10 Ways to Promote Your Email Newsletters

Last week, at the New Jersey Library Association's annual conference, I had the pleasure of co-presenting a program about promoting electronic newsletters, along with NJLA's president Susan Briant and NJLA's outgoing newsletter editor Jane Crocker. (In the photo above, Jane is on the left, Susan in the middle, and I -- sans jacket and badge! -- am on the right.)

Jane talked a little about her long tenure on the association's newsletter, which she recently chose to end since her library work has become so demanding. Susan creates her own email newsletters with Constant Contact software, which she discussed and demonstrated. I then chimed in about ways to promote electronic newsletters. I thought I'd share my list of 10 tips here.

1. People prefer to opt in. Don't send it to them unsolicited and then ask them to opt out.

2. When designing a way to opt out online, build in a pop-up question asking why. Give them multiple-choice answers, such as "I don't use the library" or "I get too much email already" or "I don't have time to read it" or "I'm not sure why it would be useful." Make sure to offer an option that says, "I changed my mind; I'll opt in."

3. When you're telling people about your newsletter and encouraging them to opt in or to subscribe, don't base your pitch on telling them what will be IN the newsletter. Don't answer the question "'What's in it?" – rather, answer the question, "What's in it for ME?" Everyone wants personalization. If the newsletter doesn't have anything of specific value to them, why should they opt in?

4. Try customizing your newsletter for different audiences. I recently attended a presentation at PLA where one library did this for its print newsletter. It changed only the cover story, using 4 different ones to go to 4 different audiences, trying to "get people's attention between the mailbox and the garbage can."

5. Use your social networks to announce that the new issue is coming out. Build anticipation with a teaser like "Wait till you see the story about the amazing cow in the next issue!"

6. Promote your online newsletter even inside your own library, by mentioning it on your flat-screen monitors, bookmarks, and especially the home pages on your public-use PCs. Try a line like, "If we don't have your email address, you're missing out on our newsletter!" and have a link to sign up of course.

7. Assure folks that your newsletter doesn't come out too often. People don't want to be bothered constantly.

8. Put something into every issue that you know people crave, such as your calendar of special programs. People also like jokes, witty quotes, quick tidbits, coupons, and personal profiles. (Hint: don't put these on the first page! Make people scroll down so they have to see other articles along the way.) Old publishing adage: Content is king.

9. Talk it up! Just because something exists online doesn't mean you can't talk about it in person or promote it in print. Print the opt-in link onto your bookmarks or your date-due slips. Ask circ workers to invite patrons to sign up. Try having a contest for the one who brings the most subscriptions.

10. To get people to look through the whole issue, have contests or scavenger hunts. Make the prizes worthwhile enough for readers to spend time finding answers and make it simple to enter the contest. Publicize the fact that the newsletter has contests to encourage subscriptions.

Bottom line: Make it relevant!! No matter what tactics you use to get people to sign up, if the info is not useful and worth their time, they're not going to read it. Ask your customers what they want in your newsletter, then deliver that.

Pepsi Refresh Applicants Need Your Help!

I just got this email from Carolynn Muci over at the Mount Prospect Public Library in Illinois.

"I am appealing to you for your help. The Mount Prospect Public Library has a great project we are trying to get off the ground, but we don't have the funds. So we got creative. We submitted and were accepted into the Pepsi Refresh project. Now we need votes! Only the top 10 vote getters in each money category will get funded.

Our project can be found at www.mppl.org/pepsi. You can vote once a day, every day during the month of May. Can you help us spread the word? I know Library staff can be a powerful force when mobilized -- and if we could get the staff at the New Jersey Libraries on board, I know it would really make a difference."

Even if you're not from NJ, I hope you'll take a look at the project and vote for them. They are ranked 85th and need the help! The William Blount High School Library, Indiana Free Library and Kishwaukee Elementary School Library also need votes! Erin Schmalzried is also looking for a grant to fund Appalachia school libraries.

This is a great grant opportunity and gives you all a chance to try your habd at Word of Mouth marketing. NJ has looked at the Pepsi Refresh Grant too ( I think ours might be included next month).

