Writing for mass email
From GrassrootsPedia
I have poked around some of the online literature on email formats, spam, etc. I even picked up Jakob Nielsen's study on "Email Newsletter Usability" (A good review but not worth the $$$$ for advocacy groups).
Basic Rule If you wouldn't pick up the phone and tell someone about the content or you wouldn't pay to send the information... don't abuse your readers sending fluff because email is free. Nielsen suggests considering email as a "burden" on the reader.
Content and message drive the success of the communication but here are some tips that might be useful.
Email Tips:
1. Most valuable "property" is the (FROM) and (SUBJECT)
2. Set up (FROM) addresses that are informative (<30secondactions>, <2min2HelpRivers> etc. Can still be from your email address but play around with the name of the FROM. Also personal messages are really good)
3. Very Clear and Specific Subject Line (Never generic like important, Call to actions..newsletter 2, etc.)
4. People seem to like confirmation emails. (whenever they do something, sign up, etc)
5. Tell folks what they want to know first. (We need you to look at issue X for 2 minutes with us. We want you to Y).
6. Include full contact information from sender.
7. Design the content to be scanable. Top lines are key. Yet also offer complete thoughts (link to additional and backup support)
8. Very Brief and To the Point.
9. Make sure the email answers key questions that the content might raise. MoveOn is a great example - they always cite any statistics they reference or any articles they quote, at the bottom.
10. In general email newsletters have very low open and read rates.
Additional Information (other sources)
http://www.onenw.org/bin/page.cfm/secid/15
http://forwardtrack.eyebeamresearch.org/
http://www.network-centricadvocacy.net/2003/09/interesting_ema.html
http://www.network-centricadvocacy.net/2003/04/people_turn_to_.html
http://www.network-centricadvocacy.net/2004/09/bush_vs_kerry_e.html
http://www.network-centricadvocacy.net/2004/07/new_top_5_techn.html
This used to work: http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:vGT5oMWk92gJ:www.politicsus.com/PoliticsUS campaign blast emails.htm PoliticsUS campaign blast emails
