Is Your eNewsletter Mobile-Ready?

Of course, that question begs another - Do you have an eNewsletter?

Let's look at that one first.

I recently attended a seminar where a school administrator suggests sending home communications on different color paper based on the importance of the message - green paper means information; gold paper means something for the calendar; red paper means an emergency or situation of critical importance.

But that's not how you're going to communicate with your prospective parents, your donors and prospective donors (let's call them friends) or members of the community.  Indeed, you are marketing to four different audiences.  One newsletter just doesn't cut it anymore...you need at least two - one for internal constituents, and the other for external constituents.  Optimally - four.  But you don't have to create four different newsletters...you have to create two different ones, one that's full of information for internal constituents, and one that's packed with successes of your school, as well as invitations to events and to participate in the life of the school for external constituents.  You can then tweak both just a little to appeal to the specialized audiences you're trying to reach.

As for when to do these, perhaps try one per week - but realize that you'll have four mailing lists, and they must be mutually exclusive.  Marketing is unlike development in this respect.  When you have a Development database, you want to know that donors may belong to several constituent groups (parent, parent of alumni, last year but not this year, etc.).  However, for marketing, it's important that constituents receive the newsletter that is targeted to them (unless they're board members and want to be informed about all communications that are being created and delivered). 

As for paper vs. electronic, many schools have said, "But what about those parents that don't have email?"  That may be true for today...but you want your school to advance into the future (after all, it's called "Advancement" - not "Regression."), correct?  If you've said, "Yes," then consider what the preferred communication form of parents will be five years down the road.  It might be texting.  It might be that the personal computer will be new paperweight of that time and everyone will have a mobile handheld device.  Also know that you will be welcoming a brand new breed of parents to your schools - The Millennials - who use Facebook more than they watch television.

Your marketing efforts need to be electronic today, if only to prepare for tomorrow.  There are many inexpensive eNewsletter services available today such as iContact, ConstantContact, and MyNewsletterBuilder which are very affordable and non-profit friendly to help you accomplish your marketing goals.

Why should you choose a newsletter service and not just send an email "blast" to those you're trying to reach?  Because today's technology has advanced to the point that an email with lots of addresses may be recognized as spam.  If you put the word "free" in a subject line, your email will probably end up in a spam filter or junk email folder.  Also, if you have too many "Click here"s in your text, it's spam city for your email.

So if you're using an eNewsletter service, then why shouldn't you say "click here," and then hyperlink it to more information on your school's Web site?

Because mobile devices recognize markup text (such as http://www.schooladvacement.com) rather than text to create automatic hyperlinks.  When users receive communications on their mobile devices, they want to be able to "click here" when it says to "click here"...and that's not always the case on mobile devices.

Here's hoping you're blessed with a wonderful, safe, happy and memorable Thanksgiving.