9 Tips for Writing a Great Association Newsletter

By |Published On: October 5, 2023|
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If you’re looking for ways to boost your association’s success, consider adding email newsletters to your marketing strategy. As of 2023, email marketing has shown a 4,200% return on investment, at about $42 in returns for every dollar spent. 

This type of marketing in the form of periodic e-newsletters is a great way to help your association take actionable steps:

  • Streamline your communication. 
  • Engage current and potential members. 
  • Convey valuable information about your association. 

With global email marketing revenue at over $12 billion, what are you waiting for? In this blog, we’ll go over helpful tips to make sure your association newsletter has value and sparks interest.

[Related: 11 Qualities of a Good Executive Director: What Members Expect]

Why Distribute an Association Newsletter?

Distributing a high-quality email newsletter that represents your association offers many advantages. Here, we’ll highlight just a few.

Optimize Communications

Sending a regularly scheduled newsletter means your association can maintain and optimize communications with key audiences. 

Instead of reaching out whenever something new occurs or you have a question for your members, a newsletter can contain all pertinent ideas, information and events in fewer messages.

Emphasize Your Knowledge

An association newsletter is also a great way to show your industry expertise. By including relevant news, broadcasting upcoming events and even showcasing influential members, your association has an outlet to demonstrate that you’re ahead of the curve. 

In turn, this can increase member retention by providing unmatched value in an easy-to-read email.

Inform Your Audience

Are you providing a new service? Is a big fundraiser coming up? Are you partnering with another association? Do you need volunteers? 

Newsletters are an excellent way to inform your audience of the latest association goings-on and to reach out if you’re looking for assistance.

[Related: The Membership Recruitment Plan Every Association Should Implement]

Tips for Writing a Great Association Newsletter

Read on to explore key ways to create an exciting and effective association newsletter for your members.

1. Understand Your Goal, and Keep It Focused

No one wants to read a newsletter if it’s one long train of thought or all over the place. The best association newsletters focus on the value you want to give your members. When putting together your newsletter, zero in on your audience and goals. 

For example, write with your primary desired outcome front of mind. Are you trying to engage new members? Roll out a new service or promote an event? Tactfully ask for donations? 

Let this focus lead the way to a great association newsletter.

2. Get to the Point (Keep It Short and Sweet)

Avoid run-on sentences and big, unbroken blocks of text. Your average reader wants concise content with bite-sized, digestible paragraphs and clear headers for at-a-glance navigation. Use details, but keep them succinct and precise.

If you have a lot of information to offer, consider writing “teasers” with links to full association PDFs or web pages. This helps you avoid overwhelming the newsletter (and readers) with too much content and unsightly walls of text.

3. Show Your Expertise and Authority

An association newsletter is your chance to show off your industry-leading knowledge. 

You might include content like this:

All these content types can build trust and position your association as an authoritative leader.

4. Promote Sales, Services and Events

An email newsletter is a perfect place to broadcast upcoming events like these:

Additionally, a newsletter can promote new services and products, as well as tell readers how they can get involved. 

5. Spotlight Member Benefits

Your association works hard to create valuable member benefits, like affinity programs — your newsletter is an ideal place to highlight them. Show your members the value that being involved with your association brings. 

In fact, your members may be unaware of all the advantages that come with their membership. With that in mind, use your newsletter to drive home its value and increase member retention.

6. Humanize Your Association

When interacting through a phone or computer, it can be difficult to see the humans behind organizations. A newsletter allows your association to introduce new members, volunteers and staff. It can also humanize upper management by highlighting board members, founders and other association leaders. 

Additionally, newsletters with images, videos and/or anecdotes give members a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at your association. Media and descriptive text can also vividly introduce your partner organizations. 

Altogether, that humanization builds valuable, lasting connections.

7. Highlight Your Community

Associations are all about giving back. Why not use your newsletter to give shout-outs to other leaders doing great work in your industry? 

Include engaging information, such as headshots, quotes, social media links and multimedia. Plus, that sense of familiarity tends to lead to smoother consensus building.

8. Personalize and Target the Message

The best association newsletters often use subject lines that directly address the reader. Your members immediately feel seen and heard, not depersonalized. 

When you can, tailor your newsletter content to your various recipients’ interests. Ideally, you have a few different newsletters for stakeholder groups in segmented lists. Your mission remains the message’s core, while the reader still knows you have their distinct needs in mind.

Note. Your association management company (AMC) can help with audience segmentation.

9. Include a Clear Call to Action

An association newsletter must let readers know where they can find you online and how to contact you. Include links to your social media pages, email addresses, phone number(s) and of course — your website.

This call-to-action (CTA) section is also a perfect opportunity to further boost engagement:

  • Ask for feedback and opinions regularly. 
  • Call for volunteers.
  • Conduct surveys.
  • Ask people for financial support with features like “donate here” buttons.

Overall, your newsletter’s CTA gives members everything they need to take the next step.

[Related: How To Approach Project Management for Trade Associations and Professional Societies]

Boost Your Member Engagement With CM Services

An association newsletter can be an extremely beneficial aspect of your content marketing strategy. But that’s true only if it’s focused and brings subscribers real value and quality. Follow our nine tips for writing the best association newsletters, and see how one benefits your association!

At CM Services, we help associations like yours overcome challenges and meet goals with key professional AMC services:

Contact us today for further information and support! Explore our resources for more helpful tips and guides.

Bonus Tip. For your association newsletter, examples and templates are tailorable per your industry. (Check out Canva, Adobe, Microsoft and Venngage.) Our team can present you with custom association newsletter examples, complete with graphic design, when you partner with CM Services. 

Featured image via Pexels

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