it’s time to take a deep breathe and look it all over again.

4) You use the same subject line over and over. “Charity Newsletter, Volume 5″ ring a bell? Time to makeover those subject lines! They should be different with every single edition and they should describe what’s in the body of the email.

5) The newsletter rarely links back to your website. If you aren’t sending e-newsletters with lots of links that let your supporters donate, volunteer, comment, advocate, or get more information, why are you sending it? Always offer your readers a next step.

Next week, on Tuesday, June 16, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific), I’m hosting a brand-new webinar called E-Newsletter Makeovers: How to Get Your E-Newsletter into Better Shape. During the webinar, I’ll be making over parts of several e-newsletters submitted by participants in the webinar. After you register, you’ll receive instructions on how to submit your newsletter as an example. You’ll also receive plenty of tips to makeover your newsletter on your own.

Get the Webinar Details and Register | All-Access Pass Holders RSVP

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I’m Writing a Book. Wanna Be in It?

It’s official . . . I’m writing a nonprofit marketing how-to book to be published by Jossey-Bass in Spring 2010. It will be the book version of what I’ve been doing for the last several years for clients, on this blog, and through the webinar series: giving you real-world advice on how to get more support for your good cause, without a huge marketing budget or staff behind you.

Between now and the end of August, I’ll be giving you many ways to participate in the creation of the book. I want to use lots of examples to explain the strategies I’m advocating, so I’ll be asking you to share your stories with me. I’ll probably ask you to complete a few quick surveys to help me better understand your needs and questions — after all, if you are reading this blog, you are the target audience for the book too! I’ve wanted to write this book forever, and so many of you have inspired me to really make it happen, so I want to include as many of your stories as I can.

I will not, however, force you to read posts about the writing of the book itself, at least not here on this blog. If you are interested in my book writing experience or in freelancing or consulting for nonprofits in general, I invite you to subscribe to my other blog, Writing for Nonprofits, which I’ve rescued once more from blog purgatory. You’ll get the posts about nonprofit marketing/communications here as always; you’ll get the posts about the creative process and business side of being a writer, consultant, and trainer at Writing for Nonprofits.

P.S. Claire Meyerhoff and I just wrapped up another edition of Magic Keys Radio on Email Newsletter Basics. The podcast is ready. Listen here or subscribe in iTunes.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

Fundraising Online: Radio Show Friday, Webinars Next Week

Not raising money online yet? Or not raising enough? (How’s that for a stupid question?)

Next week we are hosting a two-webinar boot camp specifically on online fundraising. This is your chance to learn both the basics and the advanced techniques for turning your website and email list into a real, sustainable fundraising force for your cause.

Magic Keys Radio on E-Newsletters

But first, on Friday, Claire Meyerhoff and I are back with another edition Magic Keys Radio, our live Internet radio show and podcast and we’ll be talking e-mail newsletters and how you can use them for fundraising. How to do them, why to do them – whatever you want to know about nonprofit email newsletters – we’ll do our best to answer.  Join us on Friday, April 17 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (10:00 a.m. Pacific) for the half-hour show where you listen live over the Internet through your computer speakers. You can call in your questions over the phone or chat them in on the Blog Talk Radio site. The podcast is available right after.

Online Fundraising Basics: Jumpstart Online Giving to Your Good Cause

Then on Tuesday, April 21, I’ll be teaching the “Basic” online fundraising course, where I’ll talk about the different elements you need to have in place, including the system that actually processes your donations securely. But online fundraising is about much more than just processing credit cards and big “Donate Now” buttons. We’ll talk about what you need to have on your website (and where) and what you need to send out in email to be successful. We’ll talk about creating the kind of content for your website and email newsletters that inspires donors to give more, and to give again. We’ll also touch on growing and managing your email list and tracking your success. Get the details.

Advanced Online Fundraising: Getting to WOW! in 8 Steps

On Thursday, April 23, I’ll turn it over to Alia McKee of Sea Change Strategies for the “Advanced” course. Alia will show you how to go beyond the basics and, in eight steps, take your online fundraising to an entirely new level. She’ll give you the how-tos and some great examples that show you how it all works. I took a peek at her slides today, and if you feel like you have a solid foundation in place (decent processing, decent website, decent email) and are ready for the next step, you will love this webinar. Get the details.

As usual, individual webinars are an affordable $35. You can take both of these for $70. Or you can do the really smart thing and get the All-Access Pass for $97, and take these two webinars, plus everything else we offer for the next 12 weeks. Your Pass gets you access to both the live and recorded versions of the webinars, plus access to the Webinar Archive of recordings from the past year. Take a 3-Minute Tour of the All-Access Pass.

I hope to see you and your great questions Friday, Tuesday, and/or Thursday!

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

Three Trends That Beg for Shorter Email Newsletters

I included a shorter version of the following article in my Nonprofit Marketing Tips email newsletter that went out earlier today. The newsletter goes out a few times per month. Subscribe by visiting the Nonprofit Marketing Guide home page, in the left sidebar, under the blue bar.

I see three trends that mean your nonprofit’s email newsletters should be shorter than they probably are now.

