Keys to Success: Email and Web for Organizations

Keys to Victory: Email and the Web.
Keys to Victory:
Email & the Web.

Quick Poll:
Raise your hand if you have an account with:
Flickr.com, Blogger.com,
Wordpress.com, MySpace.com,
Facebook.com, Digg.com, del.icio.us,
YouTube.com, Gmail, Other social
networking media site.

Key lesson to walk away with…
 We live in a world where “Google” is a
verb. The question is not whether the
message about your organization or
issue is being sent; the question is who
is saying it and what is being said!
 If not you, then who?
 In today’s world, a reaction can be much
to late. You must be proactive.

The key lesson:
While you cannot prevent negative messaging,
you CAN be proactive in populating the full
“picture” about your issue or organization.
Populate the search results with your content,
rally “friendly’s“ to help.
Create and optimize your message so it can be
found on Google and other searches.
If not you, someone else will!

Email Publishing Best practices
Here are 8 “Best Practices” to watch out for
when publishing your email newsletter,
(and what to stay away from)…

 #1: What’s Your Agenda? Before your content,
and before your subscriber acquisition strategy,
you must think long and hard about who your
target audience is and what your agenda is with
them.
Is this a customer retention strategy for your
existing clients? Is it a call to action? Is it a
fund-raiser? Is it an event promotional?

 #2. What can you give them that they
don’t already have? The trouble with
many email newsletters is they try to do
to much. Focus.
Try to be fresh. Make sure you know
what other organizations are using, and
complement with your content or
differentiate yourself all together.

 #3. Shop Around for a good Email Service Bureau: Make
sure they are solvent. Price is not the determining factor here.
Before signing on with an email service provider, get at least
three recommendations from that bureau.
Try to locate some users or former users who will give it to you
straight. Use a service bureau that has an established
reputation.
Also keep in mind the email service bureau business is
complex, and only getting more complex thanks to anti-spam
tools being implemented.
Get someone in your staff to learn as much as possible to avoid
being charged to much and so you know what can be done.
You get what you pay for!

 #4. Pay Attention to domain Reputation: It’s
imperative you protect your domain name
reputation.
Consider publishing your SPF* records and
look into a reputation service like Habeas. Such
a service is quite likely to increase your email
deliverability, open rates, click-through rates
and so on.
* The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an
open standard specifying a technical method to
prevent sender address forgery.

 #5. Develop a Subscriber Acquisition Strategy: You need one.
People leave their jobs and change their email addresses, too. The
average email list churn rate nowadays can easily be higher than 30%.
Tips for boosting your subscriber registration numbers.
1. Put your subscription box near the top of your home page.
2. Offer a juicy incentive, like an article, PDF download, etc. These also
gets passed along and serves as your emissary, which causes more
people to subscribe.
3. Only ask for the email address at first. If you want more information
about your subscribers, offer additional incentives within the newsletter
down the road. Remember, each additional piece of information you ask
for up front severely cuts down on your acquisition rate. On the other
hand, some newsletter publishers will ignore this sub-tip, since more
information makes for a more qualified list.
4. Display your privacy policy clearly and prominently. This is one of
the most popular links on my site, along with the next one…
5. Display a sample issue. People like to see what they’re signing up for
before they hand over their email address.

 #6. Subject Lines Are Critical: Your subject
line needs to stop the reader from the repetitive
motion of hitting that delete key. Keep you
subject lines short.
Many people are using the Internet to find
something out or learn how to do something.
Some have seen “How to” subject headers blow
the doors off response rates. Real news works,
too. The more specific, the better. In short, tell
me something I don’t already know.

 #7. Look & Feel: Make it easy for the reader to skim
your newsletter. If your readers are slowing down and
read your newsletter, good for you.
But assume your readers are pressed for time every bit
as much as you are. The more control you give them, the
more they’ll appreciate it.
If you force the reader into clicking too many times or
filling out too many forms to get at what he or she wants,
you will be dropped like a hot potato.
It’s similar to being routed around and around on one of
those annoying phone systems.

 #8. Read Your Newsletter Out Loud: Unless
you’re comfortable actually speaking the words
you write, your newsletter “voice” will come
across as phony.
Have your newsletter come from somebody in
your organization, instead of just your company
name. It’s a good way to stand out is to be
human, and have your emails sound like they
came from one.

Email Opt-In: A Key Thought
Some thoughts from Politics Online 2007
Email Opt-In is not just about legal
compliance; its about getting your
subscriber to commit to your
organization.
On YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ka9Yzw5VNc

Email Technical Best Practices
These are 12 technical related best practices for email communications:
 Subject line use: Used personalization and action, conveyed information
enticingly, short length, avoided bad practices such as all capitals.
 Sender from name: Company or brand name, not email address, generic
department or unfamiliar person’s name.
 Sender line email address: includes company or brand name, not generic
address such as reply@xyz.com or info@xyz.com.
 Accommodates preview pane and blocked images: Key content displayed
even with images blocked or only a portion is viewable; use of text links.
 Link to Web version: Link provided, preferably near the top
 Forward-to-a-friend link: Button or text link to Web form to launch a copy of the
message to another recipient.
 Profile/address update/change: Provide a link anywhere in the email to allow
reader to change address or preferences.
 Opportunity to subscribe: Provide a button or link to a subscription form.
 Unsubscribe link: Provide a working button or link to an unsubscribe page.
 Subscriber administration center: Block of copy containing crucial information
including email address, unsubscribe link, contact information, privacy policy and
any other standing information.
 Display recipient’s email address: Display the subscriber’s email address
anywhere in the email.
 Request to add sender to safe-senders list: Text line, preferably placed at or
near the top of the email.

