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From Print to Email:
Take Your Newsletter on an
Epic Journey
By Kivi Leroux Miller, NonprofitMarketingGuide.com
An eBook from your friends at Network for Good
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 1
This eBook was written by Kivi Leroux Miller, Nonprofit Marketing Guide.com, in partnership with Network for Good
About Network for Good
The Home of Easy & Affordable Online Fundraising At Network for Good, we help you become an online fundraising and marketing superhero without superhuman effort or a big budget. Here are a few of the ways we help nonprofits (like yours) succeed online:
1. DonateNow is a donation processing service that allows you to accept credit card gifts online using a customized donation page.
2. EmailNow powered by Emma is an email marketing service to help you engage with supporters via e‐newsletters, fundraising appeals, advocacy alerts and more.
3. EventsNow powered by givezooks! is an online events processing service to help you easily and quickly accept ticket purchases and donations online, all with no set‐up or monthly subscription fees.
4. Fundraising Fundamentals is an online training program designed to make you a better fundraiser. Our training combines expert advice with self‐paced interactive lessons that help you master key fundraising skills.
5. CommonGround powered by Network for Good is more than a traditional donor database, it’s a common repository for information about all of your constituents: donors, volunteers, new contacts, and just about anyone else who helps support your mission.
6. Fundraising123.org: Our free online learning center is filled with ideas and best practices on what it takes to be an online fundraising superhero
7. Nonprofit911.org: Our free webinar training series on nonprofit marketing and online fundraising
8. TheNetworkforGood.org: Our online community where you can connect with other nonprofit professionals
We’re biased, but we think there are many good reasons to work with us: ☑ Kinship. We understand you because we're a nonprofit, too
☑ Value. We handle the tough parts of online fundraising for you
☑ ROI. Our customers raise $25 for every dollar they spend
☑ Support. We provide lots of training and support via our community, email or phone
From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an
Epic Journey
Table of Contents
p. о Print isn’t dead
p. р Making tough decisions p. у You’ve made the decision to to
move from print to email…now what?
p. ф Three kinds of decisions to
make: Editorial, Design and Distribution
p. 1р 20 ways to build your list p. 1у Transitioning your readers
from print to email p. нл Want more help?
Special Offer:
Need a way to take your own newsletter on an epic
journey?
50% off Set‐Up of EmailNow Discount code:
EPIC50 (Offer expires April 6, 2012)
Learn more at www.networkforgood.org
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 3
Print isn’t dead, but its role is changing It used to be that the most direct and efficient way for nonprofits to communicate with donors was through the mail. Of course, the Internet has changed all of that, and now print is just one of many ways to connect directly with donors, including email and social media. Some research suggests that nonprofits are wasting their time and money on long printed newsletters. For example, two‐thirds of donors say they don’t have time to read the print newsletters that nonprofits send them, and fifty‐eight percent say that nonprofit newsletters are too long, according to Cygnus Applied Research, Inc. At the same time, however, many nonprofits – especially those with donor‐centered print newsletters that focus on engaging the donors in the cause – are raising substantial amounts of money (tens of thousands of dollars per edition) via print newsletters. For some groups of supporters, print is the best (and maybe only) way for you to reach them. So what’s the right decision for you? Should you drop your print newsletter in favor of email, and if so, how do you make that happen? in within the first few days and then quickly tapers off. The graph below demonstrates this trend for several large-scale disasters since 2004. The impact of media attention on giving levels cannot be overstated. Additional donation spikes in the weeks following a disaster are often the result of renewed focus on the disaster in the media. For example, the nuclear crisis following the tsunami in Japan in March 2011 kept the story front and center in the news for over a week. Source: Network for Good As the graph above underscores, disaster preparedness is essential if your company seeks to empower an effective giving response from consumers and employees. Once the immediacy of the event wanes, it becomes harder to rally your audience with a compelling donation appeal. That said, there are longer-term recovery initiatives involving in-kind product donations or volunteers that complement the immediate donation response and serve the reconstruction effort long after donors have moved on to the next disaster in the news. Companies can consider a two-phase disaster approach that 1) immediately prioritizes cash donations in the days following a disaster so rescue organizations can source the needed supplies, and 2) contemplates recommending vetted volunteer
Print versus Email
Print is better because…
It’s Accessible by All. Some people don’t have computers, and some people don’t have email. Even those who do may not check it often. It Produces a Controllable, Consistent Design. The print design and production process gives you precise control over how your newsletter will look, including colors, how graphics and text line up, and more. Printing produces a consistent product that will look the same no matter who picks it up. Your email newsletter requires some technical know to how to ensure that it looks just right. Your email newsletters can also look different depending on the browser or email software they use. Print Has a Potentially Longer Shelf Life. Many people are used to hanging on to printed materials like newsletters. Even if it is not read immediately, the recipient or another passerby of the stack on the coffee table may pick it up later. In contrast, emails are deleted more quickly, or can languish out of sight to all, including the recipient, in a full inbox.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 4