1. Inbox Zero. It’s the latest nirvana. People are attending seminars on how to empty their inboxes and keep them that way. Merlin Mann has built an online empire around the concept and even did an hour-long workshop for Google staff on it. They run one of the world’s largest email services and even they want Inbox Zero!

What It Means for You: People are going through their inboxes Fast. They want to delete your message because it gets them closer to empty inbox bliss. That means your content (starting with your subject line) has to be right on target. Super relevant. If not, it’s gone.

How do you know what’s relevant to your readers? Ask them! Online survey tools like SurveyMonkey are free or cheap and very easy to use. Keep your surveys very focused and short (just a few questions) and offer an incentive, if you can, for completing them. Many email newsletter services also have surveying tools built into their packages, so check with your provider. You can also identify trends in your readers’ interests by tracking which links they are clicking on in your newsletters and on your website.

Need some help with your email newsletter subject lines? See Best Email Subject Lines for Nonprofit Email Newsletters.

2. More Time on Social Media than Email. A new study released by Nielsen says that people now spend more time on social networking sites and blogging than they do on email.

What It Means for You: People like two-way conversation and interactivity. All those “FYI” emails nonprofits send are just plain boring in comparison. Jazz up the great info you want to share with links to photos and video where people can leave comments, survey your readers, and find other ways to integrate some action into your emails.

Think hard about ways to include more calls to action in your newsletters. Even if you really just want to educate people or share information, what are people supposed to do with this knowledge? Can you take them to the next step, whatever that may be? Of course, that will often be donating to your organization or volunteering for your cause in some way, but try to think more creatively about other ways your newsletter readers can interact not only with your staff, but with other supporters too.

3. “E-Newsletters Are a Waste of Time.” You probably read how Thomas Gensemer of the Obama email marketing team proclaimed that nonprofit e-newsletters are a waste of time. If not, read all about it here and here and in a zillion posts by bloggers who jumped on the bandwagon.

What he actually said was that nonprofits should send shorter emails (think 250 words) with clear directions for participation. But many have taken this to the extreme, saying that nonprofit e-newsletters should die.

What It Means for You: No, you shouldn’t drop your e-newsletter. But what you should do is transform it. If you are moving from print to email, you are already going through a major transition in form, so why not overhaul the content too? Here are some tips on starting an email campaign or e-newsletter from scratch.

This is what Gensemer said that nonprofits should really listen to: supply a “steady narrative of actions, feedback and milestones.” (See my upcoming webinar on how to share your success stories for tips on how to do that.)

He also spoke of the value in creating a “new sense of transparency” among supporters about where their money was going. That’s what you should be after too, whether you call your email program an e-newsletter, an action alert, or whatever — but please don’t call it a blast – no one wants to be blasted!

Want more tips on writing for e-newsletters and the web? Join us this Thursday, April 16 at Noon Eastern (9:00 a.m. Pacific) for Online Writing: Dos and Don’ts for Writing for the Web and Email.

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)

See What Your E-Newsletter Looks Like in Different Email Programs

“Oh, no! That’s what our newsletter looks like to a third of the people on our mailing list?!?” Don’t be her. Preview your e-newsletter in different email programs.

Those new to the world of e-newsletter publishing are often surprised to learn that their email newsletters can look quite different to someone who is using Outlook versus someone using  Gmail or Thunderbird, not to mention what it looks like on a smartphone. That’s because email programs (called email clients) process HTML in different ways.

The only way to be sure that your email newsletter template is working well in all the major clients is to actually view it in all of the different programs.

While some email newsletter service providers make this easier than others, it’s not a standard service. But two companies do offer testing programs that will deliver screen shots of your newsletter in various email programs at reasonable prices, even if you don’t use them to send out your newsletter: Mail Chimp’s Inbox Inspector, powered by ReturnPath, (sign up for a free account, then buy three tests for $29) and Campaign Monitor’s Design and Spam Test (sign up for a free account, then pay $5 per test).

It’s well worth paying for the test services every now and then, especially when you make changes to your layout.

If you simply can’t pay, you can do it yourself, but the hassle factor is high. Start by getting free accounts at services like Gmail and Yahoo and installing multiple email programs on your computer (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird). Beg friends with various ISPs (e.g. AOL, Roadrunner, Comcast) to do screen captures for you. Then run your own tests.

The goal isn’t necessarily to make your newsletter look exactly the same in every program. It’s to make sure that your newsletter is readable in every program and that there aren’t any wacky design shifts that are so distracting that the reader instantly hits delete.

I tweaked my Nonprofit Marketing Tips newsletter this week (go here to sign up, in the left sidebar, under the blue bar) and ran it through both services this morning. Here’s what I found.

MailChimp’s Inbox Inspector

To Run the Test: Set up a free account. Go to Create a Campaign > Inbox Inspector Test.  You’ll copy and paste your HTML, and add some other campaign details. Then you’ll pay $29 for 3 tests (nonprofits may get a better deal – I don’t know.). Within one minute, the results started to come in, but they changed after a few minutes, so I’d give it at least 15 minutes before even looking at it.

