Newsletters are incredibly effective ways to stay top of mind with your members and your community, but only if they’re good. Often in our excitement to get our chamber news out we forget the community interest pieces that keep people opening them or we mistake our chamber news faves with community interest.
We’re fast approaching 2017 and if you’ve been thinking about reworking your communication strategy and pieces in the new year, now might be the time to do it.
3 Things to Ditch in Your Chamber Newsletter
Paper
I know, not everyone has email, right? While it’s hard for me to believe that as a business person you don’t even have a personal email in 2016, I’ve been told this does happen. But it still doesn’t mean you have to give up the dream of going paperless. Going paperless saves the chamber printing expense, time, and mailing costs. For members who don’t have emails, direct them to the website. This seems like tough medicine but they can always print it off if they need to.
Long Format
The second thing you want to get rid of after ditching the paper, is a long-form newsletter where every article and piece of information appears in its entirety. Instead, use teasers and partial content and redirect everyone back to your site for the full articles and newsletter. Not only does it drive traffic to your website, but it also keeps the design concise for the reader and less overwhelming. When they click to your site you can also see how much time they spend on the pieces. If they’re separate posts on your site, you can see what has been clicked and viewed. If it opens all as one newsletter, you don’t have that option.
Non-link Format
This is less something to cut than something to do. If you move to an e-newsletter you need to make the most of the fact it’s electronic. Use links. Don’t just scan in ads from members. Link back to their sites. Use video. Don’t treat it like a scanned, static document.
Make 2017 the year of creating a more usable and user-friendly newsletter. Your website traffic will benefit and so will your members.
