Craving Exposure? Try ‘Mini Me’ Email Marketing

Small businesses and nonprofits crave exposure. They constantly try to get people’s attention and move them to act (send a donation, buy our product, schedule our service, etc.). However, many organizations are afraid they’ll waste money on digital marketing campaigns that don’t get results. To prosper, businesses and nonprofits need effective marketing tools that keep their brand top-of-mind with customers, volunteers, and donors. One of the most effective marketing tools for organizations is email marketing. At Packerland Websites, we create E-newsletters for five different organizations. With every edition, we see the impact of email marketing.

Email Marketing Stats

70% open rate for a nonprofit client, reaching nearly 300 readers. (The average newsletter open rate is 42%, so this nonprofit is really effective in reaching its target audience.)
6,000 email contacts for a different nonprofit client, with contacts sorting into lists for targeted campaigns. (Members submit articles for publication, giving them broad exposure as a perk of membership.)
3-5 phone calls and emails from readers every time we send Packerland Websites’ newsletter. (This may not seem like a lot of engagement, but some of the calls and emails result in jobs worth thousands of dollars.)

Newsletters as a Website ‘Mini Me’

To turn a newsletter into an effective marketing tool, organizations must consider branding strategies and design. We design E-newsletters as a “mini me” of a client’s website. This contributes to a consistent brand identity that’s recognizable and trustworthy. We incorporate the same colors, logos, and mottos for websites and email marketing campaigns. It’s like emailing a website to contacts. With one click on a newsletter link, readers can visit a client’s website to find out more information, contact them, or make a purchase. Email marketing is just one more “touch” in a business relationship. Newsletters encourage engagement, with buttons linking to social media links, Contact Us pages, and Read More buttons connecting readers to blog posts.

Digital Newsletter Goals

The goals of a digital newsletter vary depending upon the client, but here are some general digital newsletter goals.

Increase conversions by publishing an E-newsletter that’s timely, engaging, educational, and relevant to a target market
Increase traffic to a client’s website via links to articles and Visit Our Website button
Increase the number of new clients requesting a Free Consultation or taking other actions
Increase a newsletter’s reach by consistently adding contacts and publishing Subscribe/Forward links

Constant Contact’s Reporting Features

Packerland Websites partners with Constant Contact for email marketing, and Constant Contact’s reports contain helpful statistics to measure impact. By reviewing reports, we can tell who opened the newsletter and who clicked on a specific link. In our most recent newsletter, we featured a tile company’s website redesign. It was our most popular click-through. We made note of this popular click-through so we can feature similar website redesigns in the next editions. Additionally, we can export a list of contacts who clicked on a particular link and follow up with them about that specific topic. The analytics reports give us beneficial feedback and sales leads, too.

Highlights of a Newsletter

Creating a newsletter requires commitment, time, and attention to detail. Professional design skills aren’t required, but it helps to have a basic understanding of color, copywriting, and marketing.

Goals of Newsletter Development

Information is presented in a clear, easy-to-understand format
Full-color design and graphic layout appeals to the eye
Quality photos are featured prominently
Event and meeting notices are published in a timely manner
Branding is consistent across all communication channels
A subject line is designed to encourage opens
A Call to Action motivates readers to act

Partnering with a Professional Writer

Packerland Websites partners with a professional writer, Writer to the Rescue, for email marketing services. The “Wonder Writer” at Writer to the Rescue has sent out hundreds of email campaigns to target audiences over the past five years. As a newsletter editor, the Wonder Writer writes and compiles articles, organizes and designs a layout, and collaborates with clients to develop email lists. Basically, email marketing is a partnership between the client and the Wonder Writer.

Digital Marketing Strategy

Email marketing enables businesses and nonprofits to deepen their relationship with potential and existing customers. With every newsletter we create, we see the effectiveness of E-newsletters as a digital marketing strategy. Are you looking for a new way to connect with clients to promote and grow your business? Contact us to get started.

Unlock the Secret to Making Money with Email Newsletter Campaigns

This week, a client sent me an awesome story with photos and graphics. It was the organization’s monthly newsletter, and it was slick. But I think my client is missing a golden opportunity to get more bang for their buck. Why not publish the article, photos and graphics on their website as blog articles? Then, they can shorten the newsletter a lot and add a Read More button to take the reader to their website for the full story. This is how email marketing makes you money. They drive traffic to your website when conversions happen.

