Communicate with your Members Effectively with Integrated Newsletter Marketing
Sending emails and newsletters to your members, sponsors and committees should be an easy task for your staff and/or volunteers. Your staff members may not have the time during the week to spend half a day to send one newsletter out to members. If you haven't been sending anything other than renewal reminders and invoices then it may be time to start thinking about marketing additional useful information to members using newsletters.
Newsletter Templates
It is a great idea for your association to have a few newsletter templates already designed and ready to go, creating a more efficient way of sending newsletters. An association may have events, news and any other industry specific information that can be made into their own template. This results in a huge amount of time saved when you want to send an update on your latest upcoming events; all you need to do is choose the events template and change the event details.
On the templates there should be a large image at the top that people can identify with, that represents your association, a few other sections underneath where your content will go and a left hand column is all you need. The left hand column can list in numeric order what is in the issue along with calls to action, additional information and any social media icons allowing members to easily stay connected.
A newsletter template does not need to be complicated and should be kept as simple as possible, so that when it's time to send a newsletter you can easily add the information and any images you may require. Once you have your newsletter templates in place you can use the layout over and over again, saving time and resources.
Knowing who to send your newsletters to can be tricky as you want to be able to target it to a specific group as much as possible. The more targeted your newsletter, the greater the open rate and the more information your members will take away from it and utilise. The Member Evolution integrated CRM database software allows your association to target specific mailing lists based on categories which are all automated.
The mailing list categories are defined by your unique membership types, SIGs, event attendee list and more! You can even send a targeted list to your event attendee list that can be broken down further to either web friends/current members/all. These are just a few examples and combinations that can be created, all tailored to the association requirements.
Another time saving aspect is that the online membership software allows your mailing list to automatically update, and you don't need to waste time updating and adding new members to a list as this becomes time consuming and repetitive.
Targeting your mailing lists also improves member retention and engagement by providing members with information that is of most interest to them. This can result in keeping your members constantly informed and connected with your association which is what your members signed up for in the first place.
Newsletter Results
Now that you have your templates and mailing lists all you need to do is send the newsletter and measure your results. The member management database software allows staff to send the newsletter either straight away or schedule it to send later on a specific time and day of your choice. All you need to do to view your sent newsletters is click on the 'completed mailouts' tab under marketing and view the status and date sent. To view the newsletter open rates and the number of recipients, simply click on 'reports' and view the sent newsletters under 'activity reports'.
All the information is readily available with the easy layout and navigation of the Member Evolution association and membership management software. The CRM, known as the backend of a website, is seamlessly integrated into the one complete online membership software allowing associations to breeze through once time-consuming administration tasks such as sending newsletters.
Find out more on our Member Evolution Association and Membership Management Software and increase your member retention today!