Campaign Monitor’s Design and Spam Test

To Run the Test: Set up a free account. This email service specializes in serving designers who manage e-newsletters for multiple clients. Just pretend you are your own client. Click on the client name, then create a new campaign (you have to have the campaign ready to go before clicking on the “Run a Design and Spam Test” button). Instead of cutting and pasting your HTML, you have to upload the HTML file. When I got to the section about the mailing list, I stopped and clicked on Design and Spam Testing, and it asked for a $5 payment. Speed was about the same – some results quickly, but not worth looking at until about 15 minutes later.

If you are using another email newsletter provider rather than creating your own HTML, simply login to your account, open a newsletter, go the HTML tab and copy the code. Paste it into a plain text program like Notepad. Then you can copy/paste into these services.

The Results and Pros/Cons of Each System

Plain Text Versions: Both systems convert your HTML to plain text versions for you, although Campaign Monitor’s looked much cleaner than MailChimp’s. Campaign Monitor also showed me the recommended line length on the plain text message, which is nice, so you can add hard-returns if you want.

Spam Filter: My newsletter passed all of the Spam Filter tests in both systems,  although there were some non-lethal warnings. For example, apparently the McAfee Security Center spam filter considers these words somewhat spammish: source, way, focus, print, pass, accounts, really, others. It would be crazy to worry about such common words, so I’m not going to. Campaign Monitor said McAfee identified 25 words like this as warnings, where MailChimp said McAfee found 30 words. I guess they must be using different versions of McAfee in their testing.

MailChimp tested against eight different spam filters. Campaign Monitor tested against the same ones, plus the Norton 2008 spam filter, but after several hours, the Norton results aren’t available, so that’s a wash.

Content Assessment

MailChimp analyzes your HTML for you and suggests code fixes. I ran the “clean up HMTL” tool in Dreamweaver before running the tests, but MailChimp still found a few code errors. Fortunately nothing serious — just leaving the # sign off of some of the color codes. My heart did skip a beat when it said it found 47 content errors, however. Turns out they were all spelling errors, which weren’t really mistakes (it didn’t like my name, the way I hyphenated All-Acess Pass, etc.). Campaign Monitor doesn’t offer this service.

Email Client Screen Shots

This is what I really cared about.

MailChimp’s Inbox Inspector

Campaign Monitor’s Design and Spam Test

After about an hour, only half of the screen shots were back in both services, but by that point, they both produced some of the biggies, like Outlook, Gmail, Comcast, and AOL. I had simplified my design quite a bit, although I still use a table with two columns, so I wanted to make sure the text wasn’t flowing or overlapping in any strange ways. Fortunately, everything looked reasonably good across the various platforms, although neither one was able to come up with a screen shot from Yahoo! Mail today.

The screenshots did remind me to set all image borders to zero so a blue box doesn’t appear around them when a link is attached. The blue blox showed up in AOL and Comcast, but not Gmail and Earthlink. I’d rather not have it anywhere, so it’s worth adding the border setting in.

Overall, I like Campaign Monitor’s screen shots better. They let you toggle images on and off when those email clients offer that option to readers, so you get a clear picture of exactly what people are seeing. MailChimp lets you see the same thing, but in a less convenient way – you have to open the preview of images on and the preview of images off. Campaign Monitor also groups the screen shots by web-based email clients, desktop email clients, and mobile clients, which I found much easier to scan, where MailChimp groups them all together.  MailChimp does show several clients used in Europe, if that matters to you, that Campaign Monitor doesn’t.

What’s Missing

It would be really nice if these services included screen shots of what your email looks like in different web-based email programs in different web browsers. That’s where you can see some real differences.

Look at the these three screen captures of my newsletter in my Gmail inbox viewed in Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome. Though I prefer Firefox as a user, my newsletter looks the worst in this browser. The text at the top is wrapping oddly so that my name and organization are below the logo instead of beside it like in the others. Firefox and Chrome both remove padding within the table, so the columns butt up against each other, where Explorer keeps the nice white space. Chrome doesn’t include the ALT text on the images in the sidebar, so those are just blank boxes, while the others give you some of the text.

None of these differences are earth-shattering for this particular newsletter, but they could make a real difference depending on your layout and how important your pictures are.

In Mozilla Firefox 3.0.5

In Windows Internet Explorer 7

In Google Chrome 1.0.154.36

My Bottom-Line Recommendation

I prefer Campaign Monitor’s service, and it’s the more affordable option too (always a nice result!). If you really want that extra code check or send lots of email to Europe, then I’d take another look at MailChimp. In addition, be sure to preview the HTML file in different web browsers to make sure there aren’t any differences you can’t tolerate. If you pasted your code into Notepad, just open the browser and go to File, then Open to view your HTML – it doesn’t need to be online to be previewed.

P.S. Get more email newsletter tips during tomorrow’s webinar on E-Newsletter Essentials (1/7/09).

Tags: Campaign Monitor, email preview, MailChimp, nptech, spam test

More Goodies: Get Kivi's Nonprofit Marketing Tips E-Newsletter (2-3 times per month)