Tips for building a non-profit's email campaign list

I recently came across a great article non-profits abound need to consider in building their email outreach efforts. Take a look and let me know your thoughts:

A Little Something Extra
Mailing list incentives can be used by all organizations
by Ron Cates, Constant Contact Development Director, Southwest Region

We'd all like to think that all it takes to get someone interested in learning more about a nonprofit or another organization is a charitable nature. But sometimes it takes more than that to entice someone to join your mailing list or become a supporter.

Of course, when you don't sell something tangible -- products or food, for example -- you can't offer a two-for-one special or a percentage off. The good news is that even if you're a service business, there are ways to build your mailing list by offering something extra to a potential subscriber.

In the nonprofit world

For many nonprofits, the idea of giving something away for free runs counter to the mission of the organization, especially if someone hasn't yet made a donation. But so few nonprofits use an incentive to reach people that an organization that takes this route could easily differentiate itself.

One suggestion is to offer an item with your organization's logo on it for anyone who signs up for your mailing list -- a t-shirt, tote bag, hat, or something similar. This allows your organization's cause to be exposed to more people, and offers relatively low-cost promotion in places you may not be. After all, a nonprofit's goal is to raise money, and you can't do that without first raising awareness.

Another way to differentiate yourself is to offer a benefit to signing up. For example, hosting an event and only allowing email list members to get in, or finding a partner to match donations and saying you have to be on the mailing list for that to happen. If you're a membership-driven organization, like a YMCA, you could offer a free month or a discounted rate when people also supply their email address. You may find that these subscribers will waive the discount anyway because they want to support the group's mission.

Whatever you do, you don't want to dilute the mission of your organization, so you always want to bring it back to that. You also don't want to sound overtly commercial. In the messaging itself, talk about your mission: yes, you're going to send fundraising requests, but all the proceeds will go toward helping people with arthritis, for example.

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Mark Buzan is Principal and Chief Magnifier in Action Strategies, a full service Strategic Communications, Public Relations and Public Affairs Consultancy for non-profits and associations. Make sure to contact him for advice on reaching audiences you may or may not have yet considered in your marketing communications and PR campaigns. Drop him a line if you are looking for help in developing a public relations campaign. You can view his website at www.actionstrategies.ca.

Last SWAFF meeting of the season, May 14

It is already the last SWAFF meeting of the season before summer break. Already! Back in September and so on.

What/where is SWAFF?

It stands for "Soirées Web & Affaires" which means "Web & Business Evenings" which gathers people who want to talk about the web and business in the very casual atmosphere of "Mo Tavern" in Quebec City. It is held May 14, starts around 5:30 PM and lasts until 8:30 PM. It's free; you only pay for what you eat or drink. Click here for the map.

"Mo Tavern" is at 810 Charest Boulevard East, Quebec City (near the intersection of Dufferin Overpass and Charest Boulevard East, where the St. Roch Mall once existed). You can reach Stephane Guerin at 418-575-5424 or contact him by email at sguerin@percute.com. He's the sympathetic host of this gathering.

Who is SWAFF for?

It is for anyone interested - directly or indirectly - in e-business, in other words who is working with the Internet. From the newbie to the expert, employee, IT manager or comm's, contractor, entrepreneur, etc. Everyone is welcome!

The value of e-newsletters in a Web 2.0 age

I've been taking the last number of weeks and months to conduct my own social media experiment with clear tactics that deliver results for non-profits. Through my research, I've clearly found that the process starts with good content on a website that reflects the message you are wishing to convey. As such, I've been spending the last couple of weeks investigating ways to completely revamp and optomize both this blog and my website: www.actionstrategies.ca.

But this only explains one aspect of being effective on the internet. Social media for non-profits is undoubtedly a powerful tool. Reviewing what works most for non-profits, my experience tells me that when starting out, they rarely have a large following on the internet. In my mind, when starting our in Web 2.0 world, associations & charities need to consider as part of their strategy how they will build the "build up". This means also reviewing how they deliver e-newsletters because for non-profits there needs to be a strategy of "push & pull"

Once enough of a following can be build online, social media and internet optimization builds the pull-in of fans for a cause. The "push" however remains the e-newsletter. Gathering email lists and maintaining contact with supporters as I do with my own business' lists is what drives initial traffic to online presences. For a number of years, my current service of Constant Contact has been what I have relied on to get out the word (via "push") on what I've been up to and to drive traffic to even this blog.

However, in a time when I am reviewing both the look and design of this blog and my website, it's fitting that I would also at least look at the means I have of delivering the e-newsletters of the Magnifier & Corridors. I've come to an important conclusion that I'd like to impart upon non-profits looking to improve their online public relations and drive social media presence. Namely, I believe that e-newsletters, RSS feeds and blogging/ social media strategy need to come together.

In my humble view, Constant Contact does do enough to bring these services together. I'm making an important change. I'm moving the Magnifier & Corridors over to a new service will feed the RSS feed from this blog over to email. The service that allows this is MailChimp. Through the templates for the newer versions of my newsletters to you, every entry to this blog can incite an update being sent to your inbox of you are a subscriber. For NPOs who have time and cash strapped staff, I feel this feature will not only provide an importance efficiency, it will also magnify how you can pull it all together.

Going through this process of learning, I've also learned that with the appropriate e-newsletter system in place, you can even integrate social media tagging abilities within the emails you send. This means that you can have a much higher potential possibility of someone posting your articles within their social media profiles. Traditionally, most e-zines make you go to a website and from there, the visitor would need to tag the article in Facebook, YouTube, Delicious, etc. With the attentoin spans being as short as they are on the internet, the attrition rates of losing the valuable asset of visitors doing this are very high when they have to click through more than 2 pages.

But in my learning it's been more than just features that have attracted me to making a change. As I have often preached, content is king! In delivering a more effective e-zine, I have also been experimenting with richer & more effective means of content. Instead of going for initial lengthiness of newsletters, I'm going for emails that are SCANNED not read! I recommend the same crucial lesson for NPOs. This means that e-newsletters need to have article blocks that are shorter and PUNCHIER. In my discussions I have monitored amongst non-profit execs the common theme talked about was member info fatigue. Keeping emails short, I believe, improves open rates and improves the chances that links you place in the ezine will be opened as well.

While I still have some work to do, I hope to provide everyone here insight into how I progress in this great experiment for you. :) Let me know your thoughts!
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Mark Buzan is Principal and Chief Magnifier in Action Strategies, a full service Strategic Communications, Public Relations and Public Affairs Consultancy for non-profits and associations. Make sure to contact him for advice on reaching audiences you may or may not have yet considered in your marketing communications and PR campaigns. Drop him a line if you are looking for help in developing a public relations campaign. You can view his website at www.actionstrategies.ca.