1. A Well-Understood Niche

When people are seeking out experts, they are looking for answers to very specific questions. Experts on broad subject areas are a dime a dozen. What’s more valuable are experts on very specific niches within a larger field.

Let’s take animal rights for example. Say you are a reporter working on a story about how animals are treated in circuses and other entertainment venues. You wouldn’t be interested in talking to some general animal rights advocate who would give you broad quotes and statistics about animal rights. You also wouldn’t be interested in talking to someone who focused on protecting cats and dogs from abuse, or someone who advocated vegetarianism to protect farm animals.

You’d want to talk to someone who knew something about elephants, tigers, and sea mammals in captivity, and specifically about how those animals fare when they are performers. Therefore, you’d look for someone who made it known that they worked on those specific issues.

At the same time, you shouldn’t define your niche so narrowly that people outside your field don’t understand the distinctions you are making.

2. A Solid Track Record

Can you back up what you are saying with a description of your experience, research, or training? Do others in your field consider you a leader - and if so, how do you know that? Sometimes a good title is all you need to be deemed credible, but more often than not, you’ll also need some kind of track record to back you up. A list of publications you’ve written, conferences you’ve spoken to, and articles where you’ve been quoted previously can all demonstrate your track record.

3. Trustworthy

No one likes to be misled with bad information or an incomplete story. Always tell the truth. If you don’t know an answer, it’s OK to guess, but make sure the person you are talking to knows you are guessing.

It’s also important to be upfront about any biases your organization has. If there’s a broad range of opinion on your issues, be clear about where you fit on that spectrum. It’s OK to have strong opinions and to advocate for them, but you’ll win points if you are transparent about your bias, acknowledge that you represent one particular point of view, and even point a reporter to someone who can offer an opposing perspective.

4. Accessible

You are no good as a source if people can’t reach you when they need you. Put your contact information out there. Reporters are often working on deadlines that fall outside normal business hours, so give them your mobile number and take calls in the evening and weekends if that’s when they need you (it’s OK to ask if the call can wait until a better time, and if not, to say you only have a few minutes). Check your messages regularly and return calls and emails promptly.

5. Cooperative

Being a genius or a great speaker doesn’t make you a great source unless you give people what they really need. If a reporter only needs a soundbite or a few short quotes, think and speak in bullet points; don’t ramble on. If someone asks about an issue you find boring or inconsequential, don’t blow off the question and start talking about what you care about. Answer the question first, then suggest a few additional points.

Want More? Nonprofit Marketing Guide offers a webinar on “How to Position Your Nonprofit as an Expert Source.” Check the webinar schedule.

Here are my top five tips for writing the best possible subject lines for your email newsletter.

1. Describe the Candy, Not the Wrapper

Tell us what goodies are inside this email, not about the packaging. In other words, don’t put “Go Green Association Newsletter, Volume 5, Issue 7″ in your subject line. Instead, tell us what’s in this edition of the newsletter, such as “How to Live in Harmony with Backyard Wildlife.”

Here is another wrapper: “Agency Schedules Series of Parenting Workshops.” What we really want is the candy: “How to Discipline Your Child, Pack Healthy Lunches.” Even if you have multiple topics in your newsletter, experiment with subject lines that emphasize only one or two topics.

Always change your email subject line from edition to edition, too. “Simple Tips to Save Money and the Planet” may be a good subject line for one newsletter, but don’t use it over and over. Instead, provide that consistency by using the same name/organization in the “from” field for each edition.

2. Emphasize the Personal Value of Your Content

It’s the old “what’s in it for me?” question. Why should I take precious time out of my busy day to read your email? I will, if you are providing information I want, need, or am curious about, or if reading your email will help me do something faster, cheaper, easier or otherwise make my life more pleasant, enjoyable, or meaningful.

Subject lines that make readers think “This is useful” or “This is timely” or “This is about me” will always work. For example, an environmental group might send out a message with this subject: “States Challenge Federal Drinking Water Regulations in Court.” This may be an important public policy issue, but the subject line doesn’t grab me. This, on the other hand, would: “Is Slightly Dirtier Drinking Water OK with You?” Now I immediately see the impact of this policy on me.

One study says the first two words of your subject line should convey that personal value. Questions can also make great subject lines, because they imply that you’ll be answering that question and giving me information I want to know.

