Thank you for these comments – very helpful. Thank you also for your kind comments regarding http://www.DesignsforGiving.com. There is an amazing (miraculous?) story behind the makings of this site that I will have to tell you sometime.

This truly is a passion for me – publlishing these inspirational quotations celebrating philanthropy, giving and volunteerism. I have published four books so far. “Living a Life of Significance” was the first. I’m working on my fifth gift book as we speak. I’m making it my mission to inspire people who make a difference.

My day job? I’m a development officer myself! So I know what a challenge it is for nonprofits to find something to give as a token thank-you gift to donors and volunteers that is classy-yet-affordable.

I will use your advice about managing newsletters. I really like your suggestion about offering a free article about how to thank donors or another relevant topic and I look forward to reading more of your posts!

Best!

Sheree

You’ve go a very nice site. I love the concept of your product (my day job is with a non-profit and I will be sending the development folks the link to your site.)

You might be surprised at how quickly your subscriber list grows. You should work the sign-up form into your site very prominently and include a subscribe link or form inside each newsletter so when people forward it to a friend there is a built-in way for the friend to join.

I had huge success at one site when I added a pop-up window with the sign-up form in it. I used code that made the pop-up occur only once per day per visitor and restricted it to the home page. That list grew from a few hundred to nearly 2000 in less than 10 months.

It is always helpful to have some kind of bonus gift for subscribers. A report on how donor gifts increase giving and donor retention or tips for thanking donors would be good for your subscribers.

You need not spend a lot of money to run your list. I manage my own email list software on my own server, but I would recommend using a 3rd party service for your list. They cost between $20-$30 a month. The subscription process is automated and you will have a host of special features to help you track and manage your newsletters.

These two services are both excellent and offer special trial periods if you want to test out the service:

http://www.andrewseltz.com/recommends/aweber/
http://www.andrewseltz.com/recommends/getresponse/

The hosting company I use also includes a basic newsletter program. I can setup a variety of lists for people to subscribe to (all automated) and they offer basic templates for the newsletters. The first 1000 emails each month are included in my regular fees and additional costs are a reasonable $.01/1000 after that. I use this for some of my mailings.

My hosting company is 1and1 Internet, Inc.:

http://www.andrewseltz.com/recommends/1and1hosting/

If you are technically minded (or just like a challenge) you can run your own software. I use one program called Infinite Responder that is an auto-responder (when people sign-up is sends them a preset sequence of emails at a precise time. For example, email one goes out immediately, email two a week later, email three a week after that and so on.)

I’m also experimenting with a program called PHPlist. This looks like a pretty good package for running newsletters, but it doesn’t do auto-responders. I’m trying to figure out how to integrate that.

Be aware, running your own mailing list software can be a lot of work, and the delivery rates of your messages won’t be as high as with a service. Services spend a great deal of time and energy ensuring that their email gets delivered.

My last comment is strictly legal. Make sure you read the CAN-SPAM laws and produce legal emails. The main things you need to do to be compliant are to include a physical mailing address for your company at the end of each each email along with a way for people to unsubscribe, and never send an email to anyone who hasn’t explicitly asked to be on your list.

Many people use what is called a double opt-in: After a subscriber gives their name and email address, they are sent a confirmation email. Inside that email is a link that will confirm that they wish to be added to your mailing list. Only after they click on that confirmation do they actually get added to the next mailing.

I hope that helps. Probably should have turned this into another article. Email me if you have any questions.

The Go-To Guy!

Thanks for this article. I figure that the email-newsletter is my next step as well. I already have the newsletter concept formulated.

My question is this: How much should I budget to get started on this strategy? I imagine the sign-ups will start small and grow from there. Also, I want to have the sign-up and unsubscribe be “automated”.

Thanx!

Sheree

Thanks for leaving a comment. It is nice to know that people are finding value in my work.

It’s a tough choice to make a site in a niche you don’t know (I hope you at least are interested in it – if not, the work will be torture!!!)

I took a look at what you have so far and have the following suggestions:

1. Images, Images, Images! The subject matter is crying out for images to show people what you are talking about. Start searching ASAP for relevant images that you can use to illustrate your site.
2. Images Part 2. Change your site template to match your topic. You are using the default WordPress template, so you would only need to change the header graphic to make a huge difference. (That is the primary change I made to this site’s template and on this client site: http://www.joelguerrero.com)
3. Clarify your editorial focus. Right now you have several pages devoted to people that want to make carvings and then a large article devoted to the value of original carvings that is clearly targeted at collectors. Pick one, drop the other.
4. Add content explaining tools and techniques, defining special terms, and suggestions for what to buy when starting out.
5. Rethink your ad strategy. Right now you have one Amazon ad block that breaks your layout and is at the bottom of the page (a very bad spot for ads!) I would take down the ads and then develop a plan for where and how you will display ads on the site. Then, when you know what you want to do, re-introduce the ads.

Check out Joel Comm’s Adsense book for great insights into ad placement and integration. I’ve picked up a lot of tips from this book and Joel’s other writings. I wrote a review of the book here:

http://www.andrewseltz.com/2006/10/10/review-the-adsense-code-by-joel-comm/

Finally, start a newsletter immediately and build a list of woodcarving enthusiasts. Consider a 5-7 part email course on ‘Getting Started with Woodcarving’ that people can sign-up for. Work the sign-up form prominently into your site. Do this before worrying about placing ads. Capturing contact information for every visitor will be far more profitable in the long term than slapping up ads. Once you have contact info you can start directing traffic to your content rather than trying to drive it to your site. And, when people begin to know and trust your advice, you can recommend products to them.
If you’ve got questions, send me an email.

The Go-To Guy!