Communications - Email a good choice?

How do you communicate with the members/donors to your Friends group?  What type of communication do they receive. Sit down with your Board and look at the number of times the Board has communicated with each member during the last year. You may be quite surprised at the level of your communication.

What would be a type of communication? From a Friends newsletter, to a request for renewal of their membership, a year end thank you note, a phone call to say thank you, or an invite to a special event. Each of these counts as to a communication.

Today there is email. Wow,it is quick;and informal too. While it may be quick, once you hit the send button it's pretty much over. I've received interboard communications with lots of typos, run on sentances and all those items we learned not to do. You can't explain yourself out of it. Remember this communication is a representation of the your Friends group. Your member may feel slighted that the communication wasn't professional. Make sure someone that isn't close to the topic reads the email out loud before you send it.

We can blast out a news item. It's cheap, it's easy. Let's make sure that you have the member's permission. You say permission - why yes. The member receiving the email may enjoy this particular topic, another member may toss it out. Using an appropriate email service that allows the member to select the topics that you send is getting their permission. This allows you to send a last minute word about a program that could be interesting to a particular group of members. Example - member indicates he/she would likeinformation on children's and teen programs. Another member is interested in advocacy only. A great book on on this topic is, Seth Godin's Permission Marketing it is a great read. Check it out.

When your group is determining whether or not to use email to communicate with members, you need to get a privacy policy and adhere to it. There are plenty places on the web where you can find examples. This is an important policy that the Board should have. Once you have it, post it on your web pages or web site. In the same vein, your email should be addressed to only one person. Listing lots of email addresses in the "TO" box isn't keeping their email private.

Ending and email should be addressed from a person since we are speaking to our members. Leave information like, phone number to call, website address, link to the privacy policy and what I call a tag line. A tag line could be "Celebrating 50 years of service to our Library", another one could change with the time of year -"Book Sale is on Saturday, December 12, at 9am - see you there". At the bottom of the email, there should be a place to "opt out" of the email.

If you decide that your organization wishes to use email to communicate with members, remember it is only one method.  An email will not substitue for a hand written thank you card. Good use of email can assist the Board in creating and serving your membership, thereby creating a closer community.