 Jim Storer
Sr. Director, Social Media Strategy
Return on Community
 Jim Storer : Return on Community |
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20 Tips for Your Community Newsletter
Communicating with your community members can take many forms... a welcome interview, webinar roundtable, alerts and newsletters (just to name a few). I'm going to take this post to dig deep into that last one... the newsletter. It's easy to pattern it after a familiar email blast template, but you're missing out on some key components. The suggestions that follow are based on both tried/true techniques and wisdom from work I did with Michael Katz at Blue Penguin Development, who is truly gifted at helping enterprises with newsletter strategy.
These are what I consider important components to a successful newsletter. Not all are required and depending on your community you may choose to leave some out of your newsletter. I've attached a wireframe I created at one time to include these elements. It's just an example... have fun developing your own format based on these tips!
- Volume/Issue: Include this info near the top of your newsletter to track progress and create a sense of legitimacy.
- Date: Include Month XX, YEAR to give readers perspective since they may not be reading it in the current month.
- NL Name/Logo: Create a specific logo for your newsletter that's consistent with the theme of your community. This becomes really important when members forward your newsletter to their friends.
- NL Tag Line: Develop a tagline that conveys the frequency (how often), target audience (who) and the benefit to the target audience (what). For example, "Monthly Tips for Successful Community Managers" might be a good tag line for my newsletter (or blog).
- Community Manager Hello/Intro/Signature: This is an authentic welcome and short intro to the newsletter theme and why they should read on. 50-75 words. It's nice to include your picture here to humanize the contents of the newsletter.
- Member Alert: If you're scheduling regular “Members Only” events, this call out is a good way to include it in the newsletter. The goal is to suggest this newsletter is sent to members and create an impetus for non-members to join your community. Needs to have a firm “gate” on the click-through for non-members to realize they aren’t part of something cool. Optional if your community is private/closed.
- Table of Contents: A brief listing of categories and topics contained below with links to the distinct area in the newsletter where each resides.
- Your Story: This is typically the hardest part to write for most community managers. This is a story that relates to your monthly theme. It might be a personal story that touches on an issue in your life that relates to this month's theme. It might relate a water cooler conversation you had with a colleague. Whatever it is, it should speak from the heart and be relevant. For a great example of this in action take a look at Michael's latest newsletter. If you haven't already signed up for Michael's free newsletter about writing newsletter, what are you waiting for?
- Light Tidbit: This is an opportunity for you to add something whimsical or light to the newsletter. It might be a quote (member or not). This is completely optional and might not be appropriate depending on your membership.
- Tell a Friend: Logo and link to promote word-of-mouth registrations for your community.
- Summary Insight: Identify a relevant conversation from your community (related to the theme) and provide a summary here. Should offer non-members a taste of what membership has to offer and link through to the registration form again.
- Feedback Request: Solicit “yes” or “no” feedback from newsletter subscribers (i.e. ask them if this month's newsletter hit the mark) and potentially receive more feedback to make your community stronger. Creating ways for members to give feedback is very important to their ongoing satisfaction.
- Subscribe: Logo and link for someone not already a subscriber to subscribe to the newsletter.
- Additional Resources: Links and short blurbs to additional resources around the newsletter theme, including, expert articles, vendor case studies, web seminars, conferences, etc.
- Mailbag: An area for you to give transparency into responses from feedback (#12). Optional depending on volume of responses.
- Past Issues: Link to each of the last six newsletters and a link to “show all”.
- About Us: Overview of your community with plenty of information on why someone would join.
- Copyright/Opt-out/Logos: Standard boilerplate you create once and use forever. It's essential to give subscribers a way to unsubscribe from your newsletter here.
- Subject Line: Ideally this should be a mashup of your tagline and date (i.e. Monthly Tips for Successful Community Managers - July 2008). It's compelling and forwards well (again supporting word-of-mouth marketing).
- Have fun: This is serious stuff. ;-) You have to enjoy yourself or it'll come through in the newsletter. The personal story may be challenging at first, but you'll start to see opportunities show themself in the day-to-day.
What do you think? Did I miss something? What have you found in writing YOUR newsletter? Let me know what you think and what you'd like me to write about next by leaving a comment. Thanks!
Mon, Jul 14 2008
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Comments |
 Dear CP - I'll think about your questions and consider for a future post or two. I'll also through them over to Dave Wilkins, who is our resident workplace community expert. Thanks for the comment!- Jim
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During the sales process Mzinga is always looking for ways to add value. Thanks for giving us one more example.-Randy
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Jim - love this type of thought leadership. Very helpful. Three Other Areas Have Come Up In Client Discussions I'd love to see future poste on:1. What are the Soft vs Hard ROI benefits of Establishing a Workplace Community ... the practical benefits ?2. How do you more effectively engage all (including the babyboomers/AARP crowd) within the workplace community, without making it too social of a site ? (You can lead a horse to water, but how do you get said horse to drink ?) 3. The value of Executive Leadership Blogs and tips and tricks to make these valuable and continually read throughout the enterprise ? CP
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Great idea. That might work well as a broader theme for one of the months? The story could be illustrate how the community is being more supportive of the members/customers (insert the goal of your community here). I've also used regular blog posts to feed that info back to members, including other people from the organization to spice it up. Thanks for posting! - Jim
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Jim - this is very good and helps us a lot. The only thing I can think of is feeding back into the community how the sponsors are using the information.
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