Email is better because…
It’s Faster. Email newsletters are faster to produce and deliver. If something comes up, you can share an update with supporters in under an hour. Print would take days to deliver the same message. It’s Cheaper. You can communicate via email for pennies on the print dollar. It Supports a More Frequent Contact Schedule. Because it’s fast and affordable, it’s easy to increase the frequency with which you communicate with supporters, so you can provide more timely information and offer more opportunities for them to support your work. It’s Actionable. Readers of email newsletters can click right from the text to take action, like donating to your nonprofit, advocating for your cause, watching your videos, or downloading your new guide or report. It’s Shareable. Supporters can more easily forward or share your email newsletter with others and spread the word about your cause.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 5
Making tough decisions Should we get rid of the print newsletter entirely?
What you do with your print newsletter depends on your nonprofit, how you raise money, and who is on your mailing list. We bet there’s a good role for print marketing and fundraising in your nonprofit. We strongly advocate a multi‐channel approach to marketing and fundraising: connecting with your supporters in several communications channels, including online (email, website, social media) and offline (print, in‐person events, traditional news media/PR). But that doesn’t necessarily mean that a print newsletter is a good idea. Many nonprofits produce print newsletters simply because they have always done it that way. The quarterly print newsletter has long been the communications default in the nonprofit world. That’s what’s changing . . . rather than defaulting to print, we believe you should default to email, and then add print in where it truly makes the most sense.
When you should keep your print newsletter
If you already produce a print newsletter, there are several scenarios where it makes sense to keep producing it. Each edition produces enough revenue to, at a minimum, cover the expense of producing the newsletter, including staff and consultant time, printing, and mailing. This is often the case with newsletters that are part of a well‐planned donor communications strategy and where a reply device such as a remit envelope is included in the newsletter. You are positive (not just guessing or assuming) that the people on your mailing list are highly unlikely to use email. Don’t assume that simply because people on your list are “older” that they don’t use email. There is a big difference between Internet use among people in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Other factors like income, employment, and affordable access to broadband can also affect how regularly people use email. While research suggests that email is the best communications channel for newly‐acquired, you may find that your long‐time donors prefer print and will respond better to it. A print newsletter is an essential component of a well‐considered, integrated, multi‐channel communications strategy. Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with print newsletters. What’s wrong is doing one just for the sake of doing it, without any particular goals in mind. If you’ve thought through your strategy and you see a legitimate, specific role for a print newsletter, go for it.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 6
When you should get rid of your print newsletter
On the other hand, there are also times when you should drop or phase out your print newsletter. You can’t afford the money or time required to produce it. Email marketing is faster and more affordable than print. If your print newsletter doesn’t generate revenue or other tangible benefits (e.g. event registrations) so that the ROI (return on investment) of your money and time is positive, then you should strongly consider dropping it. Conveying information in a timely way is important. Producing a nonprofit print newsletter is a notoriously slow and time‐consuming process with many steps along the way where things can go wrong. If you need someone to receive your newsletter and take action by a certain date, a print newsletter is a risky communications channel. It’s best for print newsletters to contain more “evergreen” content where it doesn’t matter if the reader sees it this week or next week – or next month for that matter! You have no idea if people are reading it. Because email marketing provides an easy way to measure message delivery and open and unsubscribe rates, you’ll know whether your e‐newsletter is being read or not. That knowledge can be a little scary! What if no one reads it! Unfortunately, it’s difficult to know who is reading your print newsletter and who is throwing it away unread. Print newsletter publishers are an overly optimistic lot: you likely assume that many more people are reading your newsletter than actually are. Unless you have evidence (donations, registrations, people talking about it . . .) that people are reading it, it’s hard to justify the expense involved in producing a print newsletter when you really don’t know its impact. You can transition those who prefer print to more affordable types of print communications. Even if you know a significant percentage of your supporters require print communications from you, that doesn’t automatically equate to an 8‐ or 12‐page print newsletter. Perhaps you can do 2‐ or 4‐page newsletters or postcard updates and see if these more affordable print formats meet your goals. Consider alternative, more affordable and timely forms of print marketing (like a postcard) instead of defaulting to a long newsletter.
