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Archives for June 2019

Ways to Mobilize Your Community to Support Your Cause

June 26, 2019 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

When it comes to making a change in your community, the most powerful tool you have is the community itself. How you can mobilize your community has evolved with the growth of social media, but many of the traditional methods still remain most useful. In fact, all of these tactics should be used together to bring awareness and organize your community to support your issue and gain the attention of your elected officials. This article will explore what is known as “slacktivism,” a form of social media engagement regarding a cause, and traditional tactics to bringing attention and action to an issue.

Slacktivism

In our age of social media, many issues become viral social media campaigns resulting in shares, comments, likes, and views but most of the time, little else. This isn’t to say “slacktivism” is entirely useless, in fact, it does raise awareness of an issue and can even inform people and get people talking about the subject. The problem lies in that these campaigns alone rarely result in action being taken. People comment, like, and share or sign an online petition and feel accomplished, like they have done something to help the issue when, in fact, it takes much more effort than that. This is why the term is a combination of “slacker” and “activism” because not much effort goes into participating in these online interactions and involvement often ends there.

This does not mean that online advocacy is useless, as previously stated, it can work wonders in raising awareness and spreading a message further and faster than many traditional forms of information sharing. It becomes hindered when it ends with this social media step. When people hit share and feel they have done enough and then move on. In turn, if it goes on to spark action and mobilization in the non-digital world, then it can be measured as a useful tactic. Online advocacy should be viewed as a tool, and not a complete solution to driving your issue. 

Traditional

The traditional ways are still the most effective for mobilizing your community. Traditional methods are complemented and enhanced by the online and social media aspects we have in the digital age, but the tried and true forms of raising awareness and prompting action still hold strong. As stated before, engagement efforts must be utilized offline in the community itself to see real results. Writing letters and direct mail, volunteer phone banking, going door to door, and organizing local precinct level meetings are proven ways to reach the people of your area and really add voices to your cause. These tactics allow you to know that you are reaching the population you intend to reach and also allow you to form relationships that will benefit your cause in the long run. These traditional strategies combined with an online strategy will help mobilize your community. The effectiveness of your traditional and online strategies, however, hinges on a properly developed and crafted message. It is vital that your message informs and is credible and factual.  You also want to be prepared to answer any tough questions that may be raised regarding your position and help alleviate any concerns among elected officials, the media and the public. Having a message that is factual and based on credible personal stories and sources goes a long way in building support.

In Conclusion

When bringing attention to an issue, both new and traditional tactics can be used together to mobilize your community, gain support, and ultimately bring about desired policy and legislative changes. Digital advocacy and social media campaigns are persuasive and bring awareness, while traditional measures bring people to concrete action within the community. A balance of these different tactics will help result in successful campaigns. These strategies used with a strong message, grab people’s attention and provide them with enough facts to make an educated decision to act. A community mobilized behind an issue is an extremely effective force in getting a legislative or policy change. In fact, it’s near impossible to get things done otherwise.

Need more advice or help?

For more information, visit us at www.arc3communications.com or contact Patrick Burns at pburns@arc3communications.com. We look forward to working with you to achieve your goals and help your voice be heard to bring positive changes to your community.

Filed Under: Business Advocacy, Community Involvement, Public Affairs Tagged With: Advocacy, Community Involvement, Legislation, Policy Change, public affairs

10 Great Tips for a Successful Email Newsletter

June 7, 2019 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

When it comes to crafting a successful email newsletter, there are many things to consider. At times, these considerations can be overwhelming, resulting in inconsistency in newsletter delivery and quality. Here are 10 tips to keep in mind that can help make for a successful email newsletter every time.

  1. Choosing your Email Template

The first step in creating an eye-catching, accessible, and successful newsletter is choosing an appropriate and most importantly, mobile friendly, newsletter template. You may be surprised to know that 51% of recipients unsubscribe from email newsletters that aren’t visually appealing (optinmonster.com). This means you can lose over half of your audience by having an unappealing template. Companies like Mailchimp allow you to easily create simple and effective email templates or choose from pre-made designs that are already optimized for mobile devices. Make sure to keep your audience and purpose in mind when creating or choosing your template; gear your design towards what will perform best with them.

