I’ve been told I could/should be a professional organizer. So when the Board Chair for the IMPACT Conference came to me wanting a website redesign, for a website with nearly 100 pages, it became a fun marriage between my organizing and WordPress skills. By the end of the process, we went live with 20 pages and a look that better expressed the youthful activism of the national conference.
Here are the details of how that happened.
Many non-profits have e-newsletters, but they’re often thought of as something that just “must” be done. Maybe you inherited the e-newsletter from a predecessor or your marketing team has decided to “keep in touch” with donors and supporters. But there are many purposes a non-profit e-newsletter can have and it’s important to identify the primary and secondary purposes so you can evaluate the success of your e-newsletter program.
So let’s take a look at three possible purposes for an e-newsletter and ways to improve given those purposes.
Google AdWords provides a great tool which helps create image ads for free. They’re not the most creative ads, but they will certainly do the trick if you 1) want to run a quick test to see if Google AdWords serves your organization or 2) you don’t have the budget to hire a graphic designer.
Here’s a quick tutorial on creating free Google Image ads:
Along the spectrum of engagement, an e-news subscriber has taken the first very real step toward supporting your organization. But do you actively give all of your fans and supporters the opportunity to subscribe? Consider all of these points of entries and your e-news subscriber list could grow 218%, like the one I managed for three years at a statewide non-profit.
YouTube offers a nice option to overlay text, videos, or polls on your own videos. A card, which used to be called a Call to Action overlay, can be added to any video with the click of a button and a few options for customization.
For example, if your non-profit or business wants to add a poll, that’s an option. Or if you want to direct people to your best video or your website, the Card is a great way to add a layer of interactivity to the video.
Here’s a brief tutorial on adding cards to YouTube videos, after which I’ll describe when your non-profit or small business should insert the Card in the video to keep viewers on the video for longer:
It’s really important to test all aspects of your website, especially if you work for a non-profit with a donation page. Because what if I told you that one change could provide 72% more revenue? Or another change could double the conversion rate of your Give page compared to other options?
These types of experiments and possibilities made me very curious at a non-profit I worked for. This is a case study of A/B testing I did on our Give page there.
It can feel incredibly good to see your e-news subscriber list grow, from the first time you hit the triple digits to the 1,000th subscriber. You’re on a roll when you get to 5,000, 10,000 or more. But at some point, your open or click-thru rates start to stagnate. You can’t get them above some goal or an industry average.
The fact is, on any e-newsletter list there will be people who lose interest or don’t have the time to open and read your messages. Worse yet, your message may be landing in the Gmail promotions tab (a no-man’s land no one wants to be in) or Junk Mail.
What to do?
Time to clean up your e-news subscriber list through a re-engagement campaign.
