Engaging email newsletters raise awareness, strengthen your relationships, and help achieve your mission. Are yours doing that? See how to get the most out of your email newsletter including best frequency, content, and design tips.

1. Nonprofit Newsletters That Engage
Tips to an engaging email newsletters that raises
awareness, strengthens your relationships and helps
achieve your mission.
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc.

2. Newsletter Frequency That Engages Supporters
Getting the Frequency Right How frequently are other
nonprofits emailing?
#1 - Monthly (43%)
How Often To Send #2 - Every other week (17%)
■ Your goal is to keep supporters engaged #3 - Quarterly (16%)
-2011 Nonprofit Marketing Guide
■ At least quarterly
■ Updating supporters twice a year isn’t enough to
keep them engaged and keep your organization top
of mind
Tip: Do you have an 8 page newsletter that you send twice
a year? Divide it into a quarterly, more timely email
communication. Shorter communications are more likely to
be read and shared.
■ Frequency should be driven by:
■ How often can you produce fresh, interesting,
relevant content?
■ What your supporters groups want
■ How often do they want updates?
■ Use a simple online survey to find out
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc.
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3. Newsletter Frequency that Engages Supporters
Tocqueville Society Email - Quarterly Tax Volunteers Email - Monthly
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc. 3

4. Newsletter Frequency that Engages Supporters
Young Leaders Society Email - Twice Monthly Board of Directors Email – Monthly
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc. 4

5. Newsletter Content That Engages Supporters
Target Content to Your Different Segments “80% of recipients Stop Reading emails
they have signed up for because they
deem them Irrelevant.”
Create lists/groups with similar interests
– Study by the Ad Agency Quris
Supporters can add themselves through your
sign up form
You can add people from simple online survey
results
Send a newsletter to different groups
based on their interests
Tips to keep it simple:
Create your general newsletter
Create a copy of it
Add in a block or two that is unique for
each group or just re-prioritize the content
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc. 5

6. Newsletter Content That Engages Supporters
Can You Promote in Your Newsletter?
“Over-solicitation” was the second most-
reported reason why donors stop giving
(32%). – Cygnus Donor Survey 2011
As long as you’re providing informational
content, readers won’t mind some promotion.
What is a good balance?
85% Informational
15% Promotional
“When subscribers read about the new book in
the newsletter, they forwarded it to others and
C.A.S.E used their online newsletter to bring helped us generate hundreds of pre-sales as
attention to its new book W.I.S.E. Up! For well as connected us to professionals at the
children in foster care. local and state levels who could get this important
book into the hands of foster children.”
- Michelle Lovejoy, Director of Community Education
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc. 6

7. Newsletter Content That Engages Supporters
Having a hard time getting good content?
Keep Track of Everyday Content
Listen to and keep a log of what
donors/volunteers/board members are asking about.
Listen via Twitter for valuable content
Go to search.twitter.com, search on keyword
about your industry, organization or topic of
interest.
Sign Up For Regular Content Feeds (RSS)
Sign up for a topic closely related to your mission –
human rights, violence prevention, literacy, climate
change, etc.
Creates a pool of content for articles in your
newsletter
Examples – Twitter, Google, CNN, NPR
Tip: How many times is the word YOU in your newsletter?
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc. 7

8. Newsletter Design Tips that Drive Response
Use Hot Spots
Top left and right corners generally
have the highest click rates.
Test different layouts with
your audience. They may
have a different behavior
than you expected.
Bottom – after reading the valuable
content, feature more
information about your programs
and options to support your
mission.
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc. 8

9. Nonprofit Newsletter Metrics
Tracking Supporter Engagement – Open & Click Rates
Constant Contact’s Nonprofit Customer Averages Open Rate – 20% Click Through Rate – 12.3%
(all message types)
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc. 9
Source: 2011 Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study

10. Want More?
Discover many more tips to improve your email newsletter in one of
Constant Contact’s free, live nonprofit webinars…
Nonprofit Newsletters That Engage
Understand what kind of content you should be sending supporters and explore resources for
fresh content.
Gain the top design tips that drive response.
Find out what you can do to get your newsletter into the inbox and opened.
See what other nonprofits are doing with their newsletters and the results they are getting
including examples and statistics.
Finish with some lessons you can learn inside of your reports to continually improve your
newsletter.
This is an information-packed live webinar hosted by a Constant Contact online marketing expert. Ask
questions, hear the questions of other nonprofits, and see how to get the most out of your newsletters.
Register Here - http://conta.cc/NPNewsSlideShare
Copyright © 2011 Constant Contact Inc.