Writing for eNewsletters

Why email matters

Email is still one of the most important marketing distribution channels and offers the best ROI. Open rates and click-throughs are holding up. This could reflect the growing impact of social media on email marketing.

Charities are under-utilising their email

According to a study by Advocacy Online, half of organisations' online lists have 40% or more inactive supporters.

57% of non-profit organizations don't send a welcome message.
79% of non-profit organizations collect some type of personal data during the sign-up process (name, post code, age, etc.) but only 17% use that data to personalize their first email to subscribers.
It took non-profit organizations an average of 16 days to send their first email to subscribers.

Campaign / "single ask" emails

Campaign emails are often much shorter than regular email newsletters, often with a single message attached to a specific goal.

Here's an example of an email from the Obama campaign in 2008, asking for feedback about the campaign and inviting people to help shape the future of the movement.

Obama campaign email

It was actaully a cleverly-worded marketing email aimed at collecting the recipient's interests and opinions, in order to target future communications. For example, if you completed the survey and indicated you were interested in IT, you would shortly receive an personalisedemail addressed from Obama's Head of IT, asking for your opinions and for your help.

For your own campaign emails, you should be sending customers through to a purpose built landing page designed to convert click throughs into leads and sales. Tips for designing your email landing page include;

Only use content on the landing page which is relevant to your email campaign.
Mirror the landing page headline copy to your email campaign so that customers can quickly see the page is relevant.
Make sure the most important information is displayed where it is likely to be read (at the top and/or to the left).
Make sure your copy is easily scannable.
Make your call to action prominent and clear so that your audience knows what to do next and are directed to the end goal.
Make your call to action clickable.

Do

put an unmistakable name in the "From" field and an engaging, persuasive subject line - "A message from the Chief Executive of The Example Foundation" probably won't have a high open rate. Make it benefits-based and give the recipient a reason to open it.
for digest newsletters, write for skimmers - write short bursts of text punctuated with headlines and whitespace. Drive traffic to your site for further information.
include an email signature. Should at least contain your contact details, but can also include a tag line, an inspirational quote, a call to action or any other persuauive text.
integrate your email marketing with other platforms, such as social media. Evidence suggests that social media users are also higher consumers of email, and multi-channel marketing has been shown to increase spending by 25%. Personalise your messages and segment your lists.
consider your follow-ups - what will your thank you email look like/say? Will you be asking them to do anything else to get involved? Every communication, like every web page or article should have a goal, even if it's a "thank you" email. Remember to send a thank you email straight away!
utilise free tools available to evaluate and optimise your email messages, e.g. A/B testing using Google Website Optimizer, Google Analytics.

Don't

use a single, large image - it can be mis-identified as spam by some email servers/clients and many people have images switched off by default. make sure your message doesn't reply solely on images. If you use images, use alternative, descriptive and persuasive text. If people have images switched off, try writing text such as "turn images on to see the kittens we have for adoption").
Email indiscriminately to your entire list. Excluding parts of your audience from interesting, insightful events can harm your relationship (consider a white male receiving an email about a networking event for BME women)
Send too many emails too often - people will lose interest and start ignoring or deleting your emails or even unsubscribe.

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Next: Writing for blogs

Blog

Why email matters

Charities are under-utilising their email

Campaign / "single ask" emails

Do

Don't

Useful links