#newsletter – Bells, Bakes & Bettering Myself

How many times have you seen the subject heading of an email, an article, or newsletter and dreaded opening it or reading on, because you can already imagine what it might contain? Or just by looking at the subject heading decided not to open it at all and hit the delete key?

A number of people I connect with write on behalf of their local organisation, particularly in #bellringing circles. They may need to write an email to their members, or their wider community to engage with activities, or recruit new ringers. They may want to write an article in the local newsletter, or their Association newsletter, or even for The Ringing World.

Carole Seawert came up with some top tips on how a great subject line could increase the chances of your email, article or newsletter being read:

1) engage curiosity – Don’t open this email. How many times have we heard the story of if you want some news spread write “confidential” on the top and leave it by the photocopier? That’s a sure fire way for everyone to have heard about it, right?

2) engage FOMO – fear of missing out. “Only 2 spaces left”. “Last chance”. “Offer closes today”.

3) pain points and a solution – “veggie food your kids will love.”

4) enticing special offers – priority access etc.

5) helpful resources – 10 top tips on how to get your article read.

6) short cut solutions – learn who to write engaging content in 2 minutes.

7) personalise – “John, here’s something you won’t want to miss”.

8) include effective key words like “congratulations”, “upgrade” and “ thank you”

9) pose a question that inspires further enquiry – “do you want a 2 for 1 offer on xxx”?

10) KISS – keep it short and simple. No more than fifty characters.

I am not a fan of numbers 1, 7 and 9 personally.

Unless the email was from a colleague or someone I knew was probably messing about, if I received an email that said “Don’t open this email”, I would think “OK then” and delete it straight away.

Number 7 implied some kind of pre-existing relationship, which may be ok with some people but I still wouldn’t expect my name to be in the subject heading. If I don’t know the person or the organisation, I would not be impressed that they were trying to engage on first name terms. Someone came to the door canvassing once and called me by my full first name, which was on the electoral role, but a name that I never go by, so I corrected them and said “that’s Mrs C…… to you”. They did not know me had no right to expect any level of intimacy.

If I received an email or saw an article posed in the way number 9 suggested, as it is a closed question my response would be a simple “no”, regardless of what was on offer, and again, I would delete it straight away.

Clearly some of Seawert’s suggestions were targeted at sales so may not be relevant in the circumstances I would be writing for, but there were some useful points to consider.

I’m on LinkedIn, the professional network on the internet that allows you to connect and strengthen professional relationships and learn new skills. You can follow organisations and groups in much the same was a Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites.

One of the groups that I follow for interest and to support #bellringing activities, rather than work related, is about Public Relations and in particular this group focuses on internal communications. In fact its called The Institute of Internal Communication. Each week a contributor called Carole Searwert, a copywriter and newsletter writer posts an article called Top Tips Tuesday which gives you some pointers that you might find useful. Admittedly, most of it relates to the business world rather than the small, social charity, activity type world, but occasionally there’s something that make sense.

This week’s top tips were all about How to Grow Your Newsletter List. In the #bellringing community, we tend to use newsletters quite a lot to keep in touch with our ringers, let them know what’s going on and what’s been coming up. We have them at all levels. Some districts do their own. Most association’s probably have one. The Central Council of Church Bellringers (CCCBR) and the Association of Ringing Teachers (ART) are currently issuing a joint one on survival and recovery strategies. ART have two of their own, Tower Talk and ART Works for slightly different audiences.

Most newsletters are usually quite well done. Lots of uplifting news and case studies, information that may help, updates on what’s been going on and useful contacts or diary information. Hopefully they come with lots of bright shiny photos too. Invariably these days they come in digital format, but some are still produced in paper, and some are both.

I contribute to many a newsletter and have at some time or other been featured in all of the above. But how do we know whether what we produce gets read? How can we increase our readership?

The article offers 10 suggestions, some of which are business orientated, but the things that I picked up that might be useful in a #bellringing newsletter context were:

Offering an interesting “lead magnet” as a sign up incentive. Now, this relates particularly to getting new business sign ups, however, the suggestions offered actually could form part of your regular newsletter offering e.g. “how to tips”, a cheat-sheet (in our case maybe an article that explains a particular method like the way I learned Double Norwich Court Bob Major as first, treble bob, last, near, full, far) accompanied by some diagrams.
Include a sign up link in your email signature. This I thought was interesting mainly from a Central Council perspective and I shall be offering it up to see if it works.
Add a “forward to a friend” button (obviously for digital newsletters). Again, I’m thinking Central Council and local Association websites News Page at the bottom of every article so that if someone likes it and thinks that a friend ought to read it, they can easily forward the link.
Promote your newsletter on your social media to raise awareness. Sounds a bit obvious but do we actually do it? Probably not consistently.

A two minute read at lunch time has now just turned into an evening’s work to see if it’s feasible.