When you should do both print and email newsletters
Sometimes it makes sense to do both print and email newsletters. You and your readers can benefit from a transition period. It’s not at all unusual for nonprofits to spend a full year producing both a print and email newsletter as they ramp up their email marketing and phase out the print edition. It gives you a chance to work out the kinks and to collect email addresses for existing supporters. It also gives your supporters a chance to ease into the new format.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 7
Your list is evenly split between those who favor print and those who favor email. It’s also not unusual for nonprofits to see a significant split between their long‐time and newer supporters, with the long‐time supporters preferring the way it’s always been (print) and the newer supporters expecting email communications. What you are actually communicating at any given moment may also work better in one format over another, so leaving your options open can be wise.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 8
You’ve made the decision to move from print to email…now what?
Let’s say you’ve decided to transition from print to email. Now what?
This is a Real Transformation I like to compare moving from a print newsletter to an email newsletter to the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly. It’s technically the same animal the whole time, but it’s a very different creature in each stage of life. The same goes with your newsletter. It’s always a newsletter, but the print version and the email version are different – very different. They look different, they move differently, and they play a different role in the ecosystem that is your nonprofit’s marketing and fundraising. Don’t Fake It Let’s get something straight right now: When we talk about an email newsletter, we are talking about content in the body of an email message. We often see nonprofits who want to transition from print to email try shortcuts like sending a PDF of the print newsletter out as an attachment to an email list. That is NOT an email newsletter. Neither is sending a one‐line email that says “Click here to read our newsletter on our website” where you force readers over to your site where they have to download a PDF. If you are going to use email to communicate regularly with your supporters, create a real e‐newsletter, with real content in the email itself. It’s OK for that content to contain links to your website pages, but they shouldn’t have to click over to the site to get all of the content.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 9
Three kinds of decisions to make: Editorial, Design and Distribution You have several decisions to make as you move from print to email, and they fall into three categories:
Editorial Decisions. What will you send out in your email newsletter, and how will that vary from what you sent out in print? Think about the types of articles you’ll include, their length, and how many will be in each edition of the newsletter.
Design Decisions. What will your email newsletter look like? How will it be organized?
Distribution Decisions. How are you going to send it out? How will you get people on your email list?
Editorial Decisions Dissecting Your Print Newsletter: What to Keep and What to Chuck Not everything that you included in your print newsletter will be right for your email newsletter. Think about what belongs where online . . . some content will work better on a web page that you can link to from your email newsletter (like a complicated calendar of events) rather than putting all the content in the newsletter itself. I recommend starting from scratch with your editorial calendar for your email newsletter, because much of what you considered appropriate for a print newsletter simply won’t work in email. What you do keep will usually need significant editing. Here are a few examples:
Letter from the Director. Honestly, these are often ghastly in print because they are typically full of jargon and behind‐the‐scenes minutiae, all of which is exactly the opposite of what works in email. If the director really loves writing that letter, then it’s time to give him or her a blog. Your email newsletter, on the other hand, should be focused primarily on the readers and what they care about and how they can connect to you and your cause. Very brief letters can work, but they must be laser‐focused on the reader — “you,” “you,” and more “you.”
Calendar of Events. If you have a full page calendar with all the boxes for each day of the week, you can put that online (try Google Calendar, for example), but you shouldn’t try to email the whole calendar. Instead, highlight a few upcoming events and include a link to the full calendar.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 10
Boring Photos. Group photos of your board, “big check” photos, and the like often make it into print newsletters, but waste precious space in email. Photos in email newsletters should be mission‐oriented. A close‐up shot of one person will beat a group shot 9 times out of 10.