A formula for disaster

"Librarians are trained to select resources unfettered by our personal, political, social, or religious views," explains the 19-year media center veteran and mother of two. "We serve all the students. We believe in access to all ideas. Students aren't going to tell me if they want to read these books, but they're there if they need them."

Source: Monica Yant Kinney: Working to shelve students' book choices

Thank you to Dee Venuto for bringing this article to our attention. While the NJ State Library edges toward extinction because of budget cuts, censorship raises it's ugly head, sending chills down my spine.

I remember working for Ocean County Library and conducting outreach events to the GLBT community. The stories from adults who suffered from lack of information about themselves at crucial developmental phases were just heart wrenching. Through outreach and educational programming we were able to build incredible an book and video collection. We also learned the value of self-checkout stations for people who were hesitant to let anyone, even the circulation staff, know of their interest in certain topics. Market research can help libraries to know what their customers need but it still takes a bit of courage to put those items on the shelves when members of the public oppose you.

How ironic that as news stations are turning into huge conglomerates and developing shows with strong partisan views, NJ is decentralizing their libraries, the defenders of equity and access to information, by eliminating the statewide funding that allows smaller libraries to offer their customers the same access as larger ones. No, not ironic. Frightening.

Here's the full story. You may want to email Monica and thank her for the article.

Monica Yant Kinney: Working to shelve students' book choices
By Monica Yant Kinn, Philadelphia Inquirer

Beverly Marinelli seems like a nice lady. She lives in a sunny Lumberton home and owns an adorably obedient Chihuahua mix. She loves her grandchildren so much she sits "right next to them" as they play on Internet sites like Club Penguin.

Regrettably, that's probably the last paragraph of this column Marinelli will enjoy reading.

She invited me over last week to talk about her quest to ban three books from the library at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly, but as I explained, people who earn a living stringing words into sentences rarely cotton to those trying to dictate what the public reads.

Marinelli persists, predicting that I'll gasp at Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology, a book Rancocas stocks to help gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender teens - or their straight friends - navigate choppy waters without drowning.

She calls the book "pervasively vulgar, obscene, and inappropriate," citing one particularly explicit illustration of two Boy Scouts watching two men have sex. "This," Marinelli declares, "is the worst."


Shock and awe

Marinelli is right: I do gasp, for a moment, before being overcome with questions about the drawing and context. She hasn't read much of Revolutionary Voices, and I can't find it at Borders, so I call Dee Venuto, the longtime librarian at the Burlington County school of 2,200 students and 22,000 books.

Until recently, Venuto didn't know much about the critically acclaimed collection of frank essays by young people for young people.

"It won the School Library Journal's Adult Books for High School Students Award in 2001," she tells me. "Some of the readings are very difficult and heart-wrenching."

Venuto doesn't offer much more, because that's not her job.

"Librarians are trained to select resources unfettered by our personal, political, social, or religious views," explains the 19-year media center veteran and mother of two. "We serve all the students. We believe in access to all ideas. Students aren't going to tell me if they want to read these books, but they're there if they need them."

Or rather, they were, until Marinelli's complaint - inspired by conservative blogger Gateway Pundit's larger beef with President Obama's openly gay safe-schools czar, Kevin Jennings - led to a committee review and advice from the Parker McCay law firm.

The Rancocas Valley school board will vote on the matter Tuesday night and appears poised to make a no-win compromise by keeping two of the targeted books but removing Revolutionary Voices.

Marinelli and another member of Glenn Beck's 9.12 Project have lodged a similar complaint in Burlington County's Lenape School District. If I had to guess, this so far low-key South Jersey matter may soon blow up; the American Library Association, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the Lambda Legal Defense Fund all stand at the ready to pounce.

"If that book comes off the shelf, I don't know what will happen," Venuto says, fearfully. "When we start opening those doors, how do we close them?"


The kids are all right

Marinelli insists she's "not a homophobe," just a "normal mother and grandmother" and former township committeewoman proud of her conservative beliefs. In the fall, she demonstrated against "indoctrination" at B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington Township, scandalized by a video of pupils singing in praise of Obama.

"We did it," she told the Philadelphia Daily News, "for the children."

