4.01: Why people ignore your newsletter

Newsletter basics...

Part 1 of 3

In 1995, The Russ Reid Company in conjunction with George Barna of the Barna Research Group, conducted a landmark study of U.S. donors.

This "Heart of the Donor" study quizzed a random sample of 1,164 donors* across America about their preferences and opinions. Among its questions, the study asked donors how the nonprofits they supported could best "keep in touch [and] help you feel more closely connected to and interested in the work of the organization."

The study concluded, "We identified a single stand-out: newsletters. Almost three-quarters of all donors claimed that receiving a regular newsletter would INCREASE their focus upon and interest in an organization." [Emphasis added.]

And yet recently one of America's most experienced fundraisers told me, "Every time we survey, donors tell us they don't read the newsletters."

Contradiction? Not really.

Newsletters aren't read for one simple (well, pretty simple) reason: because they're not interesting at a glance.

Over the past few years, I've reviewed hundreds of newsletters from all sorts of nonprofits. Most of these newsletters share a few fatal flaws.

Flaw #1: They don't use "news"-like language. They fail, therefore, to speak persuasively to the part of the brain that craves drama and fresh ideas.

Flaw #2: They write a weak "browser-level." They don't take advantage of the fact that people browse first, looking at all the easy-to-read stuff, and only then (and rarely) commit to reading any deeper. Bad headlines lead the list of gaffes.

Flaw #3: They don't know how to prioritize. They confuse readers by putting unimportant information in high-value locations. What would you think of a newspaper that devoted its front page to stories that didn't matter? And yet how many nonprofit newsletters waste their front page issue after issue on windy opinion pieces like "From the Executive Director's Desk"?

Flaw #4: They lose sight of their audience. They forget, for instance, that a donor newsletter is NOT about how the organization does things. A donor newsletter is about accomplishment, vision, and recognition. It answers three reader questions: (1) "How have I, the donor, changed the world because I gave you a gift?" (2) "How could I change the world even more if I gave you additional money?" and (3) "How important am I to you?"

Together, these four flaws are more than enough to spell certain doom for any nonprofit newsletter.

Luckily, they're all pretty easy to fix.

Let's look at just Flaw #1 in this issue. Next issue we'll tackle Flaws #2 through #4.

I have a wonderful example I show in my workshop. It's a cover of Maclean's, "Canada's Weekly Newsmagazine," from a recent February issue. There are four stories featured on the cover: "The Web - Waging War on Hackers," "Climate - The Peril of Warmer Weather," "Europe - Neo-Fascists on the March," "Sikh Power – The struggle for faith – and the legacy of violence."

Notice anything?

Highly charged, dramatic language? Conflict, perhaps?

As reported by Maclean's, we're not just pursuing and prosecuting hackers, we're "waging war" on them. This particular issue came out in February. Spring is coming. It does every year. Good thing? Maybe not. "The peril of warmer weather." And remember what happened the last time the Neo-Fascists were on the march in Europe? World War Two, 50 million dead.

That's news writing, from a top publication. It's exciting! It makes you restless! It promises to tell you something you DON'T know! It scares the pants off you!

And what does this kind of highly charged language do? It increases readership. Why? Because intense, excited language speaks to the part of your personality called "the Expressive." The Expressive craves excitement and the new. (See back issue 1.3 for a full profile.)

Please note, too: the headlines on Maclean's cover also aim for our emotions. They do this by threatening the reader. They stimulate fear, which, as direct marketers know, is one of the seven emotion-based ways to trigger audience response -- in this case, a reading response.

Do nonprofits dare write this kind of stuff? Absolutely. Consider this brilliant example of headline writing from the cover of Sierra, The Magazine of the Sierra Club: "Should Parks Be Run Like Your HMO? Privatizing America's Favorite Places." Well, given that HMOs are among the most stigmatized business operations in the country, privatization is clearly NOT a good thing.

What do you think? Did the Sierra Club's headline, speaking so directly to the readers' fears and anger about environmental mismanagement, AND printed across a gorgeous photo of a majestic (and now perhaps endangered) mountain, bring in some additional money and persuade members to renew their memberships? My guess: Oh, yeah.


*For those unfamiliar with research, this sample size might seem too small to represent accurately a nation's opinions. Actually, it's just about perfect, according to our research guru, Bob Harris. The Heart of the Donor study had a margin of error of "plus or minus 4 percent at the 95 percent confidence level." Translation: Statistically valid beyond any reasonable doubt.