Last year I wrote a post about how I’d gone with my blogging and tweeting. Given that I’ve been blogging here since 2008 and elsewhere since 2004, I thought I’d share a few insights as someone who operates a very, very niche blog about union campaigning and politics.

Blog

This graph shows monthly readership (each bar represents a month, the first is January and so on). As you can see, I’ve had a topsy turvy year. This is largely due to inconsistent blogging, and the very low month in September represents when I turned off the blog while electioneering. The low December reflects the fact that we’re only half way through this month.

So, what are the top posts for 2011?In order, they are:

1. What union members want from their union’s communications
2. Performance pay for teachers is a terrible idea and here’s why
3. Short book review: The Whites of their Eyes by Jill Lepore
4. Amazing social media campaign: “Iceland Wants to Be Your Friend”
5. Social Media for Unions E-Book
6. Free E-book: Introduction to Email Campaigning for Unions
7. Four effective “calls to action” to use on your union campaign website
8. Best practice use of Facebook for unions
9. The term “queue jumping” encourages people smugglers
10. Eight union websites worth checking out

These posts reflect only and new content. My Social Media for Unions e-book for example was released in December 2010, but continued to gain strong interest throughout most of this year. Similarly, What union members want from their union’s communications was written in February 2010 and Best practice use of Facebook for unions was from 2009, but were viewed many times each week this year. The high ranking of my book review The Whites of their Eyes by Jill Lepore gains number three ranking due to a few links at StumbleUpon.

Last year, a lot of my traffic came from the Federal Election. This year, most of my traffic seems to have come from long-tail search results. I also got a lot of traffic from my email newsletter, which has continued to grow (more on that later).

My top referrers are:

• Google (organic search terms)
• Email (my e-newsletter)
• Direct (people writing in the URL directly)
• Facebook
• Twitter
• StumbleUpon
• Creative Unions

A few other interestings stats. People read an average of 3.7 pages when they visit and spend 2:31 minutes reading. 64.14% of my visitors are first-time visitors, and my bounce rate (the number of people who read just one page) is 3.37%.

Twitter

I can’t show you my entire 2011 Twitter growth, but I can do so for the last three months.

I started 2011 in January with about 510 followers and have grown now to 775, at a rate of about 1 subscriber a day. Again, I can’t pick a specific reason for growth, although I have been actively involved in several of the major Twitter hashtags of 2011, including the Qantas dispute and Occupy Melbourne. Looking around, I suspect that word-of-mouth and recommendations is very important — so when someone with lots more followers (in the thousands or tens of thousands) comments on what you’ve tweeted (or retweets you), you pick up followers.

My Klout has been a bit varied, which I think reflects periods of high activity and engagement, and periods of relative silence (September for example). Changes to the Klout algorithm is the cause of the large increase and fall in Klout.

Email

This year I have made an effort to continue my subscriber growth from the explosive growth from December 2010. The large growth has principally been in January through the release of my Social Media for Unions e-book, which required subscribing to my list to download. Since then, most of the growth has come from people wanting to download one or more of my three e-books. About 37 people subscribe each month, and 3 unsubscribe, so that’s a good growth rate. I’m now sitting just under 1000 subscribers, which for a niche blog about union campaigning and politics, is not too bad. My subscribers are also fairly diverse, with most coming from the USA, Australia, Canada and the UK (in that order).

2011 in a wrap

Last year, I said “content is key”. This year, I’d have to say “add value”. The e-books that I’ve written have been a key source of interest for my readers, subscribers and followers. I’ve focused on trying to provide useful resources that fill gaps for union communicators, focusing on social media, email and online campaigning. I’ve tried to highlight interesting research and promote best practice digital and social media communication techniques for unions. Moreso than 2010, this year has been about trying to provide that assistance to the union movement.

Related posts:

1. Looking back at my Tweeting and Blogging in 2010
2. Go where the members are
3. Social Media for Unions E-Book

I’ve mentioned before the fantastic e-news “Tip of the Day” from the New Organizing Institute. Recently, they sent one out that I thought was worth sharing: how to harness the power of stories effectively for your emails. (Here’s the weblink to the NOI’s email.)