3. Don’t Tell People What to Do

While I always recommend that you include a call to action in every email (and with every email article), some research shows that telling people what to do in the subject line itself can hurt your open rates. This is particularly true when asking people to “help” or “donate” or “register.” Specific calls to action are great within the body of the email, but lean toward the “personal value” words for the subject line. For example, “Where to Dance All Night with Your Best Friends” will work better than “Register for Our All-Night Dance-a-thon Fundraiser.”

4. Keep It Short

You’ll find all kinds of advice on just how many characters are optimal for email subject lines. Some go as high as 60 characters, including spaces. Somewhere around 35 characters seems to be the ideal now, but some people argue that even shorter is better (more like 20 characters). You can play with subject line length and see what works for you, but do try to keep it under 60 characters tops.

5. Piggyback on Hot Topics and Brand Names

Think about what’s hot in the news right now. What products and services are people talking about now? How can you relate your work back to big brand names?

The Humane Society of the United States uses this tactic often, as they did with a December 2, 2008 email subject line: “Will Obama create an animal-friendly administration?” Obama is a huge hot topic (and a hot “brand” too) - and the question format is especially intriguing. The body of the email urges supporters to write President-Elect Obama about his picks for Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Agriculture, both of which oversee federal regulations affecting animals. Note how that call to action was wisely not in the subject line.

Want More E-Newsletter Tips?

Check our webinar schedule for upcoming training on email marketing and fundraising.

Also see these articles:

• Steps for Creating a Nonprofit Email Campaign or E-Newsletter
• Quick Tips for Better Nonprofit Email Newsletters
• 12 Easy Ways to Build Your Nonprofit’s Email List
• Interview Questions to Help You Write Great Donor, Volunteer and Client Profiles for Your Newsletters
• Online Writing: Your Top Five Questions

Read through some other articles I’ve bookmarked on writing email subject lines.

On November 13, 2008, Kivi Leroux Miller (Nonprofit Marketing Guide) and  Lindy Dreyer (SocialFish.org) hosted a free half-hour webinar on how to use social media tools to listen to conversations taking place online about your organization and the issues you care about - and to keep track of the online movers and shakers in your field.

We talked about why you should be listening to online conversations and how you can use what you hear to improve your nonprofit’s programs and marketing. We also walked through how to set up several easy, free listening tools.

Watch the Half-Hour Recording (Windows Media Video .wmv)

Links to Tools We Covered

http://www.google.com/alerts
http://www.google.com/reader *
http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.facebook.com/

* You might enjoy this Common Craft video about Google Reader, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSPZ2Uu_X3Y

Two More Tools to Explore We Didn’t Have Time to Cover

Twitter Search – See what people are saying about your organization and issues on the popular social site, Twitter. You can subscribe to your search results in your feed reader.
http://search.twitter.com/

Technorati – Similar to Google Blog Search, Technorati is a blog search engine that also measures a blog’s “authority” which is the number of other blogs linking to that website in the last six months.
http://www.technorati.com/

Also see the SocialFish bibliography on listening and the WeAreMedia page on listening.

By Kivi Leroux Miller

To write a good profile about a client, donor, volunteer or other supporter of your nonprofit organization, you need to see several sides of that person. One good way to do that is to conduct an interview. You can interview in person, over the phone, or via email.

The specific questions you ask and how you word them will depend on the relationship between that person and your organization, how much time you have, and how long you want the profile to be. You’ll pose questions about working with your nonprofit a little differently, based on whether the person is a donor, volunteer or recipient of services.

You’ll usually want answers that relate back both to the nonprofit itself and to the larger issues or cause that the nonprofit works on.

Here are my 25 favorite interview questions. I’ve never used all 25 at once, because the profiles I write are usually only 500-700 words and the people I’m interviewing often really busy. On average, I pick ten questions. Adjust the wording to meet your needs — insert real names, places, topics, etc. that relate directly to your subject.

