Newsletters are not only an effective way to share information.
They can be a great way to connect with your readership, build a strong brand and increase engagement.
When done right, they can be a powerful tool in your essential marketing kit for your library.
However, all newsletters are not created equal. While some may get you further ahead with your subscribers, others may waste your time. So, how do you make an engaging library newsletter?
Here are a few things that can help.
Define Your Goals
It is important to start at the beginning and define your goals for this newsletter.
What do you want to achieve?
If you don’t have clearly set goals for your newsletter, it will be difficult to determine its success and whether changes should be made. So, how do you determine goals for your newsletter?
The first place to refer to should be your library’s strategic plan. Your general plan probably has lots of “hints” as to what your newsletter objective should be like.
Your goals can include increasing the readership in your area or attracting a specific demographic of readers. With your newsletter, you can focus on one of these goals or take on several at once.
If you don’t currently have a strategic plan for your library or are working on a new one, you can set smaller objectives just for the newsletter itself.
For instance, you could aim to increase the attendance for your book club or update your reading community on new arrivals. Once the goals are set, you can start working on a comprehensive content plan.
You must ensure that these goals are supported with every newsletter you send out.
Do Your Research
As you devise your content plan, gather as much information as possible. Are you already sending out a newsletter, or have you done so before?
If so, spend some time analyzing which aspects of your previous newsletter strategy were successful and which ones were not.
You may even try a subscriber survey to find out what your readers found particularly interesting in your letters.
If this is the first library newsletter you plan to send out, it’s best to start small. The first thing you will need to determine is your target audience.
You can begin with the audience you are already reaching and then slowly expand on that. Alternatively, you can begin from scratch and build your audience based on your strategic plan.
For instance, if you want to offer career guidance services at your library, you may go with new graduates as your target audience.
Once you have determined your newsletter’s target audience, you must examine how to appeal to their needs.
This means asking yourself the right questions:
- What are their interests?
- What library resources do they use most often?
- What may newsletter format be the most attractive to them?
Are you looking for design ideas and unsure how to organize the subscription process? Your best bet is to look into how other companies are doing it, especially the ones targeting the same audience type.
Ask Practical Questions
Before you commit to sending your newsletter, it’s important to make sure you are making realistic plans — and this means asking some practical questions.
For instance:
- How much time will you have for the newsletter? Naturally, this will depend on how many resources you have and how important the newsletter is to your general marketing plan. Being realistic about what you can do will help you set reasonable goals and avoid inconsistency and disappointment.
- How often will you be able to send it out? Do you plan to commit to a weekly letter with updates? Or, maybe you will go for a monthly letter with reading recommendations? You could also send out quarterly newsletters if this seems to be more appropriate for the type of content you want to share.
- Who will take care of the content? Will one person be in charge of it or will it be a team effort? Will you hold meetings to discuss newsletter content or will that put unnecessary strain on the already busy schedule?
- How will it be designed: will the letter include images? What font, text size and colors will you use? Will you include a plain-text version?
- Are you aware of the local email marketing laws? Sending regular newsletters requires the understanding of all the associated legal aspects — depending on where you are based:
CAN-SPAM in the US
CASL in Canada
GDPR in Europe
ACMA in Australia
EUMA in New Zealand and so on.
Creating a recognizable brand means working with a lot of detail.
This includes not only the design but also the tone of your newsletter.
What makes a good newsletter design?
This depends on your target audience, content and the message you want to convey.
However, whatever design you decide to go with, consistency is the key.
Decide on the layout of your newsletter and keep to the same standard: the placement of your logo, where you add your contact information, color palette — all of these have to be in accordance with your website and brand guidelines.
It’s the same with your content. Take the time to find out what kind of tone your audience will be most responsive to: should it contain serious information and be on the formal side or would it have a better effect if you make it light and funny?
Will your readers appreciate graphics and imagery or will they prefer a simple and clean layout?
Will you use emojis in the text or keep the delivery more business-like?
Once you answer all of these questions, you may want to look into creating a brand book that your team can refer to when working on the next newsletter.
Analyze the Metrics
There are several things that can help you see how your newsletter is doing with your subscribers. For instance, you can look into your letter’s:
- Open rate (the percentage of subscribers that open your email)
- Unsubscribe rate (the percentage of those who chose to unsubscribe to your emails)
- Click-through rate (the percentage of those who click on a link/links in your email)
- Bounce rate (the percentage of letters that get returned by the mail server because of the wrong email address, etc.)
These can help you get valuable insights into your newsletter’s readership and give you an idea on what you can do to make it perform better.
According to the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the average open rate for non-profit organizations as of 2019 stood at around 25.2%.
If the open rate for your newsletter is slightly below this number, you are doing quite good.
If it is above that number — you are doing great.
If you do not see good numbers with your newsletter, you may try to analyze what’s working and what’s not.
Take another look at your newsletter. It may also be a good idea to get a second opinion. Is the letter interesting? Is the writing engaging? Is there any way in which you could make it better?
Check which links in your letter get the highest click-through rates and which get lower ones.
You may find that your readers are interested in links to books or other educational resources and may be less interested in links to databases or library news.
What valuable information is your newsletter providing to the readers? Is it solving a problem they may have? Can this information be found in other sources? Are you including new information with every letter or recycling it?
Is your newsletter easy to read? Is it concise? You may find it tempting to include lots of information into your emails but that’s not always a good strategy.
It would be best to keep the actual newsletter short and include all the extra information as links to your website, blog posts, event announcement,s and so on.
We highly recommend reading:
Look for Inspiration
Finally, you don’t have to reinvent the bicycle.
If you’re struggling with concepts for your newsletter, you can always use the Internet for some good public library newsletter ideas.
You can rework them based on everything we’ve covered above.
Creating the right newsletter may take some time and it will probably be a road of trial and error. With that, once you find your voice.
About author
Grace Morris is a tech and digital marketing enthusiast who loves to travel and is passionate about learning new emerging trends in digital media and the internet.
Her interest in helping businesses leverage their digital authority has led her a career as a Digital Content Specialist in Traqq.
Her next goals include writing a book and becoming an event speaker.
