Our emails are TOO long!

[Joint.Initiatives.for.Youth.and.Families]

We update our early childhood community once a month with LOTS of content and opportunities. We share a lot of information from other organizations and on a wide variety of topics. I am looking for ways to package information creatively. Some of our information we include month-to-month can live on our website, so I'm going to start there, but would appreciate any ideas!

Here's the link to view our latest email: conta.cc/3uE0q1T

Thanks,

Angela McKibben

[John_M]

Hello @Joint.Initiatives.for.Youth.and.Families ,

If you want you can segment your contact list out into smaller audiences. So instead of sending out one long email with all information within it you could create small shorter emails that cover just a few topics within each. So for example, if an individual only wants to see topics one and two, they get that email covering topics one and two being on that one list. Then when you send out a campaign covering topics three and four those on the topic three and four list get it and so on.

Another option for you is using dynamic content within the email. Dynamic content blocks let you customize one email to show or hide content based on the details you've collected from your contacts, such as their city, state, job title, or any custom field you’ve created. This allows your contacts to only see what is relevant to them. I have attached an article covering more about dynamic content blocks here.

[Joint.Initiatives.for.Youth.and.Families]

Hi,

Thanks for the information - our list is 1500 people and I don't have enough information about which contacts want to see different kinds of information to make segmenting a viable solution.

Thanks,

Angela

[GDEC]

As editor of a monthly newsletter for a nonprofit community service organization, I think I have a lot of the same problems.  By the time we try to include everything new that we think out members should know, plus highlights of what our clubs are doing (we have 37 in our state) we have a rather large newsletter.

One of the things that I am going to try this month is to insert more video links of videos that our locals have placed on YouTube with just a tease above them.  I am rather curious to know if you have any statistics if this has worked for others, and any other suggestions to tell the stories and yet cut down the size of what we are sending out?

I have sent out a survey to non openers and the vast majority want to remain on our list and continue to receive our newsletter.  Some have suggested more photos and videos and less reading. 

Just looking for suggestions.

Buzz  

[Joint.Initiatives.for.Youth.and.Families]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I've found that linking graphics to further info is a great way to present my information. I also try to layer my info so that things match - the flyer, the graphic in my event, and then the graphic in the newsletter are all consistent in design.

I also am creating landing pages for some of my broader topics - yet another way to link people to further info on the topics that interest them most.

Thanks,

Angela

[Kyle_R]

Great topic Angela! I do see newsletter length come up more often as a concern for non-profits because there is so much to fit in between news, updates, events, resources, and potentially fundraising. 

@GDEC - I think a survey or poll is a great idea for getting feedback on your newsletter! Asking about sending cadence is another good question to ask. If you find yourself having too much content in a monthly newsletter, would subscribers prefer two shorter newsletters sent out every two weeks? Video is also a good idea, I think the video thumbnails can be quite eye-catching and you can relay a lot of information in a short video.

John_M gave some good advice previously around the possibility of segmenting your list into smaller groups. Perhaps the club leaders in each state would like an additional email each month with more info, and the email to all members is more generalized - just as a potential example.

You both do a good job of including links to read more on each topic. Reviewing the click reporting after each campaign may help shed some light on which topics are most interesting to your readers. Though I will mention it's normal for your top clicked links to be the ones at the top of your email, so you may see click throughs decreasing as the links get further down the email. This might not indicate a lack of interest in the other links, but instead might show where readers are starting to drop off, which will be good to keep in mind as you are planning the length of your future campaigns. I think the heat map report is a good way to visualize this, but it will only show your top 5 links.

Last thing I'll mention, is that layout-wise you can fit a lot of content into these two layout blocks:

Having three side by side in one row with shorter captions, could clear up some space visually. 

The block with 5 links is also nice if you do end up linking back to your website more for some content. We will often see people utilize the link block to match the navigation layout of their website and link back to the main sections of the webpage.

Hope some of that is helpful. We'd love to hear back from you on anything you tried and how it worked!

[Joint.Initiatives.for.Youth.and.Families]

Hi,

Great information - thank you! I've generally kept our newsletter to the single column or article/image format since information stacks up on mobile anyway. 

I think what will work for me is creating landing pages on my broader topics. Here's a couple of samples:

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/cu/mFvM94I

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/cu/dUfU75x/PD

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/cu/mFvM94I/CS

Thanks,

Angela