In the mail last week, I received the worst newsletter I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen some bad ones over the years, but this one takes the cake.
First, the front page was a long letter from the Executive Director. This page was packed full of text with hardly any white space and no breaks for my eyes. No photos, no headlines. It was exhausting to look at.
On the inside, another long letter from the Board President. Tons of text, no breaks – yuck. The rest of the newsletter was more of the same – boring text-heavy pages with no photos, no stories, nothing to warm my heart or compel me to give. There was a lot of “save the date” info about events coming up and events that happened months ago. There was info about staff coming and going. Nothing about the people the organization serves and how lives are being changed. I know this organization has some powerful stories to tell (I’ve heard them before). Why weren’t they in the newsletter?
The whole thing looked like a bad copy of a copy. Am I as a donor not worthy of at least an original copy?
As I looked at this terrible excuse for a newsletter, it occured to me that it was written to be interesting to the writer – not interesting to me as the reader.
I share this with you in the hopes that you can learn from the mistakes of this organization and do a better job of your own newsletter.
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