Extra, Extra Read All About It! The Nonprofit e-Newsletter

12 is better than 4
Since the majority of these touches are considered informative to the reader, don’t be shy — send a monthly newsletter. Creating an annual plan for topics in advance helps balance the workload. Obviously, you want to monitor the metrics of open rates, clickthroughs and even unsubscribes to make sure this is the right cadence for your communication.

Watch the clicks
Everyone watches the normal clicks for an e-campaign (mentioned above) — but you should watch the topic clicks too. Yes, this is more advanced tracking, but if you have constituents who are regularly clicking on specific topics, this is them telling you they have specific interests. The benefit is you can start serving up dynamic content or, at minimum, start some segmentation around content. People make choices — they favor one topic over another. Your job is to “listen to them” to find the people who tend to lean toward community events and activities versus progress statements and charity impact. An e-newsletter can provide direct insight without ever asking the constituent any questions. Don’t miss this important information about preferences and interests.

Sharing with friends
Something simple — make sure you create an opportunity for the reader to share the newsletter. Therefore, you get to talk to more people. Make sure readers can share it through a widget on the actual newsletter and also on the social channels with their broader networks.

Plan ahead
As mentioned above, the fastest way to sink a newsletter is to get behind on content. Treat this like any other communication plan (i.e., direct mail, telemarketing, etc.) and map out the full year with your strategy and content, and have a full production schedule for copywriting, reviews, etc. If you treat this like an “add on” project, it will fail.