1. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Email Newsletters Workshop Hertfordshire Funding Fair 2007 17 th October 2007

2. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Workshop structure Session 1 E-newsletters Do’s and Don’ts The fundamental principles of creating and delivering successful email newsletters. by Maria Diaz E-Communications Manager - CTT Session 2 Q&A and sharing experiences.

3. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Session 1 E-Newsletters Do’s and Don’ts Fundamental principles of creating and delivering successful email newsletters.

4. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Why using email as a media? Perceived informational value Low cost to charity Environmentally friendly Not intrusive Quick response to a call to action Drives people to your website

5. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Email lists Have you got permission to email them? Email and mobile information as well as sensitive data needs to be collected with opt-in. If not, it is never too late to start….

6. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Collecting permission Use the ‘tone of voice’ of the charity Point out that it is “a cost effective media” Fit the message to the audience (age/demographics etc.) Cover all future uses/channels to market (email, mobile, etc) Be clear about who is collecting the information (NB Trading arms/affiliated companies) Give them a reason to provide information

7. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Collecting permission - TIPS Don’t use pre-ticked boxes. Email permission is an opt-in. Include a click through to your privacy policy on the data collection screen. Data collected via “viral” promotions may only be used once to gain future permission.

8. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Who is your audience? General interest in your work Donors/Stakeholders Fundraisers Campaigners Trustees Other

9. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org If you don’t know who they are… … ask them: – Do you want to receive emails from us? – What areas of our work are you interested on? – How often do you want to hear from us? – What format do you want to receive your email? HTML – Fancy version with pictures Plain text – No formatting

10. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Write the content Relevant to the intended audience Personalise the email Be concise – Use click through links to your website for more information Be clear – What do you want the subscriber to do – Call to action Avoid - where possible - spam words/characters

11. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Spam words/characters Avoid exclamation or interrogation marks as much as possible, in the text and very importantly, on the subject line. Avoid spam words like free, software, save, marketing, click here, etc.

12. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Template Design Template - What is it? Determine your template’s visual identity - Consistent with your online identity? - New for the particular online publication - Similar to your offline publication/s Design it to work for you - Sections on the e-news HTML and plain text version

13. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Some design tips - HTML

14. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Template Size The mean size for screen resolution is 1024 x 768 pixels The template width should not exceed 750 pixels, ideally 700. Bear in mind the frequent use of email preview pane

15. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Template Size √ Right Length Avoid vertical scrolling where possible

16. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Call to Action Place your call to action at the top of the e- newsletter i.e. if you want a donation, place the donation button/link at the top.

17. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Bear in mind graphic blockers Avoid having the call to action inserted only on a graphic (banner or button) If you use a graphic button, remember to add the same link within the text too.

18. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Avoid using tables with thick borders X Wrong – Border thickness is 4 pixels √ Right – Border thickness is 1 pixel

19. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Visual balance √ Right – Consider image per text ratio. In the example, there is a visual balance between the amount of text and the pictures included

20. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Use ALT tags on images √ Right – Always use ALT tags (mouse over text) on all images.

21. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Warning - Use of colour X Wrong – Some colour combinations are tiring to the eye and difficult to read

22. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Avoid using style sheets Different email clients interpret style sheets in different ways To achieve best results, avoid using them

23. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Use a popular font type Use a popular font type (Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica, etc) despite the font on your brand guidelines being different. Most users will not have that font available on their computers and substitution may occur.

24. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Plain text design

25. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Plain text version Make it as attractive as possible…

26. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Cheat! Write a brief introduction to the e-news and ask them to click through to a link where the HTML version lives

27. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Functionality Both version should include: –Personalisation – where possible –‘Forward to a friend’ link –Subscribe to receive our e-news –Very top – ‘Web Online version’ link –Automatic change your details –Comments or suggestions email link –UN-SUBSCRIBE - Mandatory

28. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Be original – Experiment! Don’t be frightened to try new things Fragment your data and send them different layouts - Note what works best Use your email call to action to engage your audience with other media (SMS, Video, Audio, etc)

29. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Test before send Send a test to various colleagues and ask their opinion (share the guilt!) Test that all the links work Test the same campaign on different email clients – Outlook, Hotmail, AOL, Lotus… Test all the functionality links When possible, leave it for a while and come back to it

30. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org When to send Regular publications (monthly, weekly, etc) Core days of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) Core hours of the working day (Mid morning, mid afternoon) Consider just before lunch time when is raining or when it’s very cold!

31. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Delivery The mechanism used to send and deliver bulk emails Three types of email tools - Outlook/Eudora/Lotus/other PC/pop3 based email system - In-House bulk email broadcast software - ASP (Application Service Provider) bulk email broadcast software

32. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Email tools OUTLOOKIn-House s/wASP s/w Fit for purposeX√√ Address BooksX√√ SubscriptionsX√√ Manages Bounces X√√ HTML and plain text part send X√√ TemplatesX√√ ReportsX√√ HTMLX√√ SPAMXX√ BandwidthXX√

33. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Email tool specification Address BookAddress Management/history/export/import SubscriptionsSubscribes and unsubscribes BouncesHard (email not there) and Soft (unavailable) 2 part sendHTML and Text versions TemplatesDesign, look and feel management ReportsOpen rate, Click throughs, bounces, unsubscribes HTMLHTML email with WYSIWYG editor SPAMBeing blocked BandwidthInternet Pipe size

34. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org

35. Post send Clean your data –Safely remove un-subscribes –Delete hard-bounce emails – follow up phone call? –Manage changes in existing data – Email address changes, email format, etc.

36. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Post send Open rates Click through rates Which link was most successful Make a note of what peak time/s % Un-subscribes % Hard-bounce emails % Soft-bounce emails – Correlation with holiday period, half term… Use click through information to further segment your data – Subscriber retention Forward to a friend – Who is promoting you?

37. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org CTTM@il CTT provides an email marketing service to charities using an ASP system that ticks all the boxes. For a FREE DEMO account www.ctt.org / hatfield or email maria@ctt.org

38. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Session 2 Your questions

39. Maria Diaz – maria@ctt.org Thank you! Maria Diaz E-Communications Manager Charity Technology Trust