5 Common Mistakes When Working With Email Newsletters

One of the fast-growing communication tools for organizations is the so-called newsletter, or electronic information bulletin. Newsletters offer a convenient and relatively inexpensive way to keep an audience engaged with an organization, by providing information that's valuable to them. The goal is for the newsletter to bring real added value and benefit to its readers. Today's technology offers a range of software products that make it easy to create content and distribute it to a large group of people.

Writing one, however, isn't an easy task. Preparing a newsletter is among the most time-consuming tasks, and the risk of ending up with too few readers is significant.

To help increase the chances that your newsletter reaches more people and brings real benefit to your organization, we've put together a selection of the five most common newsletter mistakes, drawn from John Haydon, an expert in marketing for charitable organizations, fundraising, and communications.

1. Adding Complete Strangers by Using Their Emails Without Permission

If you want to build an email list that's completely useless, start by adding strangers to it, scraping emails from wherever you can find them or buying them from somewhere. Add people who never gave you permission to do so. Take that approach, and you're almost guaranteed low open rates, low click-through rates, and poor results overall.

The right approach is to invite every email marketing subscriber to give their consent to join your email list.

How does that work? Through a verified opt-in, a link in an email that people click to confirm they want to join your email list. Here's how it works: a visitor to your website enters their name and email into a form inviting them to subscribe to news or other information from you. After submitting the form, they automatically receive an email containing a link they need to click to activate their subscription. We've all done it at some point. Opt-in confirms that whoever is joining your email list is a real human being who actually wants to receive information from you.

Here are three reasons why it's worth using this model:

1. You build a list of genuinely engaged followers. Requiring people to take this second step ensures a certain level of real interest on their part, that they truly want to be on your list and receive information from you. This approach also helps you avoid adding invalid emails to your list. It's a fact that some people enter invalid or someone else's email in an attempt to access gated content, or simply make a typo when entering their address.

2. Improve your email deliverability. If you don't require permission to send emails, you risk negatively affecting how reliably your messages get delivered. Spam complaints and blocks, combined with low open and click rates, can hurt your deliverability. This is especially true with Google and Yahoo, which actively track spam complaints. At the same time, new regulations are being introduced, and starting mid-this year, most email marketing software won't allow sending to addresses that haven't given explicit consent.

3. Since you pay (for marketing software, based on the number of emails in your account), it matters that you only add subscribers who are genuinely interested in your cause. Why pay for emails that turn out to be fake, for instance?

Verified opt-in will help you build a list of people who are open to donating, volunteering, and spreading the word about your cause. And while it's true that your list won't grow at a very fast pace, in the long run, you'll build a high-quality list of supporters, ones who will provide you with genuine, meaningful support in return.

2. Sending Boring Content

Take a few minutes and log into your email marketing software. Pull the reports for your most recent newsletter and check your click-through rate. How does it compare to your best-performing emails? If your click rate is less than 50% of your top-performing email, there's room for improvement. Here are four quick tips for boosting engagement with your email newsletter:

• Make sure the person writing your newsletter is genuinely committed to and passionate about your cause

• Make sure your newsletter includes well-told stories (about the results of your work, the people you help, your volunteers, and so on)

• Make sure your newsletter has clear calls-to-action that answer the reader's question: "How can I get more involved?"

• Make sure your tone speaks directly to the subscriber (write in the second person, "you"), rather than talking about your organization in general terms

  
  

3. Sending the Newsletter to Everyone

Just because someone attended one of your events, for example, doesn't automatically mean they want to receive your email newsletter. People who never gave their consent are quite likely to feel annoyed by it, or simply ignore it.

A better approach would be to send a follow-up message to event attendees inviting them to join your newsletter as a next step. These people have just been to your event, and the following day they're likely to be receptive to hearing more from you. That's the moment for them to answer the question: "How can I get more involved?"

4. Failing to Ask People to Take Action

The purpose of your newsletter is NOT simply to inform your supporters about your work, but to engage them in a way that's meaningful to them. They've already moved past the "honeymoon" phase, they've donated, volunteered, signed a petition, met with you, and/or joined your email list. Now they're genuinely interested in your cause and want to know what else they can do.

Whether you're asking for a donation or sharing a story, your newsletter should offer concrete actions subscribers can take to get more involved.

*On the left, Patagonia offers a range of possible actions people can take to get involved in their local nature conservation efforts. On the right, the Malala Fund calls for action in support of ensuring education for every girl in the world.

5. Not Using a Mobile-Friendly Template

According to research, 80% of email subscribers will delete your newsletter if they can't read it properly. At the same time, 47% of users open their emails on a mobile device. Most email platforms offer mobile-friendly templates, so there's no excuse for not sending mobile-friendly newsletters. Having a mobile version of your website and newsletter is no longer optional, it's essential.