Advantages of website blog posts vs. stand-alone email campaigns:

The newsletter articles, photos, and graphics become archived stories. Anyone who visits your website can enjoy the content. The content isn’t just for the newsletter subscribers.
The articles, photos, and graphics show what you are about, rather than just telling what you are about.
Better user engagement and experience. Blog stories help visitors identify with you, your products and services which can increase conversion rates of sales
Terrific keyword density for Google ranking

Increasing the Open Rate

People don’t always have time to read a long story. Oftentimes, they like to scan more than read. If they read a summary and the topic interests them, they can click a link to read the full story. If the topic doesn’t interest them, they know they didn’t spend a lot of time checking it out. When they see the next email, they are likely to open it again, knowing they can scan the topics. This strategy increases the open rate for email campaigns.

A Newsletter as a Mini-Me Website

Imagine this: Instead of having people search for your website, you email a mini-me of your website to them. The design incorporates your website’s colors, logo, and branding. Navigation buttons link directly to your website. Readers who aren’t interested in your articles may be interested in something they see in the navigation menu instead. They might contact you about a product or service you offer that’s unrelated to the email marketing. Clickable buttons/links at the top of a newsletter make it easy to get in touch.

Free Email Template, Blog & Mentoring

The best part is that a blog and newsletter template cost nothing:

Packerland Websites includes a free blog with every website we develop
Our team offers free mentoring to recommend ways to leverage the blog
If Packerland Websites manages your Constant Contact account, Constant Contact will build a template as a free courtesy. The template drives traffic to your website and boosts open rates.

The Constant Contact Email Platform

The primary purpose of marketing content is to educate, inform, and entertain. Newsletters promote your brand and drive traffic to your website. We recommend using Constant Contact as your email campaign platform. Constant Contact enables you to create, personalize, send, and track email campaigns. We have used this email marketing platform for years. It’s easy to design an email, upload contacts, and divide contacts into various lists. To indicate reader engagement, Constant Contact reports the open rate, click rate, and other statistics. Some Constant Contact subscriptions also enable you to see who clicked on which articles, so you can follow up.

Contact Us to Manage Your Email Campaign

If you don’t have the resources internally to manage email campaigns, Packerland Websites offers this marketing service. Contact us to see samples of our work and email results. Our engagement results consistently exceed industry standards. Turn clicks into cash by leveraging email marketing campaigns to the fullest.

Ensuring Email Deliverability Amid Tight Anti-Spam Policies

happy corporate man calling while typing on his laptop

Email is an essential communication tool for businesses and nonprofit organizations, and anti-spam policies help to ensure secure email delivery. E-newsletters and bulk emails keep clients and members informed of the latest news, events, and discounts. If you create and distribute an E-newsletter as part of your marketing mix, way to go! Perhaps you send emails to a customer list or membership list (like members of a Chamber of Commerce or nonprofit organization). You tapped into an effective marketing strategy to enhance communication, loyalty, and sales.

Google’s Anti-Spam Policies for Bulk Senders

When you send your next email campaign, check the bounce rate. Are your emails getting through to recipients? Recently, the ability to get your bulk emails delivered became more complex. Google tightened its anti-spam policies for bulk senders to keep inboxes spam free and safer. So, senders need to take a few extra steps to prevent emails from being marked as spam in the recipients’ inboxes.

Authentication Against Spoofing and Phishing

A critical aspect of email security is verifying that senders are who they claim to be. In 2023, Google required that emails be authenticated to prevent spoofing and phishing. Read our blog about authentication. The anti-spam measures for sending bulk emails now require a few more steps beyond authentication to ensure emails are delivered.

Constant Contact’s Role in E-Newsletter Security

Packerland Websites partners with Constant Contact for E-Newsletter marketing campaigns, and Constant Contact has authenticated customers’ mail for many years. Now, in addition to Constant Contact’s authentication, senders with email marketing campaigns are advised to self-authenticate their email. This self-authentication process works for the domains that organizations own, but not free webmail.