• Tell me how you first got involved in with (the Nonprofit or the Cause) . . .
• What was your first impression of (the Nonprofit)?
• What’s your first memory of (something related to the Cause)?
• What has surprised you most about working with (Nonprofit or Cause)?
• What do you find most challenging about (the Cause)?
• What’s the best/worst thing to happen since you started working with (the Nonprofit)?
• When you last (volunteered, made a donation, etc.), how did that make you feel?
• If you could change one thing about (the Cause or Nonprofit), what would it be?
• What do you wish other people knew about (the Cause or the Nonprofit)?
• Why are you supporting (the Nonprofit) as opposed to other groups working on (the Cause)?
• Tell me about some of the people you’ve met while working on (the Cause)?
• What would you say are some of your strongest beliefs about (the Cause)?
• What’s your personal philosophy on what should be done about (the Cause)?
• When your friends/family find out that you (volunteer, donate, etc.), what do they say or ask?
• Tell me about someone who has influenced your decision to work with (the Nonprofit)?
• What might (someone) be surprised to know about you?
• The interest in (the Cause) seems to be growing/waning. Why do you think that is?
• What would you tell someone who is thinking about (donating, volunteering, etc.)?
• What do you think will change about (the Cause or the Nonprofit) over the next five years?
• What’s it like to be a (volunteer, client, donor) or (the Nonprofit)?
• If you weren’t (volunteering, using their services, etc.), what would you be doing instead, or what would your life be like?
• As a (client, volunteer, donor), what sorts of trends do you see?
• How would (someone) describe you?
• What do you do when you aren’t (working, volunteering)?
• What else can you tell me about (the Nonprofit or the Cause)?

And don’t forget to follow-up on interesting answers! Here are some good follow-up questions:

• What makes you say that?
• How do you know that?
• Why do you feel that way?
• Can you give me an example?
• Has that ever happened before (or since)?
• How would you respond to someone who disagrees with you about that?

Whether your email campaign is about grassroots outreach, advocacy, or fundraising, the basic steps you need to take to pull it off are the same.

Get more tips like these emailed to you regularly by signing up for our free e-newsletters to the left, under the blue bar. We will never share your address with anyone and you can unsubscribe at any time.

1. Get an email newsletter service provider.

This is a must-do. There are several affordable services for nonprofits, including Network for Good’s EmailNow by Emma and iContact.

If you are sending mass email, the number doesn’t matter. You still shouldn’t do it from Outlook or your regular email account for many reasons (you could have your entire email account labeled as a spammer, you have no way to measure success, etc.) Providers will also save you tons of time (and thus money too) and give you lots of extras, like sign-up forms and open/click-through reports.

2. Get your current mailing list into shape.

First of all, do you know who’s on it? Understanding the typical person on your list will help you develop content that works for them.

Are there any obvious ways you should be segmenting your list? For example, do you have two or three distinct audiences who really aren’t interested in the same types of articles and info from you?

Do you have names collected offline that you can add to your email list? It’s really best for those people to have said they definitely want email from you, but as long as you have an existing business relationship, you can email them. Just be sure to always make it easy to opt-out (more on that later).

If you have been emailing regularly using an email service provider, are you making sure that bounces are removed from the list? Don’t keep emailing to bad addresses.

Carefully managing your list is the best way to avoid spam filters. Send what people want to the people who really want it.

3. Make it really easy for people to join your list and manage their own subscriptions.

Put your sign-up form on your website in a very obvious place - ideally in your template so it appears on every page.

Offer incentives to encourage people to sign-up (explain what goodies come in your newsletter, offer special downloads, auto-responder series, etc.)

Consider letting people segment themselves on the sign-up form by interest or how often they’d like to be emailed.

Shoot for a double-opt in system, or be prepared for more manual list management if you go with single opt-in.

Include a link to your privacy policy, where you say you won’t sell, rent, or trade their email addresses to others (and then don’t!).

Encourage people to change their email addresses themselves (if your system allows it) and respect all opt-outs. It’s better to lose a subscriber than to have that person tag you as a spammer.

Ask people to sign-up for your e-newsletter in offline forums (including various forms you ask people to fill out) and set up a system to regularly add them to your database.

4. Create an editorial calendar a few months at a time.

Think about what’s going on in the next few months, not only in your organization, but in your community and on the calendar.

Pick a schedule that works for you and the people on your list based on past experience. Monthly, twice a month, weekly? If you aren’t sure where to start, try every two weeks and adjust from there.

Plan out some topics, mixing good information with calls to action and fundraising appeals.

Be prepared to adjust your topics based on what’s happening in the headlines (that shows you are timely and current, which are big bonuses in email marketing).

Consider an “evergreen” autoresponder series for new subscribers.

5. Write and design your email messages - always with your readers in mind.

Pay very close attention to your subject line - make it benefit-laden or intriguing for the reader.

Talk directly and personally to your readers. Write articles that are timely, helpful, and interesting to them.

Make sure readers understand how important they are to your success.

Include specific calls to action and links that make following through as simple as possible. Do you want them to donate, volunteer, register, tell a friend, learn more, write a email, make a call or what?

Your executive director and board ARE NOT your target audience.