  1. Create Engaging and Strong Content

After you have chosen your template design, you will need quality content to fill your newsletter for your readers. This content can be organized by predetermined newsletter subjects, such as having each newsletter cover a specific topic or content area, or just have each newsletter contain specific content types as press releases, event recaps, and thought leadership articles. You will want to develop organizational strategies and decide what works best for your purposes, but always make sure you have top-quality content. If readers aren’t interested, they will not engage and even worse may unsubscribe to future newsletters.

  1. Grow your Mailing List

If you are considering a newsletter, chances are you have a mailing list ready to send to. Whether you have a list already or plan on building one from scratch, you should always be willing to grow it further by gaining new subscribers. This can be done by implementing a newsletter sign-up form on your website. This can be a pop-up that greets visitors to your website or a form implanted on your homepage somewhere visible and easily accessible. Again, this form should be mobile friendly. You can also link people to your newsletter subscription through social media or physical email sign-up forms.

  1. Segmenting your Mailing List

Having an extensive mailing list could also mean you have readers that are interested in different policy issues, products and services, or information. You can design multiple newsletters that are geared towards these differing interests and can be sent to the subscribers who want to see it most. There are many tools to track reader patterns and activities (buying trends, demographics, etc.) so you can make sure the content these audiences are receiving is tailored to their interests and increases the chance they will want to remain engaged with your newsletters.

  1. Eye-catching Subject Lines

When potential readers are going through their emails, they are usually scanning subject lines to determine which emails to open and read. If your subject line lacks creativity and relevancy, it is likely to be skimmed over without a second glance. It is suggested that subject lines be no more than five words and use catchy and energetic words. Taking time to run your subject lines through programs such as CoSchedule’s Email Subject Line Tester can help gauge how your subject line will do with your audience. Take time with your subject line, it will help drive open and click-through-rates!

  1. Mobile Friendly is Key

It may sound like a broken record, but in today’s mobile-driven world, it is of utmost importance that all of your newsletter content is geared toward mobile devices. More than 75 percent of people check email on their smartphones and mobile devices. If your newsletter is not optimized for mobile viewing, many of your readers won’t bother with it and could become frustrated and unsubscribe. Luckily, most templates offered on email newsletter platforms are mobile-friendly, but it is always a good idea to double check.

  1. Not Just Promotion, but Engagement

Your email newsletter should be more than self-promotion and advertising, it needs to help form a relationship with your audience. This is where the strong content comes into play in providing helpful and thoughtful information that communicates with the reader. One trick to building a strong bond with your readers is to send newsletters frequently as opposed to every once in a while. Weekly or monthly newsletters, as opposed to quarterly or bi-annual newsletters, help remind your audience why they subscribed and that you are interested in keeping the relationship going.

  1. Social Media Integration

If you have social media that you use to share relevant content or organization updates, integrate those platforms into your newsletter. Having links to your various social media accounts will help you gain followers there as well. Also, make sure to have your contact information and a link to your homepage for readers who may have questions or want to get in contact with you right away. This also adds to the relationship building by allowing your readers to keep track of the content and announcements you may release between newsletters.

  1. Create a Catchy Call to Action

Whereas your email newsletter shouldn’t just be self-promoting advertising, you do want your readers to take action of some sort. Whether it be going to your website, following you on social, taking part in a trial, becoming a paying member, or partaking in a survey you will want to have a call to action (CTA). Also, this CTA needs to be eye-catching and easy to engage with so readers will take the necessary steps. This usually takes the form of a button or link towards the end of your newsletter that stands out. If you have engaging content and have formed that relationship, readers are more likely to take action.

  1. Always Perform Test Runs

When your newsletter is looking finished and ready to go, there is one last thing you need to do before sending it out to your subscriber list; send a test. This will help you make sure there are no broken links, optimization issues, or any other problems. This will also allow you to see it from the reader’s perspective. You could easily do this by having a list of people on your team to send a test email to. It is usually better to send a test to more people than just yourself, this way, you get multiple sets of eyes to catch anything that you may overlook. Sending a test also includes sending your newsletter to specific subscribers to test things like send times, subject lines, and content success so you can see what works and what may need changing. In reviewing the test, don’t forget to review the email newsletter on your mobile device.

 

For more information on email newsletters and to find out how we can help you with your marketing campaigns, visit us at www.arc3communications.comor contact Patrick Burns at pburns@arc3communications.com. We look forward to working with you and building successful email marketing strategies together.

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: Arc 3 Communications, Content Marketing, Email Marketing and Trade Associations, Email Newsletter, Email Tools, marketing, media relations

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