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
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.