The email highlights a report by M+R Labs about the art of email writing:

Stories are powerful — our brains seem to be hard-wired for this ancient method of sharing information. As a result, including stories in your emails may seem like a no-brainer. But there’s a problem: Non-profits are adding stories to their fundraising messages… and they’re not working.

How can smart organizations harness the power of stories to communicate with supporters and get them to donate? In M+R’s newest publication, we dig into what makes stories powerful, explain recent test results that can help non-profits avoid falling into the personal story trap, and offer concrete tips for crafting emails that successfully use stories to compel supporters to give.

The New Organizing Institute summarises the advice as follows:

1) Stories that explain tell the story of what your campaign or organization is accomplishing, and why you should be trusted with supporters’ donations. But they don’t motivate people to act.

2) Stories that compel put the supporter front and center, making each supporter the hero of a particular moment. More “Choose Your Own Adventure” than “The Great Gatsby,” stories that compel offer people the chance to change the world, and compel people to take action.

Head over to M+R’s website to download the report. I found it thought provoking, and it made me reconsider some of the email-blasts I send out. (Also, you should sign up to the NOI’s “tip of the day” email list here.)

Related posts:

1. The art of writing better union emails
2. Writing effective emails: halve the words
3. Those disclaimers at the end of corporate emails? Turns out that they’re pointless

Susannah Vila (@susannahvila) from Movement.org has some fantastic advice on how to gain success in using email to for social good. The advice is written for progressive organisations of all kinds – and unions can certainly use the guidelines from Vila.

Collecting email addresses and using them to mobilize your supporters is one of the simplest but most important tactics for online organizing.

As Ricken Patel, founder of Avaaz, told us, “Someone operating out of their bedroom can do this better than a multimillion-dollar organization with a huge staff.”

Before you get started, though, look over these tips for how best to turn a list of e-mails into a powerful tool for activism.

The most important pieces of advice from Vila (and areas that unions need to work most to improve) are:

• Follow through: “If someone signs up for your e-mail list, it means they are at least somewhat interested in your work. If someone takes the action asked of them in the e-mail, it means they are more interested—don’t waste that opportunity. Ask them immediately to help with something else.”
• Give context: “When you receive new e-mail signups, don’t just dump them into the regular list. Send them a welcome e-mail describing the campaign/organization and what to expect.”

Too often, I’ve seen no follow-through from unions after sending out an email-blast. Similarly, I’ve seen emails be sent to new subscribers with little context as to what to expect. I’ve even been guilty of these errors.

Read the entire article. I thoroughly recommend it – especially in the context of my Introduction to Email Campaigning for Unions e-book.

Related posts:

1. Use your union’s Facebook page to build your email list
2. Free E-book: Introduction to Email Campaigning for Unions
3. Email list etiquette for unions

The whole point of a Facebook page is to get traffic to it so you can spread your message and engage others in spreading it for you. A Facebook page with no fans isn’t really going to achieve your union’s online campaigning goals – just like a campaign website with no visitors isn’t likely to be a success.

Growing the number of fans you have for your union’s Facebook page isn’t a mystery – unions can use the same real-world campaigning and outreach techniques that work in organising, and apply them to social media.

Here’s three tips that may work for you in growing your union’s Facebook page.

1. Ask people to like your page

When you’re campaigning online, use every opportuntity to ask people to like your Facebook page. Send them an email with the explicit purpose of asking your members to “like” your union on Facebook. (If you use an email marketing service like Mailchimp, then it should be able to directly target emails to only members who are already on Facebook.)

Send out tweets from your union’s Twitter account asking your followers to like your union. If your union’s website has a prominent “call to action” area (such as a scrolling image carosel, like the NTEU‘s) then make one of the images a big “like your union on Facebook” message.

Asking people to like your union on Facebook may sound a bit “naff” but if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Unions are used to asking non-members to join the union – why not ask members to like the union on Facebook? (Also, don’t forget to get all your organisers and union staff to like your page!)

2. Make your content interesting, relevant

The Facebook secret algorithim – the way it decides what gets put up on everyone’s Facebook news-feed – prioritises content that has more comments and “likes”. By making your page’s updates interesting and encouraging people to comment or like them, you are increasing the likelihood that your union’s updates will appear far and wide.

