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Maximize the Impact of Your Member Communications

PattyLeave a comment

Now that we’ve shared some of our best MagCloud examples of member communications, it’s time to talk content. What information is vital to include and what is best to leave out? Our take, like in most printed materials, is that less is more.

For many independent organizations, fundraising is typically a part of your member communications. Because of this, if not for other reasons, you must ensure that your materials are concise and compelling to make sure you’re reaching as many members as possible with your message.

Here are a few more tips to consider when composing your next member communication:

Spotlight Individual Members – Profiling a particularly active member can bolster involvement from the rest of the members who will strive to earn the honor as well, and it may drive the spotlighted guest to share the communication with his or her broader online network thus spreading the reach of your group.

Promote Your Social Media Channels – Many alumnae organizations have LinkedIn Groups and local community groups often have Facebook Pages. Whatever your channel, be sure you’re using your printed materials to promote your online social media channels. It’s a fast way to spread your message and it’s easy to communicate last-minute details about upcoming events.

Limit the Real Estate– All members are aware of the need for fundraising so when creating your materials, try to balance your fundraising call to actions with information that will inspire and inform members about your cause, club or organization. Each group will have a different setup, but no matter how many pages your publication is try to balance fundraising efforts with important news and updates.

Be Mindful of the White Space – We’ve spoken a lot about this subject in previous blog posts, and our advice remains the same. Make your images eye-catching and high quality (hire a professional photographer, if possible), but be sure you leave room on each page to avoid overcrowding.

Share your best practices for member communications in the comments below!

Member Communication Made Easy (Well, Easier…)

Lauren3 Comments

Whether you have a non-profit, church group, student association, small business, or sports team, getting your message out to your members, supporters, and investors can be a large task. Staying on schedule and under budget can be tough, and creating a print newsletter that looks good is only a fraction of the challenge. Then you have to worry about mailing lists, postage and distribution… and you have to do this annually? Quarterly? Monthly?! Yikes. My head hurts just thinking about it…

Well, now you can worry less, because you have MagCloud–and we’re working to make it easier for you. With Ship to Group functionality we can take on the heavy-lifting of drop-shipping to your mailing list and you won’t have to deal with pesky paper-cuts or trips to the post office. Digital distribution gives you the option to share a PDF with your users who prefer to stay up-to-date with their iPad or other digital device. And you can get it all done without having to leave your desk or get out of your PJs (no judgement here).

So since it’s the start of a new year, what better way to turn over a new leaf with your organization, than to turn a glossy page? Your publication can look professional and still be affordable if you publish through MagCloud and we’re going to help you get started right now.

To make the process easier, we created a classic newsletter template designed for printing as a 4-page MagCloud publication (which comes to just 60¢/copy if you order 20 or more copies). It’s easy to edit and available in three software formats. Check out the original and a variation of the template on the left, and then get started creating your own in Adobe InDesign (CS3 or newer), Microsoft Word or Apple Pages. *Please note, you may have to “right-click” or “ctrl+click” to start the download.

Starting with a template is a great trick for speeding up the design process (don’t tell anyone I told you, but a lot of professional designers do it themselves) and many well-designed templates have style sheets built in that make it easy to change fonts and styles with just a few clicks of the mouse. So with a few simple typeface changes, tweaks to color, and some new imagery, you can easily transform this basic template into a newsletter that fits your organization’s image. We used Neutra typefaces and swapped in orange for our example, but how you customize it is up to you.

Want to try a different design?
Depending on your software of choice, you can also find great resources built into some applications or as free downloads in their online resources.

Apple Pages has built-in templates that can be great starting points, just be sure to check your margins and settings because these layouts may need a bit of adjusting so that they are properly centered on the page after printing/trimming. For more detailed help with this task check out the “Add guides to pages and adjust layout for trim” section of last year’s blog post.

Microsoft also has free templates available for Word and Publisher online at office.microsoft.com.

If you’re willing to splurge and buy a template, from an online source like stocklayouts.com, be aware that most of these templates are not designed to MagCloud specs and will need to be adjusted to 8.5″ x 11″ pages in order to output a properly-sized, MagCloud-ready PDF. So before you spend the money, be sure you select a file format for software you are comfortable with, and that you are prepared to make the necessary changes to set the file up to match our PDF specifications.

More Resources
Still needing more inspiration? Check out some of our past blog posts for newsletter content and design tips, or great sample publications. And as always you can find all of MagCloud’s design Tips and Tricks and all of our free templates in our Design Resources section of the blog.

Have you found other great templates or resources to use when creating your MagCloud publications? Then please share them below in the comments section.

Getting Your Members on the Same Page

Image Patty1 Comment

Community organizations, non-profits and student groups all work hard to build a strong member base that understands and spreads their mission. From new member materials to monthly newsletters, a clear, well-designed member communications strategy is an important step towards that goal. Thankfully, MagCloud is here to help you achieve that goal. Many groups already publish their materials with MagCloud and we’re excited to show you the high quality work they’re producing. These examples should give you a few ideas about where to focus your materials:

Orange County Orchid Society publishes this monthly newsletter filled with images of the group’s beautiful orchids and to update the group on its members, the latest meeting notes, tips and a few local ads.

American Glass Guild newsletter features a message from the president of the AGG, the latest news on awards and recognition for members and a recap of a recent AGG workshop.

Fort Collins Alumnae Chapter of Delta Delta Delta has several important updates for members such as key upcoming dates, a note from the chapter’s PanHellenic rep, an update on Fall recruitment and plans for several events in the next year.

Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity quarterly publication is a good publication for other Greek organizations to get content tips for. It features a spotlight on outgoing seniors and new members and several editorial pieces from members looking to stretch their writing muscles.

The Pulse is a publication by the Korean American Students of Yale that packs a concise update into six pages including a message from the outgoing board, notes from the most recent board meeting, a look at the top 9 KASY moments of the year and, of course, some funny KASY superlatives. It’s worth noting that each KASY publication is similar in length but the content varies by issue.

Let us know what member communications materials you use to share updates with your members. We want to hear about it