If you aren’t comfortable with HTML, start with a template from your service provider.

Design for the preview pane, and use mostly text with a few good images.

Appeal to skimmers: use headlines, subheads and short chunks of text.

Send in MIME - It’s HTML by default, with a plain text version for those who can’t read HTML.

Consider some split-testing.

6. Measure the results and track over time.

How many people are opening the email? Clicking on links and which ones? Following through on calls to action, like donating? Unsubscribing? Bouncing?

Adjust accordingly.

Get more tips here: “10 Surprisingly Easy and Startlingly Effective Ways to Improve Your Nonprofit E-Newsletter”

And check out our weekly webinar schedule for real-world, affordable training on a variety of nonprofit marketing topics.

Additional Studies

2008 eNonprofit Benchmark Study — basic benchmarking stats for nonprofit email performance.

2008 Convio Online Marketing Nonprofit Benchmark Index Study — more benchmarking stats for nonprofit email performance.

The Wired Wealthy: Using the Internet to Connect with Your Middle and Major Donors (2008) — describes the different types of online donors and emphasizes that they want control over how much email they get. Also contains great advice on what kind of content people want to see.

“Rapid Donor Cultivation” by Common Knowledge — using a series of emails to move new subscribers toward making a donation.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s info on CAN-SPAM Act (Nonprofits ARE considered commercial emailers.)

Industry Canada’s info on PIPEDA (Canadian spam law) and the OECD Task Force on Spam

To get your e-newsletter right, you not only have to worry about the content and design, but the various technology issues associated with getting it delivered and into in-boxes rather than spam filters.

Here are three common questions and answers about email newsletters.

1. How do we get people to read our e-newsletter?

It all starts with the subject line. The busier your supporters are, the more likely they are to look at your email subject line and nothing else before deciding whether to read it or delete it. Pack your subject lines with details about what’s inside, emphasizing the benefits to the reader of taking a few extra seconds to see what’s in the body of the message. That’s a tall order for 50-60 characters, which is the rule of thumb for subject line length. Your subject line should change with every edition. Don’t waste space with dates, edition numbers, sender info, etc. The only exception would be if you have a very short, memorable, and meaningful newsletter title. For more tips, see Best Practices in Writing Email Subject Lines (MailChimp).

2. I’m not a graphic designer or webmaster. How do I make our email newsletter look good?

People expect to read email, which means they are looking for words. They don’t expect the same visual stimulation that they do when they visit a web page. It’s much more important to say something timely, interesting, or valuable than it is to produce a newsletter that’s visually stunning.

At the same time, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use a stylish design and photos. Just make sure that the text gets top billing and wraps cleanly around any graphic elements, especially since those items will appear as big red Xs to a big chunk of your readers. And don’t worry about needing serious design or HTML skills to produce an email newsletter. All of the major email newsletter service providers offer many templates to pick from (and yes, you should use a service rather than sending it yourself from Outlook or Gmail or whatever you use).

3. How do we get people to join our email list?

First of all, send out your newsletter regularly. An active list is much more likely to grow because people will forward it to friends and tell people about the great info they saw in your newsletter. Next, make sure it’s really easy to sign up. Include a simple sign-up box on your website, ideally on every page, but on your homepage at a minimum. And make changing an address very easy. Ideally, subscribers to your newsletter can update their own email addresses with just a few clicks. The harder you make it, the less likely they are to do it and the more likely they are to drop off your list permanently.

Learn more about improving your email newsletter during our weekly webinar series.

1) Never Lead with Your Mission Statement.

Reporters need news and features that are relevant for today. They don’t care about when or why your organization was founded or even how you want to change the world. They do care about what’s happening in the community right now, what conflicts are brewing, and how things are changing for the better and for the worse. Lead with something that will make a reporter say, “Huh, I didn’t know that!” and save the background for the very bottom of your press release.

2) Gimme a Real Meal Deal, Hold the BS.

If the quotes in your press release have to be edited and approved by more than three people, odds are they aren’t going to sound like something a real person would say in conversation. If you start a quote with “We are pleased . . .” or “We are honored . . .”, BS most likely follows. Get beyond the blah, blah, blah quotes by saying something a little bit surprising or expressing a strong opinion. Bring what’s happening down to the personal level — in other words, be real. Those are the kinds of quotes reporters can use.

3) K-I-S-S Me You Fool!

KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. After writing really bad quotes, the next problem with press release writing by committee is loading up the release with way too much stuff. Everyone wants their favorite little tidbits thrown in. If others in your organization keep asking, “But what about . . .?” and “Don’t you think we should include. . .?” always come back to your lead paragraph where you make your main point. Does this new information completely support your existing angle? If not, save it for another time. Focus on your angle, cover the Five Ws and H (who, what, when, why, where, and how), throw in some good quotes and stop.

Learn more about improving the ways your nonprofit works with the media during our weekly webinar series.

I get lots of question about writing for the web and email. Here are my rapid-fire responses to the five most popular questions.

1. What do people want to read in our email newsletter or website?

Whatever they find interesting. Note this is not necessarily what you think they should care about! Always put yourself in your readers’ shoes. I wrote more about this on my blog this week in “Online Writing: It’s All about Answers and Actions.”

2. Should we write in a newsy, factual style or a more personal, chatty style?

It really depends on your organization and the value you are providing to your readers, but in general, I advise nonprofits to lean toward a more conversational style. Readers expect a more friendly, casual tone with online writing (perhaps to counter the fact that the technology they read it on seems so impersonal).

3. How long should our e-newsletter and website articles be?

When you are converting from print to pixels, the rule of thumb is to cut the length in half. Use 500 words as a target and adjust from there. Always include headings and subheadings. The longer the article, the more you need them. See “The Art of Chunking: An Online Writing Essential” for more on breaking up your text.

4. What font, size, and color should we use for our website and email newsletters?

No matter what you pick, make sure that it’s very easy to read. Online readers skim more than read, which makes legibility even more important. Verdana and Georgia were both designed for the screen and Arial and Trebuchet work well online too. Err on the side of too large rather than too small. Use dark text on light backgrounds.

5. What’s the most important part of an e-newsletter article or web page content?

The headlines and subheadings, followed by the first few sentences of each section. That’s where people will look first to decide whether to stop and read. (I bet you skimmed the five questions in bold before deciding to read this article, didn’t you?)

Learn more about improving your writing during our weekly webinar series.

How do you get people to visit it?

There are lots of different strategies. But when you narrow them down to the lowest-cost and highest-impact options, you’ll find the list is actually pretty manageable.

Here are my top three strategies for nonprofits to focus on when trying to lure new visitors to your website.

1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Make sure Google and the other search engines not only know about your site, but know what it’s really about. Do you know your keywords and are you highlighting them correctly for the search engines?

2) Inbound Links. Quality links to your site serve two important purposes: First, when I’m on a website of an organization I trust, and they link to you, you automatically get some of that trust too. It’s an online form of word-of-mouth marketing. Second, the search engines rely on links to help determine who gets on the all-important first page of search results.

3) Great Content. Does your site include the kind of information people are seeking when they go online? Are you listening to what others are saying in your field and talking about the hot topics too? Attract visitors by delivering the goods!

Learn more about improving your nonprofit’s website and online marketing during our weekly webinar series.

Trend #1: “I am Donor, Hear Me Roar!”

Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Social Networking, Flipping the Funnel, Donor-Advised Funds — for nonprofit communicators, they all boil down to one concept: donors using philanthropy as a form of self-expression. Who they give to is part of their personal identity. Cultivate and nurture that self-expression to benefit your nonprofit.

Trend #2: Facts We Forget; Stories We Remember

Mainstream advertising is full of storytelling (think of the UPS White Board and the GEICO customers with actors telling their stories). We remember stories much more easily than facts and figures, which means we can share them more easily with friends and family. Tell stories to engage your donors in your work, to reinforce their giving decisions, to inspire them to do more, and to encourage more word-of-mouth marketing on your behalf.

Trend #3: Feeding the Snack-Size Culture

Americans want everything to be convenient, fast, affordable, and easy to digest, from food to news to charitable giving. We like options (but not too many) and instant gratification. You have to grab your readers’ attention immediately and get to the point fast. Make everything easy — from skimming your newsletter to contacting your office — or donors won’t do it.

• So What Does This Mean for Your Newsletter?
• Few to no stock articles. Customize those you do use with specifics from your organization and donors.
• Great stories about donors, in all kinds of shapes and forms that match the personalities of the individual donors you are profiling.
• Don’t just talk about your donors - let them express themselves.
• Shorter articles that are more personal, friendly, and engaging — in other words, more human.
• Clear, benefit-laden copy that’s easy to skim, including great headlines and subheadings.
• Shorter, more frequent mailings (whether in print, email, or both).

Learn more about improving your nonprofit’s publications during our weekly webinar series and on-demand courses.