There’s no shame in asking people to like your status update – although don’t abuse this – and asking questions is more likely to get people to comment. Of course, getting your content mix right can be trial and error. You could consider a mix of content – such as videos, photos and text updates. Photos are especially good as the people in them, such as delegates or activists, may “tag” themselves.

You should also consider adding Facebook “like” buttons to your union’s website or campaign sites. This allows your supporters to promote your website and have it appear in the Facebook news-feed.

3. Reach out to like-minded groups and related pages

No Facebook page is an island, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t use your Facebook page to build relationships with like-minded organisations that also have Facebook pages.

For example, if you represent low-paid workers, then the Council of Social Services is a natural group to interact with. You can interact on Facebook using status updates using the “@” symbol. Promoting a related page to your union’s fans can create a sense of reciprocity with the other group who may then promote your page to their fans (although beware that you don’t abuse this). The new Facebook pages also allow you to “act” as your page (rather than your personal profile) – so you can leave comments on other pages.

This can be time consuming, but may be worth it down the line when you really need friends to promote a major event or initiative.

Related posts:

1. Use your union’s Facebook page to build your email list
2. Four more tips for using Facebook for union organising
3. Best practice use of Facebook for unions

Over at the Marketing Experiments blog, there is an interesting case-study of a A/B tested email marketing campaign that demonstrates that reducing the number of words in your email can lead to a significant increase in the number of “clickthroughs” (the people who answer your call to action).

Brad Bortone makes the case that email marketers often “double sell” their product or service, filling their email with unnecessary information that can drown out the call to action – and then confusing people who do click through to their landing page.

(Remember, your successful email campaign should have a prominent call to action, and lead your subscriber to a specially targeted “landing page” or mini-campaign site.)

Here’s the introduction:

Often, marketers confuse the purpose of an email message with that of a landing page. Our research shows that selling your product twice – in an email and then the landing page – disrupts the reader’s thought sequence and could possibly hinder conversion.

By focusing an email on a single goal — such as inviting recipients to an event or location — you can see whether there are distracting elements driving recipients away from the desired action.

Many marketers lose connection with their audience by overstating value, or simply burying it in a wash of information and unnecessary language. Though all correspondence should state value before a call-to-action, it’s important to remember the goal of an email – a clickthrough – and use the copy as the catalyst for further discussion, rather than as an impromptu landing page.

The good thing about this case-study is that it goes through the numbers – showing that the shorter email achieved better results than a longer one. It spells out the great value in A/B split testing and shows how small changes can lead to improvements.

For unions thinking about their email campaigns, it shows the principles I talk about in my Introduction to Email Campaigning for Unions e-book: have a clear goal for your campaign, a prominent call to action, keeping it short, don’t use jargon, and link it to your campaign website with quality analytics.

Related posts:

1. Writing compelling stories for your union emails
2. The art of writing better union emails
3. Four effective “calls to action” to use on your union campaign website

“If this e-mail is received in error, notify the sender immediately.” “This e-mail does not create an attorney-client relationship.” “Any tax advice in this e-mail is not intended to be used for the purpose of avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code.” Many firms—The Economist included—automatically append these sorts of disclaimers to every message sent from their e-mail servers, no matter how brief and trivial the message itself might be.

The Economist has an interesting article about those annoying disclaimers that many organisations (businesses as well as unions and non-profits) add to out-going emails.

Not only are those disclaimers a waste of time, space and (if the email is printed) paper, they also serve no legal purpose:

Many disclaimers are, in effect, seeking to impose a contractual obligation unilaterally, and thus are probably unenforceable. This is clear in Europe, where a directive from the European Commission tells the courts to strike out any unreasonable contractual obligation on a consumer if he has not freely negotiated it. And a footer stating that nothing in the e-mail should be used to break the law would be of no protection to a lawyer or financial adviser sending a message that did suggest something illegal.

Does your organisation add a disclaimer to the bottom of all emails? Have you decided to add one to your email signature after seeing someone else with one?

