Designing Your Nonprofit Organizations E-zine
May 12th, 2009 | 
Author: Designing Your Nonprofit Organizations E-zine
EZINES The alternative of choice for many organizations are agreat way to market yours. All you need is an email account andpermission from your stakeholders to send the ezine. In fact Ihave found ezines to be so powerful that I write and producefive a month. They are:
SelfMarketing News a marketing newsletter for small to midsized businesses
PetalsNCents a marketing newsletter for the floral industry
Creating A Legacy a newsletter for the nonprofit communityand
Ramblin’ Rose a newsletter for my retail customers.
WECommerce News a newsletter for Women Who do Business on theweb
The first thing you must do is collect your customers/clientsemail addresses. We collect them when they call visit myretail business answer surveys or enter our contests. We askfor an email address every time we have interaction with them.
Formatting your Ezine
Keep it basically the same from issue to issue. Consistency inthe format can apply to many marketing strategies on the web.That includes keeping it consistent with the colors and look ofyour website to consistent categories in your newsletter.Consistency helps your stakeholders understand what is comingnext so they continue to look forward to receiving it.
Test new strategies with your newsletter but you also need tokeep certain things similar so that you do not confuse yourstakeholders. This will decrease the amount of unsubscribes youwill receive.
Length and frequency of delivery Make it easy to read andbrief. The length of your ezine will depend on the frequency inwhich you publish. If you publish your ezine once a monthincluding two to three articles is the norm however if youpublish on a daily or weekly basis then I recommend only oneshort article and or a tip. Too much or too little content willquickly drive readers away.
Subject Line The subject line of your ezine should beconsistent. You can use the name of your ezine yourorganization or another catchy title. The main thing is to usethe same subject line with each issue.
Table of Contents “Table of Contents” or “In this Issue”should appear at the beginning of the ezine. This to let peopleknow what is in this issue. Most people scan the table ofcontents see if there is an article that interests them..
Categories Should remain the same from issue to issue. Theycould include:
Editor’s or Executive Directors Remarks A great place towelcome people and thank them for their support.
One to three articles Lead with the most important orinteresting article. This will get people to read the rest ofyour ezine.
Volunteer recognition and Thankyou’s
What’s New in the organization Such as events and happenings.
Resources Things your readers would appreciate receiving suchas complimentary reports notices about upcoming seminars thatwould be of benefit to them as well as a book review or two aregreat items to put in the resource section of your ezine.
Advertising and Sponsorship Support Here’s where you thankyour supporters of the organization and advertisers of yourezine. Getting sponsors and advertisers to put ads in yourezine can make it cost you virtually nothing to produce. Oneword of caution follow the 80/20 rule so people won’t feel thatall you are trying to do is sell them something that meansyour ezine should be 80 content and nor more than 20advertising.
Questions Comments Reader feedback A great place to answerstakeholders questions that other may also be interested inknowing comments and by all means any testimonials you receivefrom your readers.
General Information How to contact the organizationsubscribe unsubscribe refer others to the organizationprivacy statement and how to support the ezine or organization.
Format
HTML email although HTML is not the preferred way for somereaders all of my ezines are HTML format. They simply lookbetter.
ASCII text regular text email format which includes up to 65characters per line.
Web based posting your ezine on the web.
Font use a generic font such as Arial Times Roman Courieror Helvetica
When designing your ezine here are some things to keep inmind:
Use a Template This provides consistency and you can makechanges gradually over time.
Spell Check Always. Period.
Proofread Have someone else proofread. I have a professionaleditor read each issue. I read it over two or three timesbetween edits and so does the editor.
Answer Every Email When someone writes an email to yourorganization there’s someone on the receiving end waiting foran answer. You owe it to your readers to respond.
Inform Entertain and Serve People sign up for emailnewsletters to gain knowledge information to get involved andto be entertained.
Cultivate contributors Take your time build interest gaintrust then ask for money. Include links to giving pages. Thisallows supporters to make a contribution via credit card or apledge. If your ezine has what readers want you will have amuch higher likelihood of increased giving. An email newsletteris an excellent tool for finding new donors online andincreasing its circle of stakeholders.
The technology you use to disseminate your ezine must be secureand have the capabilities you either now need or will in thefuture.
One of the most important things we had to deal with was whenour lists started growing beyond 250; we were very limited insending through our original email account AOL. They haverules and sometimes will freeze an account if you send too manyat once. The format would also get botched sometimes. The listsbecame unmanageable when we had to remove the unsubscribes andduplicates. Finding the ones who wish to unsubscribe can bechallenging. We switched to another service hoping they couldsend our newsletters and maintain our lists. It was a goodservice; however we didn’t like the look of our newsletter. Ithad limited capabilities no bold or italic. Since I’m thecreative type I didn’t want my ezines to look like everyoneelse’s. We have now found a program we are very happy with.There is no monthly fee just a onetime purchase fee. It iscalled Group Mail Pro Mailing List Group ManagementSoftware. And it only costs 79.95 and you own it. For moreinformation visit Group Mail Pro or follow this link:http://www.sellshareware.com/CustomView.asp?PrID=34362.AfID=7838PageID=1
Promotion
Have a subscription form on your website!
Have a sign up sheet at the office and at all events. If youspeak before a group make sure you mention your ezine. Somepeople are bound to want to sign up.
Promote it with postcards in your monthly statements or on yourbusiness card.
Tell anyone you think might be interested. This includes currentstakeholders contributors and volunteers.
Offer a fr*ee report when people sign up. When people subscribeto Legacy they receive not one but two reports just for tryingus out.
When you use email for an outgoing message to cultivate toinform to request action to ask for money you are creatingpublic relations. Good things happen with Ezines; increasedvisibility increased contributions and goodwill. If you planyour ezine right give it an interesting title and offer yourstakeholders benefits your ezine will be a success! HappyWriting!
copy; 2005 Heidi Richard
Want even more high traffic sites to market on? Jinger Jarrett will show you how to market your business online to hundreds of high traffic sites for free. Grab a subscription to her premium ezine for just 5 per month. This is a limited time offer. http://www.smallbusinesshowto.com/SpecialOffers.html.nbsp;
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