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The core practice of the "Email Savvy" organization is the successful use of an email newsletter. Blasting email out the door is easy, but creating newsletters that actually work, in the context of a flow of communication that genuinely engages people, that can actually be much harder. It's become especially true in today's world of spam-inundated mailboxes. This series will help you develop and maintain a newsletter marketing model that avoids common pitfalls, implements best practices, and moves you in the direction of continual improvement of your systems for engaging your stakeholders.
 

Most organizations cannot easily answer the question: What is the purpose of your email newsletter? And those that can often don't have strategically valid answers. This seminar will address this issue by covering how to:

• understand the Email Newsletter Marketing Model
• use the model to tie your email efforts together into a coherent strategy
• develop a consistent framework of online permission with your stakeholders
• develop strategically meaningful objectives for your newsletter
• identify criteria for success and metrics for online marketing

This seminar is right for you if you are either launching an email newsletter or ready to take a critical look at what you are already doing. If you are looking for rigor and strategic strength to your online communication, this seminar will give you a powerful framework for achieving those goals.
 

Nonprofit email newsletters draw their inspiration from web sites, from essays, from paper newsletters, all the while dealing with the fact that people spend an estimated 20 seconds on any given piece of email. Content often feels like it was written by a committee. This seminar will tackle these issues and others, including how to:

• avoid being perceived as spam
• increase your newsletter subscription rate
• avoid having the email newsletter be an organizational afterthought
• reduce the time to prepare the newsletter
• use tactics based on research, rather than anecdote
• keep from sounding like a commercial newsletter

This seminar is right for you if you have responsibility for an email newsletter or an online communication strategy that includes one. This seminar will give you both quick and lasting ways to avoid the common newsletter mistakes.
 

Your content is the bridge between you and your stakeholders. It communicates your values, your desires for the relationship you want with them, and of course, your issues. But much nonprofit email newsletter content is either unsuited to the goals of the newsletter or labor intensive to compile. This seminar will look at how to:

• streamline the production of your newsletter content
• reduce conflicts and competition for space in the newsletter
• use a genuine and engaging human voice
• use honesty and transparancy to win loyal readers
• decide what layout will work best for you

This seminar is right for you if you have responsibility for the content of an email newsletter or for communication policy in general in your organization. You'll leave with some solid insight and tools into dealing with one of the email newsletter's greatest ongoing challenges.
 

Here are a few related articles by Michael Gilbert. They are listed in chronological order.

• The Gilbert Email Manifesto (GEM)
• Email Manifesto Firestorm
• The Email Savvy Organization
• Preventing the Nonprofit Spam Epidemic
• Chaperoning: The Alternative to List Rental and Spam
• Everyday Software: Email Tools
• The Email Newsletter Marketing Model
• The Enduring Power of The Gilbert Email Manifesto
• Twelve Ways To Fail at Email
• A More Accessible Email Newsletter
• Narcissistic Nonprofit Newsletters: Instruments of Self-Absorption

"Thanks for the workshops on e-newsletters this week, especially the editorial process model. We've been talking about how we want to change how editing happens in our organization for months without a clear way forward, and now I feel that we're starting to think creatively about it again, for our print newsletter as well as our online one."

This seminar is taught by Michael C. Gilbert, the author of "The Gilbert Email Manifesto" (considered to be "one of the most important thought pieces to have influenced nonprofit use of the Internet".) and "The Email Newsletter Marketing Model", the editor and contributing author of "The Guide to Nonprofit Email", the Editor of Nonprofit Online News, and the Founding President of the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. For more information about Mr. Gilbert, please see his bio.
 

Our pre-packaged online seminar here consists of three 90 minute sessions.

Live Online Seminars: These are presented at a scheduled date & time, broadcast live, and include live Q&A time with the instructor. Live online seminars presented by The Gilbert Center are open registration seminars, which means that anyone can attend. Please see our calendar for upcoming events. You can also read technical requirements and other basic facts for this seminar delivery option. (Please note that our calendar of live seminars only goes out a couple of months and not all topics will show up there.)

On-Demand Online Seminars: On-demand means you can attend at a time that is most convenient for your schedule. It consists of the recordings of the most recent live presentation, and comes packaged with a 30 minute phone consultation with the instructor so you can ask questions about the seminar materials and how they can best be put to use in your particular situation. You can also read technical requirements and other basic facts for this seminar delivery option. The catalog of seminars available on-demand is listed down the right-hand side of that same page, and also the calendar page. (Please note that not all topics are available yet for on-demand viewing. See the On-Demand Info page for a complete list of current options.)

Private In-House Sessions: If you have a group of people to whom you would like to offer training, please consider our private, in-house seminars. Which means you can hire us to present this and any of the seminars listed on this site, as well as custom sessions, for your group privately; online or in person at your location. Please contact us for more information if you're interested.

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