In addition to serving no purpose, my view is email best practice (and etiquette) should be observed. Superfluous text in an email – even in the signature – should be avoided. Furthermore, although email is free to send, the billions of emails sent each day – equating to untold megawatts of electricity required to power the servers and a global carbon footprint more than double Australia’s – means that emails should be kept small. The kilobytes saved by getting rid of the disclaimer could just help save the planet.

Related posts:

1. Writing compelling stories for your union emails
2. Writing effective emails: halve the words
3. The art of writing better union emails

Australia has had the SPAM Act since 2003. The Act is very clear:

Under the Spam Act 2003 it is illegal to send, or cause to be sent, unsolicited commercial electronic messages. The Act covers email, instant messaging, SMS and MMS (text and image-based mobile phone messaging) of a commercial nature. It does not cover faxes, internet pop-ups or voice telemarketing.

Sending unsolicited commercial emails is against the law in Australia, and many other countries. Getting consent of the recipient, providing identification of who is sending the email, and include an unsubscribe option are essential.

However, unions should not just aim to comply with the law. We, as a movement, should adopt best practice.

Best practice anti-spam behaviour

Why should unions go above and beyond the minimum standards? Because we don’t just send emails to our members. Unions regularly contact people who are not members, such as supporters, non-members in our industries, former members and others. We want to make sure we are only sending our emails to people who actually want to receive them, and are interested in what we’ve got to say.

Who can my union send email to?

People who have specifically signed up through your website

For example, by ticking a checkbox (not checked by default) on your signup or membership form

People who completed offline forms & indicated they wanted to be emailed

Eg: By filling in a petition or survey form where they specifically agree to receive email

People who gave you their business card and asked to receive email

If someone gives you their business card and you have also explained to them that you will be in touch by email, you can contact them.

They purchased something off you or joined your union in the last 2 years

By making a purchase from you (such as union merchandise) they have provided their permission implicitly, although it is much better to explicitly ask them. This could include someone who joined the union in the last 2 years – although getting specific permission is best.

Avoid the spam trap: Who you should not send email to

Anybody that is not covered by the list above! Here are some examples:

Lists or email addresses received from a third party

Includes any list you bought or rented, got from a partner or membership organisation. No matter the claims of the source of this list, you cannot send email to them. This includes lists of emails provided to you by employers!

Addresses you collected or “copy & pasted” from the Internet

Even if they are potential members or their employer puts their email address on their public website, you can’t email someone just because you found their address.

Addresses you haven’t emailed in the last 2 years

Permission doesn’t age well. Even if you got their permission legitimately, they won’t remember giving it to you. If you haven’t sent something to that address in the last 2 years, you can’t start now.

In Australia, “purely factual” emails are permitted. This could include notifications to non-members of bargaining or voting for collective agreements. However, why risk it? Why not seek permission?

Using external lists

What if you’ve spent ages bargaining to get access to all staff records? Your union has just won hard fought access to potentially hundreds of future members’ contact details. Isn’t there a way to use those emails?

Ideally, you should still seek permission. For example, the employer (or other third party) could send an email to their staff (or list) inviting them to sign up to your email list. While your union may only get a small number of people signing up to getting emails from the union, these people are obviously the ones who are interested in the union – far better to have a smaller list of engaged people than a large one of people who never open or read your emails and delete them straight away.

If you use an email service provider, such as MailChimp or my own boutique service Campaign Advantage, there are strict rules about proving that your email list was obtained legitimately.

Related posts:

1. Email list etiquette for unions
2. Free E-book: Introduction to Email Campaigning for Unions
3. Use your union’s Facebook page to build your email list

I am releasing my second free e-book for unions, this time focusing on using email for union campaigning.

Introduction to Email Campainging for Unions

This e-book looks at a widely used – and often misused – online campaigning tool: email. While some online campaigners have written the obituary for emails in this age of social networks, the reality remains that email is largest online activity across every demographic.

For unions, email is a powerful campaigning tool that can easily, inexpensively and personally reach 1000s of members at a time. No other communication tool can replicate this. Almost everyone in Industrialised nations (Australia, the US, Europe) has access to email.

Unfortunately, I have seen many unions “do email wrong”. Whether it is breaking basic etiquette, not using tracking software, sending bulk email using Outlook, or failing to include a call to action, unions are serial offenders when it comes to email campaigning.