Masthead. This is where, in a print newsletter, you’ll often find complete contact information for the group, the list of the board of directors, the staff who work on the newsletter, and the mission statement. While you should include your contact information in your e‐newsletter (CAN‐SPAM rules require you to include your mailing address), leave the board and staff lists and the rest on your website.
Long Articles. Articles in email are much shorter than those in print. Shoot for 250 ‐ 500 words. If you need to go longer, include an excerpt in the email and have readers click over to your website to read the full article.
Big Display Ads. The majority of your email should be text, not images. That means those big full‐page ads (or even half‐page ads) that you include in your print newsletter, advertising everything from your own events to your sponsor’s products and services, need to go. You can create smaller button ads, or even better, turn that advertising into real content of interest to your readers — make what you are promoting relevant to them and to your cause.
Complicated Charts and Graphics. Email newsletters look different depending on which email program you are using to view them, making including charts and tables a crap shoot. Instead, save those items as a single graphic file (e.g. gif or jpg) and insert them into your newsletter that way. Remember, they need to be smaller because you are working with less space, so make your graphics as simple as possible.
What to Do with What’s Left Shift from Evergreen to Timely. Because of the long delays between when you write a print newsletter and when it arrives in your supporters’ homes, much of the content in print isn’t particularly timely. With your shift to near‐instant delivery, you can also shift your focus to “here and now” content. One way to do that is to write less on what you've done in the past, and more on what you are doing right now, and will be doing in the coming weeks. That's not to say you shouldn't report on accomplishments. But try to describe that work in ways that aren't so date‐stamped in the past. Shift from Impersonal to Personal. Email is often perceived as a more personal form of communication than direct mail, because it’s typically sent to a personal inbox instead of one shared by a household. Therefore the voice and tone you use when writing email newsletters should be personal.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 11
The easiest way to get more personal is to simply change your writing voice into the first and second person (I, We, Our and You, Yours). If you’ve been writing your newsletter articles in the third person (The Dog Lovers Association is seeking volunteers), now is the time to move to a more personal first person‐ second person style (If you’d like to volunteer to walk dogs, we want to hear from you). Let us hear the voices of your staff, rather than the monolithic, impersonal voice of the organization at large. You can do that by putting bylines on your newsletter articles and including lots of direct quotes and photographs of people.
Shift from Long to Short. Your print newsletter is probably several thousand words long. You can’t send out that same quantity of words in email. Can you reduce what you send out in an e‐newsletter to less than 500 words and link to your website for everything else? If you need to include multiple articles, can you put 100‐200 word summaries or teasers into the email, with links to full articles on your website? Remember, with an email newsletter, you can communicate more frequently than you did with a print newsletter. So if you sent out four printed pages of content once a quarter, now you can send one printed page per month in email, with that fourth page as website content that you just link to.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 12
It's better to communicate less content more frequently than to communicate a lot all at once. Think tapas, not a four‐course meal! Shifting from long to short also means spending lots of time on microcontent. Working on microcontent like headings and captions is important in print, but it’s absolutely essential in email. Start working now on the kinds of subject lines, headlines, and subheads you’ll use in your email newsletter. A large portion of your mailing list will quickly skim and read only the microcontent, so make it good – especially your subject line. The busier your supporters are, the more likely they are to look at your email subject line and nothing else before deciding whether to read it or delete it. Pack your subject lines with details about what’s inside, emphasizing the benefits to the reader of taking a few extra seconds to see what’s in the body of the message. That’s a tall order for 50‐60 characters, which is the rule of thumb for subject line length. Do your best and track which newsletters have the best open rates to see which subject lines seem to appeal most to your readers. Your subject line should change with every edition. Don’t waste space with dates, edition numbers, sender info, etc. The only exception would be if you have a very short, memorable, and meaningful newsletter title. You can put the title first, often in brackets like this: [E‐News Title] Subject Line Specific to This Email’s Content. Shift from FYI to Action. One of the benefits of email over print is the ability for people to quickly take action by clicking on a link in the email. We recommend that you include a “next step” link or call to action with every article in your newsletter. Do you want them donate, volunteer, register, tell a friend, learn more, write an email, make a call or what? Include specific calls to action and links that make following through as simple as possible. Here are some common action links for e‐newsletters:
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 17
14. Provide email‐only specials. If you have time‐sensitive information or specials of some kind, announce them on email first and use that advantage in your marketing (e.g. advance notices when registration opens, or special discounts that are only offered via email).