Self-Authentication is a Vital Step

Self-authentication can be a breeze for techies, but not for everyone. So, if you’re not a techie person but you want the latest updates for E-Newsletters and bulk emails, contact our team for assistance. If you are well-versed in email settings, Constant Contact has a DKIM/CNAME (DomainKeys Identified Mail/Canonical Name) feature update. By enabling the DKIM/CNAME feature on the settings page, Constant Contact will give you a set of records to add to your domain’s DNS (Domain Name System) host.

Delivering Legitimate Emails That Readers Want

The goal of tighter anti-spam measures is to ensure the delivery of legitimate emails. Your goal as a business or nonprofit is to deliver mail that users want to read. By creating email campaigns and messaging that recipients want to read, you build relationships and develop brand recognition.

Crafting Effective Email Campaigns

Contact us today to establish a newsletter marketing campaign or for technical assistance with self-authentication for your existing newsletter.

Discover the Power of our Nonprofit Website Redesign

About the Client

Anchor of Hope TEC is Green Bay, Wisconsin-based Catholic spiritual enrichment opportunity for older teens and young adults. TEC begins with a dynamic retreat weekend at St. Joseph School in Green Bay. After the weekend retreat, retreatants continue their faith journey with the intergenerational TEC community. Catholics from throughout the Diocese of Green Bay and beyond are encouraged to awaken their faith through by Together Encountering Christ.

Anchor of Hope TEC Home page before a redesign. — Anchor of Hope TEC Home page before a website redesign.

Anchor of Hope TEC Home page after a website redesign.

Project Deliverables

Anchor of Hope TEC launched its first website in 2015, and the design was outdated and its functionality, limited. The organization cancelled several retreats during the pandemic. It also cancelled retreats after the pandemic, due to a lack of volunteers. Thus, the nonprofit organization wanted to re-engage with volunteers who run the retreats and encourage teens and young adults to attend. In addition delivering the eight website building essentials, the Packerland Websites team would also:

Design a vibrant new look to the website that depicts energy and relevance to the target audience, Catholic young people.
Develop an e-commerce, secure online payment and donation system, eliminating the need for nonprofit leaders to handle cash.
Update the written content and keywords on the website to engage the target audience and improve SEO.
Integrate a newsletter sign-up with email marketing platform Constant Contact, to encourage visitors to engage with the nonprofit off the website.
Add a news tab where the nonprofit organization can publish blogs to share the latest news and events, keeping the website fresh for visitors and enhancing SEO.
Add a keyword-rich FAQs page that answers common questions and is styled in an easily readable, scannable way
Incorporate a Members Only section with password-protected login

Website Redesign Features

More Attractive, Modern Design

Packerland Websites added more color and vibrancy to the website. Instead of old website’s bland wheat fields, fish, and sand images, the new website features bright colors and communities of young people. TEC is about building relationships with Christ and journeying together in faith, and the new website depicts TEC’s community focus. Text blocks slide into the Home page at the user scrolls, creating interest and energy.

Secure Payment Portal

Retreatants, volunteers, and donor all have an easy-to-find, secure portal to submit payments through the e-commerce website. Additionally, the four tabs under Applications explain how to apply and provide online registration forms and payment portals for retreatants and worker volunteers. The payments page is a welcome alternative to collecting cash or checks at meetings or retreats. Retreatants and volunteer workers pay their retreat fee or donation at a secure portal. Administrators can easily track payments and not worry about handling money. Additionally, TEC can add more merchandise or donation portals to the page to support the nonprofit financially.

Newsletter Sign-up

To engage with its audience, the nonprofit launched a monthly newsletter to coincide with the website launch. The newsletter is formatted with the same brand colors, images, links, and messaging as the website. Visitors can quickly sign up for the TEC newsletter. The sign-up form integrates with the email marketing platform Constant Contact.

News and Events Blogging

The two tabs under News and Events show the upcoming retreat weekend dates and stories about the TEC community. Leaders of the nonprofit participated in a training session offered via Zoom to learn how to update the retreat dates on the Events page and add blog articles to the News page. Several volunteers attended the training, which was held after normal business hours.