In this free 26 page e-book, you will find:

• Why unions should care about good email campaigning
• Advice on the art of writing better union emails
• Email etiquette and how to avoid bad practices
• Understanding email analytics

I hope you find this e-book useful. If you do, follow me on Twitter.

If you haven’t downloaded my Social Media for Unions e-book yet, you can get a copy here.

Related posts:

1. New free e-book: Online Campaigning for Unions
2. Harnessing your email list for change: great advice from Movements.org
3. Social Media for Unions E-Book

I thought I’d share with my readers some of thoughts about my tweeting and blogging from 2010 – a year that saw considerable growth in readership and followers for me.

Blog

2010 was the year of elections, and marked my attempt to blog at least once a week. While I’ve been blogging on and off here (and earlier here and on blogger) since 2004, I’ve never had a regular schedule. I’ve read on blog-advice sites that regular blogging is one of the best ways to get more readers, and that’s certainly my experience.

What are my top blog posts over the last 12 months? In order, they are:

• The #Nocleanfeed campaign, DoS and political nous
• The first Green in the House of Reps?
• My brief review of Civilization 5
• Adam Bandt cures cancer
• What union members want from their union’s communications
• Social Media for Unions E-Book
• No Clean Feed campaign needs to drop their “censorship” obsession
• Hiding behind “cab rank principle” is unethical
• Best practice use of Facebook for unions
• Pro-Greens Party Blogger Jeremy Sear excuses Greens
• The mining-tax scare website is an excellent case study
• Why unions should embrace social media
• Seven online campaigning activities you should already be doing

They range between Federal Election related and union-campaigning and communications related, with the Civilization 5 review rating highly because of SEO. The top post rated highly because of SEO and forum links from Whirlpool. All of the posts benefited from search engine traffic, especially those relating to the Greens Party and Federal Election.

The Federal Election was a major source of traffic for me – not only from interacting with other blogs (such as Crikey blogs or Larvatus Prodeo) – but also from search engines. Until recently, my best day was during the election. The Victorian Election on the other hand drew less traffic, although that could also be because I blogged about it less. And despite drawing less traffic overall, two of my top posts were about the Victorian Election.

Finally, union-related blog posts get consistent visitors – mainly “long tail” visits (that is, a few visitors each day from a variety of sources) rather than loads of visitors on the day the post was published. Referrals and search are important for these posts.

My top referrers for my blog are:

• Google – organic (this is search)
• Direct – (people writing in the blog address directly into their address bar)
• Email – my email subscribers (see more below)
• Facebook – likes, shares and my regular “linking” on my own Status Bar
• Creative Unions – major referral site
• Woothemes Showcase – my blog is showcased on the Woothemes blog
• Twitter – my own tweets and retweets

Some other interesting stats. Most people read an average of 4 pages when they visit. There is a bounce-rate of just over 2% (that means that about 97% of people visit more than one page when they visit my blog). Most people spend just under 3 minutes on my site and around 63% of people who come are “new” visitors (it’s their first visit).

Twitter

Most blogs that write about social media at some point or another write about how get more Twitter followers. As you can see, over the last three months that I’ve seen a steady growth in followers. To be honest, I can’t put my finger on a specific thing that I’ve done over the last three months to warrant this increase. I don’t automatically follow the people who follow me, and I only follow around 75 people, so it’s not because of “follow-spam”.

This year I also started to use Klout – which monitors how influential you are on Twitter and Facebook. As you can see, my Klout score has meandered up and down around the 50-56 mark. The high point was during the Victorian election – probably due to a higher degree of retweets.

What I did  change in 2010 is to make an effort to reply to people who send me “@s” and retweets, and to provide consistent, diverse content – not just links to this blog, but to other interesting content I find on the ‘Net, and personal updates. As someone said to me late last year: “You are a prodigious tweeter.” I certainly tweet a lot.

Email

I’ve recently made a big effort to boost my email subscribers. In addition to adding an annoying pop-up promoting my free e-book, I also introduced the new e-book as the key part of plan to get subscribers. Most people are willing to subscribe to get emails if they think they will get something valuable out of it.

