One of the first steps in developing a comprehensive email program is to design an "Editorial Calendar". Much like the editor of a magazine sits down and plans issues months in advance, you also need to have a plan.
- Start by thinking about the frequency of your emails. Your contacts will have different interest levels. Some people will think you are being intrusive if you email them quarterly and others might welcome a weekly update. The best approach is to "know your audience" and communicate accordingly. But if you are just starting out, a one-size-fits-all monthly email may be the most practical. From there you can adjust the frequency up or down based on feedback.
- Next, consider the general areas of interests for your audience. Some might be interested in volunteer opportunities; others might be interested in news stories, while others might be receptive to requests of donations. Once again, the most sophisticated programs will have dedicated emails for each group. But if you are just beginning, you might want to design a single email with a little content for each area of interest.
- After identifying the frequency and general areas of interest, you'll need to prepare the individual articles for each issue. Start with what you know. For example, you might have an annual fund-raising event in January, a need for extra volunteers over the holidays, etc. The topics for those months are easy. For the between months, one approach is to ask your audience what they are interested in reading about. Send a survey, or add a simple link at the bottom of your email that lets them send suggestions to the editor. Another approach is to identify three or four different topics and then track the response to each. Next year you will know exactly what your readers' interests are.
- Each email can contain a single article or can be a newsletter-style email with links to several articles. Unless you have a lot of bandwidth, start with a single article - and keep it brief. The key elements of the email should fit on one screen without the need for scrolling down. In the newspaper business they call this "Above the fold". One effective approach is to provide a summary paragraph or "teaser" in your email with a link to the full article on your web site.
- Now you are ready to lay out the calendar. Create a table clearly showing the topic(s) for each issue. Distribute it to everyone involved so they can stay synched up and on schedule. Time can slip away before you know it, causing a scramble to get next month's email ready. Vacations, sick leave, etc. will also put you into "fire drill" mode. Plan to have the writing done and approved a month before the email is scheduled to go out. Then you will have plenty of time to get the HTML coding done and still have time for testing - even with a day off or two.
- Finally, keep in mind that in addition to being informative and interesting, your emails should be building your brand. Email campaigns, like advertising, have a cumulative effect. You have seen dozens of commercials for product X over the years and, to some degree, your overall opinion of product X consists of the sum of all of those images. The most effective marketers develop the brand over time by carefully scripting a series of impressions. Think about your organization's brand and how you want to develop it over a year's worth of emails.
Source: This is reprinted with permission from the author and the former company Inform and Motivate, LLC.