Some examples…

Email Summary
The Internet is not one medium--It’s a
bundle of media. Email newsletters are
one strand in that bundle. They’re an
extraordinarily cost-effective way of
disseminating information because just
about anybody you want to reach now
has an email inbox.

Why use social networks & blogs?
 Inexpensive way to reach and engage your audience.
Q: Who’s your audience, and where can they be found?
 People like to feel they are part of a community.
Q: What are elements of your community you can leverage?
Sports team, celebrity, renowned business expert, author, etc.
 Your audience is already socializing and engaging
through them.
Figure out where they are, and take your message to them.
 It gives you an opportunity to listen.
Social networks provide a good avenue for feedback and
conversation.

Why use social networks & blogs?
Fifty million Americans, or 30 percent of all American Internet
users, visited a blog in the first quarter of 2005, according to a new
report from Comscore, and sponsored in part by SixApart and Gawker
Media. Traffic increased by 45 percent from the first quarter of
2004.
The average blog reader viewed 77 percent more pages than the
average Internet user who doesn't read blogs (16,000 versus 9,000 for
the quarter), the report found. Blog readers average 23 hours online per
week, compared with the overall Web user's average of 13 hours.
Blog readers are 11 percent more likely than the average Internet user
to have incomes of or greater than $75,000. Similarly, blog readers are
11 percent more likely to visit the Web over broadband either at home
or the office.
Blog readers tend to make more online purchases. In the first quarter of
2005, less than 40 percent of the total Internet population made online
purchases. By contrast, 51 percent of blog readers shopped online.
Blog readers also spent six percent more than the average Internet
user.

4 Tips for Winning in a Web World
 Identify your audience. Who are you trying to reach and
what do you want to achieve? Where are they (as far as
online)?
 Use viral friendly content. Photos, wallpaper, SHORT
videos, songs, or audio, quizzes, anything that makes it
easy to share your message, your culture, your
community.
 Keep it fresh. Update daily if possible, at minimum
weekly. Staleness will kill your social networking program
or campaign.
 Re-circulate your own traffic, and utilize a number of
different sites. Link, link link… send people around your
whole network. From your main site, to your blog, to your
Flickr page, to your Facebook page, to your YouTube
page. Import your blog feed into your Facebook profile,
etc. Remember: Cross linking increases ranking!
 More Tips: http://www.josuesierra.net/?p=73

Case Study: Oxfam America
Search for Oxfam America on MySpace, and Flickr for more:
 Oxfam used MySpace to embed videos, and they have had more
than 1000 people sign up for emails from their sign up box in
MySpace!
 From experience, they say that MySpace doesn’t seem to be
effective for fund-raising at this point. (probably the same for other
social networking sites)
 They are using Flickr.com to post pictures that link back to their
main website. This is specially effective when you have pictures of
a celebrity, since it will be higher on the search frequency.
 http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Oxfam%20America&w=all

Case Study: Jet Blue
 Great way to do Crisis
message management
 Can turn a lemon into
lemonade, increasing visibility,
and focusing your message
against an onslaught of
negative publicity.
 Leverages negative news
coverage to drive your own
positive message through the
use of tags and keywords.

10 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs
1. To report back from an event or conference
2. To involve staff and take advantage of their knowledge
3. To involve volunteers and document their work
4. To provide resources and information to constituents
5. To provide resources and information from constituents
6. To give constituents a place to voice their opinion
7. To give constituents support
8. To create the media coverage constituents want
9. To give constituents the power and tools to create change
10. To reach potential donors
Blogs are not replacements for paper newsletters or e-newsletters, they are
an additional way to reach a certain audience.

YouTube: The addictive, Must Play Game
5 Key Elements of Game Mechanics:
 Collecting: items, artifacts, tools, friends…
 Points: page views, comments, ratings…
 Feedback: metrics, validation, tracking…
 Exchanges: recommendations, “diggs”,
 Customization: header, url, templates,

Making your site addictive:
GOP.com is a
good example
of the use of
game play
mechanics to
develop an online
community for a
political organization.

Starting tips…
 Get top/executive buy-in: Make sure your efforts have tangible and
measurable deliverables that are in line with your organization’s overall
strategies and goals.
 Establish responsibilities, recruit volunteers or/and interns. If the work
load is shared among several individuals, it makes the campaign more
effective. It has to be a chapter-wide effort.
 Pick one or two social network sites that works best for your
organization, audience or message.
 If local, Think Local: Find local bloggers and other local sites to connect
with and gain their support to spread your message. Let your email list know
about your efforts on the web. Use local celebrities, sports stars, community
leaders, etc. in your viral content, if possible.
 Don’t SPAM: Ad value through your content, and engage in a two-way
conversation by replying to comments, and posting relevant content.
 Be patient, Plan Ahead. Give it time to spread and grow. Prepare for the
future by propagating your message ahead of time when possible.
 Commit to continual learning and accountability. Make sure your efforts
(email, site, blog, etc) are measurable, so you can improve with each effort.

Q & A
Go to http://www.josuesierra.net and
leave your comments about the
presentation, or questions I don’t get to
answer today.
jmsierra@josuesierra.net
Thank you for your attention.

Keys to Success: Email and Web for Organizations

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Keys to Success: Email and Web for Organizations