The reaction to my e-book has been positive so far, and there have only been one or two unsubscribes from my list over the last few months – so the once a week email digest of this blog I send obviously isn’t worthless to my subscribers.

So, what did I do to get subscribers? Create worthwhile content and give it away for free after asking that you subscribe to my email list. Simple.

Email makes up around 11% of my referrals, and growing, so I think it’s important. I’ve only really put a big effort into email in the last 3 months, and I think it’s paying off. I’ve also benefited from referrals from a number of pro-union sites that have recommended people download my e-book.

2010 in a wrap

Everyone says that “content is key” – and so do I. If you create good content that people want to read and retweet, then they will, and you will see an increase in readership and follow-rates.

I have made more of an effort in 2010 than I did in 2009 or 2008 (when I started this blog). I’ve focused on articles that give best-practice advice on online campaigning for unions. I’ve also branched out to more political blog posts during election times – or prominent issues like climate change or the #NoCleanFeed campaign.

Related posts:

1. End of Year blogging and tweeting: how I went in 2011
2. A Twitter hashtag worth following in 2010
3. Email is the “killer app” for online campaigning

So, you’ve signed up for MailChimp, got yourself a new email template design, and started to track emails… and found out that none of your members read it. Why?

Here are six reasons why your latest email was rubbish. Perhaps the open-rate was below average, or no one clicked through to the links, or perhaps there were a lot of spam reports. Or, sin of sins, perhaps the email was for one of your union’s events and no members turned up.

1. Your subject line was weak

I’ve written before about the need to ensure your email subject lines are engaging, descriptive and not “spammy”.

The subject line is important – most people see the the subject first, before they see the content or design. So your subject needs to make them want to open your email.

Most email services let you do A/B testing for subject lines. This means you send one version of the email with one subject line to a segment of your email list, and another version of the email with another subject line to another segment of your email list. Whichever gets the highest open rate after a set period of time goes to the remainder of your list. This means you’re more likely to send emails that are more likely to be opened by your recipients.

A few tips:

• Keep it short – Most people don’t want to read a lot and long emails can get cut off in window-panes. With the increased use of email on mobile phones, there is an even higher chance that your subject line will be cut off.
• Tell them what they are about to open – don’t try to fool your recipients into opening something that isn’t urgent by saying it is “URGENT”. If you use “catchy” or “spammy” language, people are less likely to open emails from you in future.
• Make it relevant and interesting – Although I said don’t be catchy, you should still be descriptive and interesting. This blog post could have been called “Six Email Tips”, but instead is called “Six Reasons No One Opened Your Last Email” – it’s more descriptive and interesting. Make sure that the subject accurately describes what’s in the content of the email. If it’s an e-newsletter, then there’s no harm saying it’s a newsletter, so long as you also give an idea of the contents – and of course, don’t forget to AB test.

There’s a great article about writing email subject lines for non-profits here.

2. The design was poor

It’s not enough to plonk a logo or a photo in your email. You need to make sure that your design looks good in a variety of different email reading programs, including Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, among others. What looks good on your computer may look like rubbish on your member’s computer.

As far as design goes – don’t go overboard. Keep things simple and clean – often a logo and your union’s colours are enough. You don’t need loads of CSS or other fancy stuff (unless there’s a reason and you can do it well).

Also, remember to include a plain-text version of the email. Many email readers block images or default to plain-text. Without a plain-text version of your email, it may not be visible, could get blocked as spam or turn into computer-gibberish.

Most email marketing services create plain text version of your emails automatically.

3. It was too long

I’ve seen emails that are over 1000 words long. Great, tedious diatribes. I’ve seen as open-rates to those union members have dwindled to almost nothing as a result.

Today’s Internet users are getting more and more used to short communications. Twitter limits you to 140 characters. Facebook focuses on short status updates. People’s online attention span is getting shorter.

There is some research that lots of people don’t scroll down in emails they get – if they can’t read it on the screen all at once, they’re unlikely to scroll down. (This is not always the case of course, but worth keeping in mind.)

There are some emails that can be long – e-newsletters and bulletins for example can have a lot of content. However, increasingly non-profits are just including “teasers” in their emails with links to the longer article on their website. This is something that unions could keep in mind.