15. Collect business cards at presentations. If you make lots of presentations, tell your audience that you will add them to your e‐newsletter list if they leave their card with you.
16. Ask for email addresses on all of your forms. Let supporters sign up for your email newsletter on your membership forms, volunteer forms, event registration forms, and donation forms ‐‐ anywhere you require a street address, ask for an email address too.
17. Include a link to your e‐newsletter in your email signature. Don't let all of those single emails
you send out every day go to waste. Market your newsletter or a special download in each staff member's email signature.
18. Don't forget your personal life. Look outside your office walls. The people who know and love you in your personal life may very well be interested in what you do at work too! Send them a personal email inviting them to subscribe.
19. For small lists, hand‐correct bounces. Your e‐newsletter provider can tell you which email addresses are bouncing. If your list is small enough, review bouncing addresses manually to check for obvious typos. You can also call supporters directly to confirm that they want to be on your list and to ask for their current email address.
20. The most important tip of all: Offer great content! If people really like your newsletter, they won't unsubscribe and they'll make an effort to stay on your list when their email addresses change.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 18
Transitioning your readers from print to email Once you’ve made the decision to move from print to email, and you’ve provided numerous ways to get on your email list from the suggestions above, it’s time to tell your readers. You might decide to go for it and abruptly stop publishing the print version, or you might decide to ease into it over the course of a year. That’s your call. Here are some tactics to help with the transition, regardless of how fast it might be. Be crystal clear that you are scaling down print and scaling up email. In your print editions, right on the cover and even on the mailing panel, include a countdown, e.g., “This is your second to last print newsletter from Save the World. Subscribe to our e‐newsletter now so you’ll always know how your support is saving the world!” Do the same in your email newsletter, since you want to encourage readers to forward the newsletter to their friends who may be on your print list only, e.g., “This is the second edition of our new email newsletter. Please help us make sure we are reaching everyone in our community by forwarding it to your friends and asking them to subscribe.” Treat the transition like a campaign. You need to market your new email newsletter just like any other campaign within your organization. What messages will work best with your audience? Does saving paper and trees resonate? Does saving money so you can spend more on your mission? Does fast, timely communication? Also think about different communications channels you can use to advertise the switch. Talk about it on Facebook and Twitter. Mention the switch in presentations. Consider a postcard campaign to the people who you don’t have email addresses for. Maybe even give them a call. Append your list. Appending a list is the process of adding additional data to an existing record. Depending on the size of your list, you may ask your staff and board to go through their own contact lists to help you append your database by filling in missing email addresses. If you have a large direct mail list (at least 10,000 records), it may also be worth the expense of having your list appended by a professional firm that specializes in completing database records. What to Do with the Stragglers Despite your best efforts, there will always be people who do not give you their email addresses. How should you handle these stragglers? Let them go gracefully . . . If you’ve followed the advice in this guide, at some point, you have to accept the reality that you won’t be able to reach everyone via email and move on.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 19
Or continue to hound them . . . If letting go doesn’t work for you, keep at the tips in this section. List building is a constant process that you can never check off the to‐do list. Hopefully, eventually, those stragglers will sign on. Or continue with print communications in whatever form . . . If you can’t let go and you can’t wait for them to come around, consider ways to integrate your email communications with some kind of print. Maybe you do a postcard once a month with the “best of” the email newsletter. Or maybe you create a shorter, less frequent print newsletter that goes just to those people without email. There is no right or wrong combination – there’s only the one that works best for you and your supporters.
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Network for Good From Print to Email: Take Your Newsletter on an Epic Journey 20
Want more help? This guide focuses on making the transition from print to email newsletters. But we have lots of additional best practices on email marketing to share with you! Please download our other free resources including:
The Nonprofit Email Marketing Guide: Seven Steps to Better Email Fundraising and Communications
The Online Fundraiser’s Checklist 2.0
Learn more about email in The Network for Good community
Check out fun, free resources in our online learning center at Fundraising123.org
Nonprofit 911 Recording: Why Email? Reasons to Love Email Marketing