How To Improve Your Club Newsletters

Newsletters are awesome. I put together and send out Member Jungle's monthly and weekly newsletters. I also subscribe to several newsletters, including my book club's monthly newsletter and Ground News' weekly Blindspot newsletter (which is great for seeing news from opinions and sources outside your echo chamber). I am also subscribed to three different newsletters from Atlas Obscura. I get their daily newsletter, weekly newsletter, and biweekly Gastro Obscura newsletter.   

This is how I learned about The World's Largest Things Incorporated, a museum in America that boasts the "world's largest collection of the smallest versions of the largest things." Every time a new world's largest thing is made, they create a miniature of it to go on display in their museum.    

 

 

For example, miniature versions of the world's largest donut sign. 

 

 

 

One can only hope the Americans who run this museum discover that Australia is jam-packed with odd, world-largest things for them to make miniatures of. Who doesn't want to see the world's smallest version of the Big Banana or Big Potato?  

My point is that newsletters are an awesome way of communicating important information, creating awareness, educating and keeping people up to date. They can be sent in bulk to as many people as you need, all of whom can read through them in their own time. This makes them a really effective way of communicating with all of your club members to help ensure everyone knows what is going on in your club and keep them informed and engaged.

So, let's discuss some of the best ways you can improve your newsletters and make them the perfect tool for club communications. 

Perfecting The Subject Line For Club Newsletters

When your members receive your newsletter, the first thing they will see is the Subject Line. If the subject line isn't attention-grabbing and clear, your members might not even open or read your newsletter. So, first things first, you need to ensure that you have a nice, engaging subject line.

The key is clarity and conciseness. Keep it short and sweet, accurately reflecting the newsletter's content without resorting to misleading clickbait. Personalisation is also powerful; using member names or referencing shared experiences creates a sense of connection. Dynamic fields in Member Jungle's email campaign allow you to easily address newsletters to individual members without having to type their names out one by one. Don't shy away from creating a bit of urgency or excitement with time-sensitive information, intriguing questions, or even a touch of humour. Remember, your subject line is the first impression your newsletter makes, so make it count.

Here are a few quick examples to show you what I mean: 

• Don't Miss Out! [Event Name] Registration Closing Soon
• Welcome, [New Member Name]! Here's Everything You Need to Know
• [Club Name] Newsletter: Fall Events, Member Spotlight, & More!
• Unlock Your Potential: 5 Reasons to Attend Our Upcoming Workshop

Short Sweet Newsletters For Club Members

Newsletters and newspaper articles have many similarities, both in purpose and formatting. As a journalist, I can share some easy tips for formatting your newsletter more effectively. 

So, below are things I was taught at university for formatting and writing effective news articles that you should apply to your newsletters: 

• Keep it simple: Write in easy-to-understand, plain English. Don’t use over-the-top fancy words or jargon. Aim for a reading level around grade 7, as in year seven students should be able to read it easily. Use tools like Hemmingway Editor to check the reading level of your newsletter. 
   
• Front-load important information: People, myself included, have the attention spans of nats. The information in your newsletters should be arranged in order of importance. You want the really important stuff at the very top and the least important stuff at the bottom. 
   
• Use one-sentence paragraphs as often as possible: About 90% of the time, newspapers will use one-sentence paragraphs. This makes it easy for the reader, as they aren’t faced with big slabs of text, and it makes scan reading easier. Two sentences can be together in one paragraph if they are highly related. 
   
• Keep it short: Again, short attention spans are a killer. Your newsletters should be fairly short so they can be read or scanned quickly. Your newsletters can definitely link to longer forms of communication, but the newsletters themselves should be neat and brief. 
   
• Tease your content: This is not a journalist tip, but it is still super useful. If you are putting articles, blog posts or events in your newsletters, don’t include the whole thing. It’s much better to just include a header image and an introductory sentence or two and then link to the rest of your article than trying to get people to read the whole thing right there in the newsletter.  

 

If you follow these steps, you should end up with a short, easy-to-read newsletter that people will actually pay attention to and read. 

Consider Sending Multiple Newsletters

Subdividing your members and sending slightly different newsletters to each group is a really easy way to tailor your newsletter better to the content and events those different groups want to see. 

For example, I’ve already said that I send out a monthly newsletter at Member Jungle, but in fact, I send out two monthly newsletters. One goes out to Member Jungle customers, and the other goes out to people who are considering using Member Jungle. This subdivision allows me to tailor the content in the newsletters further to the groups they are going to because customers and potential customers will have different interests and different things they want to read about.  

You can do the same thing but divide your members up by interest. Let’s say a sailing club/RSL has “Social Members” and “Sailing Members.” Well, you could send out two newsletters, one for each group, that are better tailored to what those members want to see. 

A rock climbing club could divide their newsletter into two and send one to the outdoor climbers on “The best ways to haul your mountain of gear to the crag,” and one for us indoor climbers on “The best mats in the gym to have a nap on,”. 

 

 

You might say we’re soft, but I say we’re cosy. 

Look, I don’t know how you will subdivide your club into different audiences, but I’m sure you know how you could do it. And it’s worth doing; it can really improve your newsletters' engagement. 

Finally, consider adding another newsletter that goes out more or less frequently. Some members may want to hear from you every week, while others might only want quarterly updates. 