4. There was no call to action

Every email you send to your members should have a call to action. This could just be a link to your website, but there should be a reason you’re sending your email (see next point). I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve received emails from unions (or had to send them myself) that are just “for information” – instead of asking members to do something.

The take-away. Have a call to action in every email – even alerts and updates. Make it clear, bold and up front.

5. There was no reason to send the email

This ties into the “no call to action” problem. Everyone – including your members – gets scores (or even 100s) of emails each day. Your union’s emails are just one amongst the many jostling to be opened, read and acted upon. Don’t waste your members’ time (not to mention yours) by sending emails that don’t have a point to them.

Before you hit send, stop and ask yourself: “Why am I sending this message?” Does the message have a clear purpose? If you can’t answer these questions adequately, then you are probably doing more harm than good. You are certainly ensuring that the next time you send an email to that member, they are less likely to read it.

6. You didn’t follow it up

Nothing beats in person, one to one communication. Emails let you communicate with 100s or even 1000s of members, but without following them up, it’s still a waste. This is especially the case if you’ve asked them to do something like fill out a form, poll or register for an event.

The follow up could be via email or a phone call. It could even be automated. Lots of email marketing services have auto-responder options, which let you set up automatic email responses to specific actions or circumstances.

Related posts:

1. Five reasons why unions should care about email
2. Three reasons why your union shouldn’t bother with an iPhone app
3. Union email campaigning: Do not ignore the Spam Act!

As membership based organisations, unions regularly send emails to their members. Most members accept – and even expect – regular email updates from their union.

By following good email etiquette, unions can ensure their emails are less likely to be junked.

Despite this, unions should still respect the principles of good email etiquette when it comes to unsubscribing and permission-based sending. This is especially the case when your union is running a campaign that sends emails to people who are not members but support the union’s campaign.

Most professional email services (such as Mailchimp, or my own Campaign Advantage) have these principles hard-wired into them. So it can be a good idea to review what good email etiquette is.

When someone gives their email address to your union, they are generally entrusting you with a responsibility to not misuse that information.

Get permission

Make sure the people you’re sending emails to have given you permission to send them emails.

This may seem obvious – especially since union members “opt in” when they join your union. If you can, you should try to add a note on your membership form that specifically states that they will receive emails from the union – this makes it absolutely clear for the member, and you, that they will receive emails.

If you’re running a campaign and are collecting email addresses, make sure you also include a specific opt in tick box or clause on the petition or form you are using.

By not getting permission, you also run the risk of your emails being marked as spam. Most large organisations (where your members likely work) use spam-blocking services. If a significant number of people mark your emails as spam, it can get you, your host or your service black-listed, which means that lots of your emails will never reach their intended recipient (this is the case for using third-party lists below).

Don’t use third-party lists

This is the simple exension of the first point. Don’t use emails you get from someone else. In most cases, it is against spam laws, and even if it’s not, the people whose emails you are being given or (hopefully not) have purchased are not expecting emails from you.

This is even the case if you get emails from another union or peak body. If you are running a campaign in a sector with another union or group, rather than get their list to send emails to, ask that organisation to send an email from them on your behalf.

Also, this almost goes without saying, don’t buy lists. I’ve received emails from businesses offering lists of emails of people associated with the sector my union works in. Bought email lists are bad news – they are rarely accurate, and the people whose emails you are being offered have not opted in to get your emails.

What’s more, most professional email services won’t allow them.

Remove unsubscribes as soon as possible

Most spam laws require bulk emails to include a “one click” unsubscribe method at the end of the email. It is your responsibility as a good email-citizen to remove the email addresses of people who no longer want to receive your emails from your list.

Professional email services will do this automatically, but some people reply to emails they receive asking to be removed manually. Make sure you check your manual unsubscribe before sending any bulk-emails.

For emails of non-members – gained for a campaign – this is a no-brainer. The person who wants to unsubscribe simply doesn’t want to receive your campaign emails any more.

When members want to unsubscribe, it’s a bit more complicated. Obviously as a union, you have the right to communicate with your members. You may have an obligation to send them information regarding their rights to attend Annual General Meetings or similar events.

