Designing Your Non-profit-making Organizations' E-zine

E-ZINES - The alternative of select for galore organizations are a great way to market yours. All you need is an e-mail account and permission from your stakeholders to send the e-zine. In fact, I have found e-zines to be so powerful that I write and produce five a month. They are:

Self-Marketing News - a marketing news-sheet for small to mid eightpenny businesses

PetalsNCents - a marketing news-sheet for the floral industry

Creating A Bequest - a news-sheet for the non-profit-making community, and

Ramblin' Rose - a news-sheet for my retail customers.

WECommerce News - a news-sheet for Women Who do Business on the web

The 1st thing you must do is collect your customers/clients e-mail addresses. We collect them once they call, visit my retail business, answer surveys, or enter our contests. We ask for an e-mail address every time we have interaction with them.

Formatting your E-zine

Keep it fundamentally the same from issue to issue. Consistency in the format – can apply to galore marketing strategies on the web. That includes keeping it consistent with the colors and look of your website to consistent categories in your newsletter. Consistency helps your stakeholders understand what is coming next – so they continue to look forward to receiving it.

Test new strategies with your news-sheet – but you besides need to keep certain things similar so that you do not confuse your stakeholders. This will decrease the figure of un-subscribes you will receive.

Length and frequency of delivery – Do it easy to see and brief. The length of your e-zine will depend on the frequency in which you publish. If you publish your e-zine once a month including two to three articles is the norm, however if you publish on a daily or weekly basis, then I recommend only one short article and or a tip. Too more or too little content will quickly driving readers away.

Subject Line – The subject line of your e-zine should be consistent. You can use the name of your e-zine, your organization or another catchy title. The main thing is to use the same subject line with each issue.

Table of Contents – "Table of Contents" or “In this Issue” should appear at the beginning of the e-zine. This to let folk cognize what is in this issue. Most folk scan the table of contents see if there is an article that interests them..

Categories – Should remain the same from issue to issue. They could include:

Editor's or Executive Directors Remarks – A great place to welcome folk and give thanks them for their support.

One to three articles – Lead with the most important or absorbing article. This will get folk to see the rest of your e-zine.

Volunteer recognition and Thank-you’s

What's New in the organization – Such as events and happenings.

Resources – Things your readers would-be appreciate receiving such as complimentary reports, notices just about approaching seminars that would-be be of benefit to them as well as a book review or two are great items to put in the resource section of your e-zine.

Advertising and Keep Keep – Here’s wherever you give thanks your supporters of the organization and advertisers of your e-zine. Acquiring sponsors and advertisers to put ads in your e-zine can do it cost you virtually nothing to produce. One word of caution, follow the 80/20 rule so folk won’t feel that all you are trying to do is sell them thing – that means your e-zine should be 80 content and nor more than 20% advertising.

Questions, Comments, Reader feedback – A great place to answer stakeholders questions that another may besides be interested in knowing, comments and by all means any testimonials you obtain from your readers.

General Information – How to contact the organization, subscribe, unsubscribe, refer others to the organization, privacy statement and how to keep the e-zine or organization.

Format

HTML e-mail – though Hypertext mark-up language is not the preferred way for several readers, all of my e-zines are Hypertext mark-up language format. They just look better.

ASCII text - regular text email format, which includes up to 65 characters per line.

Web based - posting your e-zine on the web.

Font - use a generic font such as Arial, Times Roman, Courier, or Sans serif

When designing your e-zine, here are several things to keep in mind:

Use a Templet – This provides consistency and you can do changes bit by bit over time.

Spell Check – Always. Period.

Proofread – Have person else proofread. I have a professional editor see each issue. I see it over two or three times between edits and so makes the editor.

Answer Every Email – Once person writes an email to your organization, there’s person on the receiving end waiting for an answer. You owe it to your readers to respond.

Inform, Entertain, and Serve – Folk sign up for email newsletters to gain knowledge, information, to get involved, and to be entertained.

Cultivate contributors – Take your time, build interest, gain trust, then ask for money. Include links to giving pages. This allows supporters to do a contribution via credit card or a pledge. If your e-zine has what readers want, you will have a more higher likeliness of accrued giving. An e-mail news-sheet is an first-class tool for finding new donors online, and increasing its circle of stakeholders.

The technology you use to circulate your e-zine must be secure and have the capabilities you either now need or will in the future.

One of the most important things we had to deal with was once our lists started growing (beyond 250); we were really limited in causing through our innovational e-mail account (AOL). They have rules and sometimes will freeze an account if you send too galore at once. The format would-be besides get bungled sometimes. The lists became unmanageable once we had to move out the unsubscribes and duplicates. Finding the ones who will to unsubscribe can be challenging. We switched to another service hoping they could send our newsletters and maintain our lists. It was a nice service; however, we didn't like the look of our newsletter. It had limited capabilities (no bold or italic). Since I'm the creative type, I didn't want my ezines to look like everyone else's. We have now found a program we are really happy with. There is no monthly fee, just a one-time purchase fee. It is called Group Mail Pro - Mailing List & Group Management Software. And it only price $79.95 (and you own it). For more information visit Group Mail Pro or follow this link: (http://www.sellshareware.com/CustomView.asp?PrID=34362.&AfID=7838&PageID=1)

Promotion

Have a subscription form on your website!

Have a sign up sheet at the office and at all events. If you speak before a group, do sure you mention your e-zine. Several folk are bound to want to sign up.

Promote it with postcards in your monthly statements or on your business card.

Tell anyone you think mightiness be interested. This includes current stakeholders, contributors and volunteers.

Offer a free report once folk sign up. Once folk subscribe to Bequest they obtain not one but two reports just for trying us out.

When you use e-mail for an outgoing message - to cultivate, to inform, to request action, to ask for money - you are creating public relations. Nice things happen with E-zines; accrued visibility, accrued contributions and goodwill. If you plan your e-zine right, give it an absorbing title and offer your stakeholders benefits, your e-zine will be a success! Happy Writing!

© 2005 - Heidi Richards

About the Author: Heidi I. a. richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 7 another books. She is besides the Founder & CEO of the Women’s ECommerce Association, International www.WECAI.org (pronounced wee-k+) – an Computer network organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” Basic Membership is FREE. Ms. I. a. richards can be reached at Heidi@speakingwithspirit.com.