Use AI To Help Generate Content For Your Club Newsletter

I have talked at length in the past about how useful AI can be in helping you create amazing, engaging content for your club. Emphasis on help. In my opinion, AI is best used to assist you in coming up with ideas and help smooth out your own writing, not replace it. 

AI tools like Google Gemini and ChatGPT are great at helping you do the following things for your newsletters: 

• Drafting subject lines
• Drafting headlines
• Summarising your content to make your newsletters shorter
• Helping you come up with ideas for content 
• Editing
• Getting past writer’s block

For more information on how to use AI to generate great content for your club, please read How To Use AI To Generate Content For Your Club’s Website. I go into a whole lot of detail in this article, so it should have pretty much everything you need to get started.  

Use An Active Voice

While we are talking about writing, I strongly suggest that you write in an active voice. An active voice is more direct, sounds better, and is more engaging to readers. An easy way to remember this is that a sentence in active voice will have the structure subject > verb > object, while a passive voice will have object > verb > subject. 

For example 

“A lot of great events were held at our club this last month,” is passive. 

“Our club held a lot of great events this last month,” is active. 

You won't be able to avoid passive sentences all the time but try to avoid them when possible, as sentences written in an active voice will be more engaging to members.  

How To Make Your Club Newsletters More Visually Appealing 

A huge part of your newsletter's effectiveness is down to how visually appealing it is. Your newsletter needs to be visually interesting to draw readers in, have plenty of white space, and flow nicely down the page. 

It’s all well and good to say your newsletters need a modern design and to flow nicely, but let’s break down what that means in real terms. 

Clean Modern Newsletters For Your Club

Your newsletter needs to have a clean, modern design. This means it cannot be too busy or cluttered and should ideally stick to a handful of colours. I found some example newsletter templates online, which you can see below. Each design is very different from the last, but they all stick to just a few colours, have plenty of white (blank) space for the eye to rest, and make great use of visually interesting photos.  

 

So, when you’re putting together your club newsletter, pick a few colours (probably your club colours) and use only them, plus white and black.

While we’re talking about colours, it’s also worth making sure that the contrast between your text and whatever background it’s over. Too little contrast can make your newsletters frustrating or sometimes even impossible to read. No one wants to strain to read something. Also, use a consistent font. Having a headline fun and a different body font is fine, but no one wants to try and decipher eight different fonts in your email. 

Make Sure Your Club Newsletter Has Nice Flow

By “nice flow”, we mean that there is a clear visual path down your newsletter for your readers' eyes to follow. 

When a reader first opens your newsletter, their eyes will automatically flow in a Z shape from top left to bottom right. 

 

 

Terminal area means where the eyes stop, not why they die. This isn’t that microscope from The Phantom. I think I watched that movie way too young because I cannot unsee this scene. 

 

Shout out to anyone else who remembers 1996’s The Phantom Starting Billy Zane. 

In addition to the Z shape of reading, your readers will also scan down your newsletter in an F shape. 

 

 

This means that you want to lay out your newsletter in a way that works for how your readers will naturally look at it. Flowing from the top left to the bottom right. I overlaid these two visuals over the Member Jungle weekly newsletter for some better context.  

 

 

Basically, there is an attention-grabbing image at the top right, and then diagonally down to the call to action, which is a link to an article. I hope this makes it a bit clearer. 

Visually Appealing Photos For Your Club Newsletters

Make sure your club newsletter includes attractive, high-resolution images. Avoid using boring, ugly, or pixelated images, which will discourage readers from engaging with your newsletters. Opt for relevant, high-resolution images that are visually appealing. For example, see the little knit Darth Vader I used on my weekly newsletter that went out the day after Father’s Day. 

 

 

It's high-res, it's interesting, and it's relevant. If you were wondering, I made it with our AI image generator, JungleVision AI. 

AI image generators are an excellent way to make interesting, high-resolution, copyright-free images that you can use in your newsletters. Find out more about that by reading How To Create AI-Generated Images Directly From Your Club's Website.

For the other smaller images in that newsletter, I used Canva, which is another great way to make images for your club's newsletter. You can read more about Canva here: What Is Canva & How Can You Use It To Promote Your Club.

Use Templates To Help You Create Beautiful Club Newsletters

Finally, you can use premade templates to help you create a stunning newsletter. I personally do this. Graphic design is difficult, and people spend years studying it to know how to do it properly. So, if I can use a design that an expert has put together to be the most visually appealing and have the best flow, then I will.

There are a bunch of different ways to get your hands on newsletter templates, from Canva to sites like Befree, even to Member Jungle itself. If you want to find out more about this, please see How To Customise Email And Newsletter Templates With Member Jungle. 

Have A One-Click Unsubscribe Option 

Earlier in 2023, Google and Yahoo tightened their restrictions on what counts as a spam email. While this is actually a good thin, it does mean that there are a few extra hoops to jump through to show Google that your emails are legitimate and shouldn’t be marked as spam.

One of these hoops is that any bulk emails you send, like newsletters, need to have a one-click unsubscribe option on them. Basically, a member needs to be able to click one button (and one button only) to be unsubscribed from your emails.  

The good news is Member Jungle has already added a new feature to help with this. So, to find out more about that and how Member Jungle is helping, please read How Google’s New Email Sender Requirements Will Affect Your Club.

Other Ways You Can Improve Your Club’s Communications

As great as newsletters are, they aren’t the only way to communicate with your members, so if you want to have a look at some other great ways to talk to your members, have a look at How To Improve Your Club’s Communication With Its Members.