However, a member who wants to unsubscribe from your bulk-emails is basically telling you that they don’t read your emails anyway. Is it really worth sending them emails they won’t read – and that may annoy them when they keep receiving them?

Stay on topic

This isn’t that hard for a union – but it’s worth keeping in mind. If someone has subscribed to campaign updates about your issue – such as industrial action or wage case – then all your emails should be about that issue. You shouldn’t send them, out of the blue, an offer about cheap homeloans from Members Equity, or deals from Union Shopper – or updates about an unrelated campaign issue.

Similarly for members, it’s a good idea in the first email to a new member, to set out what kind of updates they can expect from you. You may send out periodic e-newsletters, campaign updates, messages from the Secretary or media releases – so you should let your new member know to expect those in their inbox.

If your email service can handle it, you could set up groups or segments – which cover the various types of topics you’re likely to send emails about. This can let your members decide what kinds of emails they want to recieve.

The bonus is that if you stay on topic, and give some of this power back to your members, they’re far more likely to remain interested and engaged with your emails, rather than just hitting “spam” or “delete”.

Related posts:

1. Five reasons why unions should care about email
2. Email tip for unions: don’t overload your members
3. Use your union’s Facebook page to build your email list

Although email has been around for decades, it is still the cutting edge of campaigning and communication. Even in the age of social media, Twitter, Facebook, and iphone apps, email is by far the most used way that people use to send information – more than 94% of adults send or receive emails regularly, higher than everything else. Almost everyone who uses the Internet uses email.

Emails, unlike websites or social media, allow unions to send our message right into their inbox – and because of this it can feel more important and personal. We’re going right into their home, their study, their living room or study to have a conversation. Politicians and businesses have been using email for years – but don’t worry, email is more than ebay catalogues or media releases.

Email campaigning is amongst the safest, cheapest form of mass public relations and communication out there. It can be deeply personal, highly engaging, and spur the recipient into doing amazing things for your union campaign.

For all of these reasons, unions should treat email more seriously than just send out an all-member email using Outlook, Lotus Notes or Gmail. Unfortunately, too often I see unions cut and paste their email list into the BCC field of Microsoft Outlook, without a thought about how many people actually read the email. Worse still, I’ve seen union leaders assume that most, if not all, recipients of their email actually open the email and read it. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth.

So, why should unions care about email?

1. Email builds relationships

Emails that you send may be broadcast, but the recipient can email back. This dialog means that you can engage with your members and subscribers in a personal way. While engagement and relationship building is at the core of social media, email has done it for years. Well-written emails can convey enormous information about your union and your campaign – even if they don’t write back.

In my experience, email lets union members and supporters reply to broadcasts – and when you start talking back, you’re more deeply engaging with them than any other form of communication other than a face-to-face conversation.

If you’re doing email properly, with a permission based list, then in most cases, you’re in a good starting position as well – your email recipients want to hear what you’ve got to say.

2. Email is cheap

Email itself is free to send, but if you want to do email properly, you should use an email marketing service, like the excellent Mailchimp (or the service that I offer). While there are costs to sending good quality emails – staff time, design – it is far less expensive than direct mail.

3. Email lets you micro-target and segment

If you are using a good email campaign service, you should be able to vary the content of your email based on what you know about them. Where they live, their workplace, their age and gender, or whatever other information. The more personal you make your email content, the higher the likelihood that the recipient will open your email and take action.

4. Email give you instant feedback

Email statistics and analytics gives you detailed feedback on how well your email campaigns are faring. How many people are opening your email? How many forward it to a friend or colleague? How many unsubscribe? How many click on the link? Good email services should integrate with Google Analytics, so you can follow them from the email you send to your union’s campaign website.

5. Email is quick

Unlike printed flyers, newsletters or posters, emails can allow for rapid response. You could get an email campaign up and running, from conception, writing, design and sending in just a few hours. You can also decide to send the email at optimal times – good email services let you schedule when the email gets sent.

Related posts:

1. Email list etiquette for unions
2. Email tip for unions: don’t overload your members
3. Free E-book: Introduction to Email Campaigning for Unions