Adults always say that but rarely consult the kids - who, let's face it, are far more sophisticated than we were at their age.

Rancocas Valley Superintendent Michael Moskalski tells me he met with "key communicators" about the book battle. Students shrugged off the controversy.

Moskalski says the students told him: "Just because these books are in the library isn't going to cause us to be gay. We have so much access to information, if we want to read something we'll read it."

Even modern teens like old-fashioned rebellion. Ban Revolutionary Voices and I guarantee half the student body rushes to find a copy just for the thrill.

Telling stories for legislators

I had the great honor of hosting a workshop for the Delaware Library Association last week that was pretty amazing. We spent about three hours in the morning creating strategic stories that added a personal face on the budget items the government was funding. An hour instruction, an hour writing, an hour practicing and when we they were done everyone walked away with a powerful story to share. They were able to integrate it into a thank you and an ask for more support- all in less than a two minute interaction. It was incredibly cool. One senator who had heard about the stories, asked whether they were going to do the session again next year because she wanted to be able to hear all the stories. One librarian came up to me during lunch to let me know she shared her story and felt the engagement by her elected official immediately.

I'm so psyched because I'm giving the same workshop at ALA in June and as a three part online series that SEFLIN is coordinating for the State Library of Florida under the State Library’s Leadership Program for upper and middle managers in libraries throughout the state.

*Correction 5/2/10- I had originally posted the workshops were for the Florida Library Association but they are for the State Library.

Today's advocacy is taking place in the one-on-one conversations we share with elected officials throughout the year. Here in NJ we are fighting budget cuts that would make state library services extinct if they are passed. Our library association is able to lobby and is busy talking to legislators, creating a rally to take place in Trenton on May 6 and talking to reporters.

But since libraries are government agencies, we are prohibited from lobbying and can't even share most information that comes from the Association. But even though we can't lobby, that doesn't mean we can't educate and inform. If you are like us, I can understand your frustration in not being able to rally the troops but with the right tools, education can be pretty powerful. Here's some things we are discovering:

The Team
Picking the right people to visit elected officials can be crucial. Anyone who has ever listened to Stephanie Vance knows one of the most difficult tasks on a visit is to keep the conversation on track. It is so easy for elected officials to smile, shake hands, say they love the library and then wish you well. A good visit requires a concise case and a clear ask. We have three key people who are making legislative visits for our library and even though they have a completely different personalities and styles, they are each amazing and extremely effective. One reason for that is that they know what the problem is, why it matters to the legislator and what the legislator can do to solve it. They are also informed on the issues, share results of each visit, are persistent in setting up appointments and are thorough in knowing the bills the elected officials support. They also follow up with information requests.

The Packet
The person reading the materials in your packet will only skim the words, so help them out. Create a one pager with three key elements:

1. The problem
2. Three to four bulleted reasons why to take action
3. The call to action

We include other supporting material in the packet but the one pager should state your case and offer the solution. Make sure you demonstrate what the impact will be to the elected official's voting district. Even though they may care about the big picture, they must answer to their voters in order to get reelected. Give them the information that is relevant to them.

Grassroots Movements
We have a fantastic grassroots effort going on Facebook that is led by Andy Woodworth. In a conversation with Andy he noted that he is frustrated because even though he has 12,000 + fans, he can't message more than 5,000. He also notes that keeping up on the posts to make sure the really vile ones are removed and the negative one are addressed, is almost a full time job in of itself. Of course having someone with a megaphone that can reach that many people is a huge blessing for us! While the nature of grasssroots is that it is an independent force, it is important to make sure the leaders understand your strategy, messages and call to action. Invite the leaders to meet with you and keep the lines of communication open. And most of all, listen to them. They can provide you valuable feedback as to the needs of your supporters.


Keep it positive
Wow, for three words this might be the toughest part of your advocacy efforts.
Keep the messages positive, you are communicating and building bridges. You will need to work with these people time and time again. Bad vibes have long memories.

Keep the spirit of your group positive. The emotion you drive your campaign with will be the emotion that's left after all is said and done. No matter what the outcome, if people are motivated by hate or anger they will continue with that emotion in their hearts and actions. Love wins even when battles are lost. -Nancy