presentation to Rhondda Big Click & colleagues re planning a good e-newsletter and using mail chimp to manage the mailings and lists.

1. Increasing Your Impact Through...
Email Newsletters
Cath Padfield, Circuit Rider Communities 2.0

3. What we’ll cover
1. Basics of a good e-newsletter
2. Email services provider –
Mail Chimp
3. Should you be worried about
the Data Protection Act?

4. First – a little bit of inspiration …
• http://www.reasondigital.com/getinspired/
• Reason Digital is a social enterprise in Manchester that
helps organisations get the most out of digital media,
and do a little good on the web

5. What do you want to achieve?
Who are you talking to?
WHY WRITE AN E-NEWSLETTER?

6. I didn’t like the word ‘recipient’
I tried to imagine an nice, ordinary
person who might read
newsletters, so instead of talking
about ‘recipients’ we’re going to
talk about Marge.

7. What would make Marge open it?
• How exciting is the subject line?
• Can you sum it up in 50 characters?
• Put yourself in your Marge’s shoes…
• Avoid: ‘!!!!!’ ‘help’ ‘reminder’ ‘percent off’

8. Appeal to skimmers
• Your Marge doesn’t read start to finish – she skims
• Put the important stuff first
• Use Headlines, subheadings and short chunks of text
• 8/10 people read headlines; 2/10 will read the rest

9. Use plain English
• Short sentences
• Avoid using jargon
• Be clear and concise
• Include your postal address in the footer

10. How flash can you make it look?
• Don’t.
• Concentrate on good content over whistles and bells
• Think about email preview panes – 250 x 250 pixels
• Email programs will mess with your design

11. What next for your Marge?
• Share – email to a friend, share on Facebook or Twitter
• View online – if Marge’s email program messes with
your carefully crafted design
• Unsubscribe – you can’t please all of the people all of
the time

12. Testing, testing…
• Recruit some friends or volunteers
• Test on webmail – Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, Gmail …
• Test on desktop mail – Outlook, Thunderbird …
• Test on smart phones
• …but don’t put ‘test’ in the subject line

13. Images
• Most email programs strip these out
• Use small images
• Always use an ‘alt-tag’
• Never send image-only

14. Don’t write like a used car salesman
• Don’t over use exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!
• ALL CAPS IS SHOUTING
• Black on white shows up best
• Create clear links – no ‘click here’
• Better: read our ‘how to’ guide on effective fish fettling

15. Coffee
Then let's talk chimps!

16. Use an email service provider…
MAIL CHIMP

17. What will Freddie do for me?
• Help you design beautiful newsletters – using
templates or from scratch
• Share them via social networking
• Track your results
• Manage your subscribers

18. It’s all about your list
• A list of people who have given permission to you to
send your newsletter
• Invite people to join your list
• In Excel, Google Docs or a CSV file
• Lists can be split into groups

19. Design your beautiful e-newsletter
• Called ‘campaigns’ in Mail Chimp
• Choose a template or use Design Genius to design your
own
• Add your killer content
• Check, proof-read and check again
• Work through pre-delivery checklist

20. Sharing
• Auto-post to Twitter and Facebook
• Add a Facebook Like button to your newsletter
• Enable Facebook comments
• Social Share button shares to other social media
channels… MySpace, Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious…

21. Tracking and reporting
• How many people opened?
• How many clicked?
• How many ‘liked’ it on Facebook?
• How many reTweeted?
• Also integrates with Google Analytics

22. Let’s have a go!
• Go to www.mailchimp.com
• Sign up for a free account
• Lets you send up to 12,000 emails a month to a list of
2,000 subscribers – for free
• Explore the site – check out the resources

23. Before we go – the Data Protection Act
• You have a responsibility to keep personal information
safe and secure
• People must give their permission to be sent e-
newsletters
• You must be clear about how people can unsubscribe
• If in doubt – seek advice.

24. clickconnectdiscover.org
0845 474 8282