FAQs

The accordion-style FAQs page allows visitors to click or tap a question to reveal an answer. Not only do the FAQs provide helpful information to human visitors, the FAQ pages also are rich in keywords. Keywords enhance Google searchability and ranking on search engine result pages. So, Google will suggest Anchor of Hope TEC to people searching for a Catholic retreat for teens or young adults in Green Bay.

Members Only

Members of the TEC organization have password-protected access to outlines, lists, and other information 24/7 from any internet-enable device.

Member login page for Anchor of Hope website

Content Marketing

Paragraphs, heading, and subheadings are conversational, informational, and optimized for human visitors and search engine ranking. Webpages have approximately 300 words to tell the nonprofit’s story. The two tabs under About go to Testimonials and About Anchor of Hope TEC. Visitors can read authentic first-hand accounts on the Testimonials page, whereas the About page contains TEC history and background information. Catholic teens, parents, and young adults interested in making a retreat can learn about the weekend before registering.

We Love Rebuilding Websites

TEC (Together Encountering Christ) is a dynamic Catholic retreat experience, and now Anchor of Hope TEC has a website to show just that! Green Bay-based TEC took a giant leap forward in technology and vibrancy with a redesigned website. The redesigned website truly represents how Together Encountering Christ can awaken spiritual growth and create disciples who strengthen the Catholic church.

Contact Us for a Website Redesign

Contact Packerland Websites to learn how a website redesign can breathe new life into your nonprofit or business website.

5 reasons to subscribe to Packerland Websites’ E-newsletter

Delete! Delete! How many emails do you delete each day without a thought? We get it! Spam in your email inbox is annoying. That’s why Packerland Websites never sends spam emails. Rather than sending spam, Packerland Websites creates and emails relevant information in an E-newsletter we think you’ll find worthwhile. Furthermore, we take your privacy seriously. Your email will not be sold or given to any other business.

We appreciate the relationships we build through our business, and we know your time is valuable. So, why invest your time in reading the Packerland Websites’ newsletter? Here are 5 reasons:

Laugh a Little

Everyone loves a good comic, so smile today when you view our Internet Chuckle.

Lock in the Savings with E-newsletter deals

Check out the service we’re offering at a savings to you, like 20% off Search Engine Optimization packages, custom newsletters at a discount, and more.

Learn the Latest in Internet Solutions

Our team keeps tabs on the latest digital marketing trends and pass them along to you. For example, WordPress introduced a new editor in 2018, and some of you were startled by the new way to update your website. Our team wrote a step-by-step guide for the new editor and sent out the link. We try our best to keep you in the loop.

Latch onto Innovative Ways to Grow Your Business

Your website works 24/7 to represent your brand, and we offer helpful tips to build a stronger and more effective presence on the Internet.

Look closer at the articles we write specifically for you

Nothing is mass-produced in our e-newsletter. We put in the extra time and effort to share information that’s concise and focused on you. Lastly, the Packerland Websites’ E-newsletter is FREE and helps you be more successful. Sign up today for the Packerland Websites newsletter.

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER!

Packerland Websites is offering a newsletter to customers and to anyone interested in having a stronger and more effective presence on the Internet. We take privacy very seriously, and your email will not be sold or given to any other business. The newsletter is FREE and helps you be more successful. Sign up today!

Email Your Website!

Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to email someone or everyone on your email list your website right to their door? Now you can. By using Constant Contact, you can actually customize your email to look and behave similar to your website.

Ask yourself, why do you have an email campaign? And how do you work it? Obviously it is an information delivery system. It is also a way to brand yourself, gain point-of-mind awareness and direct traffic towards taking action.

The basic way it works is to Entertain, Educate and Engage. They are the three big E’s. If you make something pleasant and enjoyable to read, people will want it. If not, it only takes a couple seconds to select delete or hit the back bar.

By the end of this week, I will email out a sample of exactly what I am talking about. It is a newsletter that mimics my site. I not only has the look and feel, but functions as the website while at the same time presenting itself as a newsletter that is both entertaining and educating.

If you would like to see one first, click the “sign up for our Email Newsletter” and I’ll send you a sample to check out. What do you have to lose and what do you have to gain?