A presentation by Rev. Mark Johns at BE HEARD!, the 2012 Southeastern Minnesota Synod (ELCA) communicators workshop. More information at http://semnsynod.org/communicators/workshop

1. What does an effective newsletter look like
in the 21st century?

2.  Who are you?
 What is your role?
 What’s your congregation like?
 What’s your newsletter like?
◦ How frequently is it published?
◦ How many pages?
◦ How is it reproduced?
◦ How many copies are distributed?

3.  What's your congregation's biggest challenge?

4.  Why do you have a congregation?
 Why does it exist?
 What is its mission and purpose?

5.  Why do you have a church newsletter???
 How does it contribute to fulfilling the
mission and purpose of your congregation?

6.  Are you writing for insiders or outsiders?
 How can you tell the difference?
◦ In the average ELCA congregation, 29.5% of
baptized members attend worship on any given
Sunday. (ELCA Office of Research & Evaluation)
 Are you writing for Margaret, or for the
other 70.5% of your congregation?
 Are you writing for Margaret, or addressing
your congregation’s mission & challenges?

7.  The average U.S. household received 22
pieces of mail each week (USPS Postal Facts 2012)
 Much mail is ignored (Direct Marketing Association 2010)
◦ Mail sent by companies to “contact list” households
gets a response rate of 3.42 %
◦ Mail sent by companies to “prospect list”
households gets only a 1.38 % response
 Weekday newspaper circulation is dropping at
the rate of 9% per year (Audit Bureau of Circulations 2010)

8.  Readership Institute studies at the Star
Tribune conducted with a total of 340 young
adults in the Twin Cities in 2005.
 Show that both hard news and advertising
can engage readers when tailored to the
interests and perceived needs of the
audience.

9.  Select news items to reflect subject matter of
interest to the target audience
 Reframe and rewrite stories to get at “why this
matters to you”
 Write shorter, clearer narratives
 Explain complicated concepts in visual rather
than narrative form
 Pull out details that clog narrative flow and craft
them into separate components
 Write active headlines that speak directly to
readers and their experiences

10.  Often, our newsletter is essentially
advertising upcoming events
 Which marketing campaign do you think
would get better results:
◦ the one that contacts 100 customers one time, or
◦ the one that contacts 25 customers four times?
 Advertisers generally assume that a message
must be seen 6-8 times before being
retained.

13.  88% of U.S. adults own a cell phone of some
 55% use their phone to go online
◦ (up from 31% as recently as April 2009)
 Moreover, 31% of these current cell internet
users say that they mostly go online using
their cell phone, and not using some other
device such as a desktop or laptop computer.
 That works out to 15% of all adults who are
“cell-mostly internet users”
◦ And increasing rapidly!

17.  Other than Margaret, people are reading your
newsletter less and spending less time with it
than before.
 They are looking for news tailored to their
needs, not those of the institution.
 They are looking for news and information
online rather than in print.
 They want their online news and information
in small “tweets” that fit on their phones.
 Frequent repeats are necessary for retention.

18.  Old media never die
◦ …but they change in function and form.
 So what should a 21st century newsletter look
like?

19.  Other than Margaret, people are reading your
newsletter less and spending less time with it
than before.
 They are looking for news tailored to their
needs, not those of the institution.
 They are looking for news and information
online rather than in print.
 They want their online news and information
in small “tweets” that fit on their phones.
 Frequent repeats are necessary for retention.