I attended an all-day workshop yesterday with Dave Snow of Constant Contact and I have about 7 pages of handwritten notes; I'm not going to share them all with you here but I am going to extract some of the best practices I learned about as they relate to sending email newsletters which the Regional is getting ready to do at the end of August.
When creating a Constant Contact eNewsletter:
All of this plus more training materials is on the Constant Contact website.
- Brand your eNewsletter so that it matches your other communications (website, business cards, etc)
- Tell your readers what you want them to do with the eNewsletter. What's in it for them?
- Always preview your eNewsletter without images before sending. 82% of email programs automatically block images. See what your readers will see.
- Incorporate a plan text version of your organization's name so you have instant brand recognition even if the logo is blocked.
- Use sans serif fonts but do not use Comic Sans MS
- Use 10pt font or larger
- Incorporate personal images - pictures of people and places your readers know/recognize
- Keep it short and sweet. eNewsletter should fit into an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper so the content appears above the scroll (ala above the fold)
- Incorporate videos - will keep your readers engaged longer
- Choose the template based on layout and purpose
- Create master templates. The more you copy from a copy from a copy of an eNewsletter in Constant Contact, the muddier the HTML gets. This causes formatting issues and frustration.
- Use colors that are consistent with your branding. Use 3-4 colors maximum.
- Use ColorCop to find out what colors your website is using for your brand.
- Stick to 3 major articles per email - maximum. Use the space in the eNewsletter to place teaser content - hook your readers - then provide a link to the full document (PDF or Blog post). This helps keep the length short and the content interesting and eye-catching.
- Use a clear and/or clever subject line when sending the email - you don't need to say, "WMRL Wave eNewsletter Sept/Oct 2012." Instead, use the subject to tell them what's in it for them. Use action statements.
- Assign the eNewsletter its own email address (i.e. wmrl_wave@washcolibrary.org)
- Always use the SPAM check button before sending the eNewsletter
- Send emails on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 10am-3pm (someone actually researched this...). But it's really up to your readers. Use the statistics/reports feature to find out when your audience is reading your emails and cater to them.
- Ignore the # of Opens. This figure means nothing, zero, zip, nada. It's worthless.
- Pay close attention to the # of Clicks. This is the most valuable number. The reports on this will show you who clicked what and when.
- It's a good idea to send a thank you note to whomever forwards your newsletter onto another person.
