Email Errors: Newsletters

This is the third post in our series on Email Errors. Be sure to check out our first two on attachments and subject lines.

Newsletters have been a part of ministry for as long as I can remember in various forms. Today, many churches have stopped producing printed newsletters to be mailed via USPS in favor of email newsletters. The benefits are stark. Less expense. Easier to produce. And easier to disseminate greater amounts of information to a larger audience.

With all the benefits of email newsletters there are plenty of ways that newsletters can be mishandled. Today we’ll address seven errors people make with their email newsletters.

Unpredictable Frequency

People like routine. For every one person who thrives on change and unpredictability there a hundred people who want their world to be predictable. When you’re sending out newsletters on a random schedule you’re encouraging people to not read it.

So pick a frequency. You could do weekly, monthly, quarterly, or even daily, but you need to be predictable. People will forgive you if you miss a time or two, but if they don’t get a newsletter for three months then all the sudden you flood their inbox with three emails in a day you’re like to lose them.

Boring Subject Lines

If you’re using the same subject line every time you send out an email, stop. It’s so incredibly boring to see “My Church Newsletter XXIII” in your inbox. It doesn’t really help me know what’s going on and people are not as likely to open the email.

You can and should have some sort of regularity and identifiable branding in your newsletters, but add a little preview about what’s in the newsletter. Example: “My Church Newsletter  XXIII: VBS Starts This Week!” That will get more people to read your emails.

Not Having A Defined Purpose for the Newsletter

Have you ever sat down and thought about why you’re writing the newsletter in the first place? Who are you communicating with? What actions are you trying to get people to do? How does your newsletter’s purpose fit into the broader purpose of your organization or department as a whole?

If you don’t have a set purpose for your newsletter you’re likely to run out of ideas for content and end up writing about whatever random ideas you have on the day you’re supposed to send it out.

Putting Everyone’s Email Address in the To Field

This is the easiest way I know of to get people to hate you. People spend an incredible amount of time trying to keep their email address out of the hands of spammers and if you put everyone’s email in the to field you’re just asking people to share that list with others.

Instead of doing that you could put the emails in the BCC field, do a mail merge, or better yet use an email marketing solution (see below).

No Easy, Obvious Way to Unsubscribe

While you want to think that everyone who is getting your newsletter will read every word you’ve written and will forever be a loyal subscriber, that’s not going to happen. People move. They lose interest in your topic. Or they just might not have the time to read all the messages in their inbox every day.

In every newsletter you send you should make it obvious and easy for people to unsubscribe. If you don’t, your email address might get added to their spam filter.

Going Overboard With Formatting

It’s great that you’ve figured out that you can add a fancy background, change the font colors, and use different fonts in your emails. While you might think that adds value and excitement to the newsletter the reality is it doesn’t. It’s actually more distracting than anything else.

Your goal should be to keep the formatting simple. Only use bold fonts or headings to create separate sections and only use one font. A lot of people are reading email on their phones now anyway, so all that work you’ve done on formatting won’t be seen. Keep it simple.

Using Standard Email Software (Outlook, Gmail, etc.) Instead of Email Marketing Solutions

Email marketing has been around for a while now. The basic concept is to make it easy for you to create and send newsletters to a large or small audience and give you a toolset that you don’t get from you standard email software. Some of the best features are:

• Making it easy for people to subscribe and unsubscribe
• Ability to track statistics (open rate, forwarded stats, etc)
• Manage your subscriber list easily
• Advanced formatting options (but remember the point about keeping it simple)
• And quite a bit more

The big dog is Constant Contact and they end up being a bit pricy. There are at least two alternatives out there that offer similar features for less: Mail Chimp (which has a free option) and Mad Mimi. Any option is better than using Outlook.

Those are just some of my thoughts. What experiences do you have in email newsletters? Share in the comments.