1. Send out a postcard to your entire mailing list asking them up update their contact info so you can obtain email addresses that you don’t already have;

gauge whether or not you need to add incentives and possibly change the focus of the postcard from “updating your contact info” to “come to the site and download something really cool”. For example, If you have a program that promotes health and wellness, think of an interesting tool related to that that people can download. If you have a whitepaper or other really interesting research related to your industry, that would be a great donwload option as well. Talk to your webmaster about setting up the enews form to take people to the downlaodable item once the form is submitted. This can be promoted through the mailed postcard and on the website for people who happen upon the site.

Example:Boys & Girls Club offers your choice of 24 free wallpapers for your computer screen when you sign up for their enewsletter.

2. I’ve also noticed a trend back to more involved enews/email signup forms; I think we are all getting so inundated with email that we are becoming choosier with what we sign up for and we are less likely to just slap our email address into a single box without knowing exactly what’s going on. So I would recommend expanding the enews signup form to include some additional info AND explanation of the benefits of the enewsletter (the real value). Let them know the name of the enewsletter, how often they will receive it and the kinds of information they will find. Make sure you tell people up front that you won’t sell their name to other mailing lists and/or refer them to your privacy statement.

Examples:Center for Nonprofit Advancement and Montana Nonprofit Association

3. Increase the value of your enewsletter by targeting it to specific audiences. People love to choose their preferences and when they feel they have more control over what they receive, they are more likely to sign up to begin with. Let them choose from several different categories of enewsletters/announcements. People also like short and sweet so if you have a long enewsletter, this is the perfect opportunity to break it up into several different, shorter, enewsletters. Once could be for advocacy alerts, one for a specific program, and one general enewsletter for agency news and events. I like to focus the enewsletters on communicating with your constituents and save the major donation pushes for bi-annual direct mail campaigns accompanied by print newsletters that focus on accomplishments and program highlights.

Example: Covenant House

4. Create valuable content for your enewsletter. Too many times we rush around at the last minute, throwing in whatever we can think of to fill in space. Take the time to think about your audience and what they will want to hear about. Don’t make it all about a donation push – if it’s all about your needs all the time, people will be turned off. Tell people stories about your consumers, staff, volunteers, other donors and always include photos – people want to see who you are talking about. Get your staff used to doing monthly mini-writeups about programs and consumers and thinking in terms of “what interesting happened this month that we should talk about”. Make this marketing push a part of staff meetings and your overall organizational culture. Don’t forget, all news goes on the website and/or blog, Facebook page, Twitter and then use the enewsletter to draw people into the site to finish reading or read something similar. Archive all your enewsletters on your website; there is no point going to all that effort (and creating all that great content) if people can’t get to it again later.

Example:Kalamazoo Public Library

5. Put your enews signup form front and center with a popup. Actually you don’t have to technically create a “pop-up” that most spam blockers will catch; have your webmaster create a Javascript function that will automatically open a small enews signup area when people enter the site. They can easily close it and it won’t annoyingly block the site. You will definitely see an increase in your enews signups. Use the small space wisely and include a photo or graphic, compelling message or reason to sign up and some additional fields to capture the data you need. You can have it open only once upon entering the site or each time someone enters the site (but not once they are inside the site).

Example:American Red Cross

6. Create an advocacy campaign. People are much more likely to get involved through an advocacy campaign than any other type of campaign or program and people who have been advocates are more likely to donate down the road. Don’t treat it like another petition signing activity. Put some thought into content and create a special section on your website with resources, action steps and tie it into regular advocacy alert emails to keep people updated. You may need to spend some extra time on this, but an advocacy campaign will boost your image as a nonprofit that understands the real concerns of your industry and show you are taking more of a leadership role. All this only adds up to increased credibility with donors.

Example: The Arthritis Foundation

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