Best Community Newsletter Tips & Ideas
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There’s a widespread concern that the idea of “community” is dwindling.
With more socializing done online nowadays, connecting with neighbors seems to be a dying pastime.
However, time with groups is important and often, individuals are unaware of the vibrant activities and fun events happening in their neighborhood. A community newsletter is a tool to bring people together once again, and even help to boost the local economy.
Get the tools and templates you need to get started, right here. Plus, find out about all the best practices to ensure people read (and enjoy!) your newsletter, and never run out of content ideas, with this guide.
People are bombarded with emails every day. Make sure they look forward to reading your community newsletters.
A compelling subject line is important, but consistently providing valuable content will make sure your emails are opened, read and enjoyed.
People will read neighborhood newsletters that are relevant to them.
Round up the right topics by asking the community for their input. For maximum value, try to arrange time with people from your community to understand what kind of content is important to them, and what information they want more of.
You can also ask the community to contribute content themselves. This has two benefits. It means the content is already created for you, and you know it is relevant and important, because it is from the community.
Collecting information is often the hardest part of the process though, as you’ll probably have to chase people up if they forget to send their stuff!
Add a reminder at the end of each community newsletter, asking readers for news, events and updates to go in the following email. Don’t forget to say what date you need the information by.
The right content makes people more likely to engage with newsletters, and look forward to receiving them in their inboxes!
Adopt a friendly, neighborly tone.
This email should be warm and conversational; there’s no need to write in a formal or overly professional manner.
Try to avoid adding too much detail to each section of your email. Sticking to the points makes newsletters more digestible, which tends to boost engagement.
Break up monotonous text with points of visual interest, like images, videos, GIFs and even bold or colorful headings.
If adding interesting content seems difficult, consider using an email builder. This is a user-friendly tool that lets you build emails using a drag-and-drop editor, with a vast library of templates to get you started. You then export emails to Outlook, Gmail or any email-sending provider, so they can safely reach your community.
Email builders are packed with features that help you discover and add fresh content to your newsletters. They integrate with stock image and GIF sites, giving you access to over 2 million assets (these are handy when you’re short on photos from the community!)
You can crop, align and re-position all images right in the editor. Without this feature, you risk spending lots of time editing images in some other software, and re-uploading them to your newsletter to try to make all images align! It can be a time-consuming process without an email builder.
This one takes a little testing and feedback gathering.
Sending too many emails can be annoying for readers, so they might start ignoring or unsubscribing from your neighborhood newsletter.
A good starting point is to send newsletters once or twice a month. If you find you have lots of exciting events to share, a weekly email might work best for you. Don’t be afraid to dial the frequency up or down to suit your community and its expectations.
If you are speaking to the community about what content they want to see, you could also ask them how often they want the newsletter too.
As humans, being part of a community is important. The “father” of community psychology, Seymour B. Sarason calls community “one of the major bases for self-definition”.
So, bringing the community together is a worthwhile effort.
Specifically, the benefits of a community newsletter include:
Stuck for ideas on things to include in your neighborhood newsletter?
We’ve got you covered, so you’ll never have to wonder what to write! Here are some of our favorite ideas, complete with community newsletter templates to help kickstart your newsletter. You can access (and start using) all of these templates and hundreds more when you use an email builder.
It makes sense to open newsletters with the latest news. Think about what the community needs to know, and include any news items shared by readers.
You might need to edit any news or content sent in by the community, especially if it’s a little wordy. It’s usually best to keep these items short and snappy, to increase readability.
Here’s a little trick: Email builders come with refinement AI tools. You can copy and paste an entire message and ask AI to polish and shorten it, so it fits in with the rest of your newsletter and sticks to the key points only, with minimal time or effort needed.
What’s happening around the community?
From farmer’s markets to firework shows to something for the kids, let residents know about local events to boost attendance. This is a surefire way to bolster that community spirit, supporting local businesses and providing a space for members of the community to integrate with each other.
Use this space to advertise community service and volunteer opportunities, whether that’s at a local school or a food bank, to encourage residents to help out those in need.
Round up support for local restaurants, cafes and boutiques in your community newsletter.
Share discounts and promotions (with permission from the business!) to increase foot traffic and sales - a win-win for the business owners and members of the community!
This is a great way to support newly-opened businesses, but don’t forget about the long-standing spots, either.
Build excitement by offering a chance to win prizes. Or, if you can’t give prizes away, simply shine the spotlight on a resident.
For example, consider launching holiday decoration contests, holding a scavenger hunt or spelling bee, or asking children to create posters asking cars to follow the speed limit. Sharing a photo of the winning poster or decorated home is a fun way to congratulate residents.
You could also announce the winner of any raffles. Let them know what they’ve won and how to claim their prize.
At the end of the year, send a holiday email with your best wishes.
Keep this email warm and use excitable language. Thank recipients for their input to the community and wish them a huge “Happy Holidays!” To add an extra fun touch, remind children to leave milk and cookies out for Santa
Don’t be afraid to go all-in on the festive theme, with images and GIFs, and traditional festive shades like reds and greens. In an email builder, you can filter templates to find holiday templates, which come ready to go with a sprinkle of Christmas magic - from warm wishes to snow-filled stock photos.
Why not use the community newsletter to give residents a say in issues that affect them?
When there’s a decision to be made, give readers the option to vote and pass on results to the relevant parties, such as the resident’s board or local politicians.
You can also ask residents what they want to see included in the newsletter, to guide the content and keep it relevant. Use a survey email template to boost the response rate and get a large sample of responses across the community.
With the right email builder, you can survey the community right in the email. You won’t need any third-party tools - you can easily add polls and surveys directly to your newsletter, and keep an eye on the results with a handy dashboard.
Exercise some creative freedom for this section of the newsletter.
This is a place to round up anything that might be of interest. This might include:
Sometimes, knowing what to exclude is just as important as knowing what to add to your newsletter.
The following elements are best left out.
Don’t publish personal information, such as email addresses, contact numbers, or physical addresses, without explicit permission from that person.
Photos of people in the community add vibrancy to your newsletter, but never include them without asking those people first.
When taking photos at events, make sure everyone is happy to be in the shot and let them know the photos may appear in the community newsletter. Be respectful of everyone’s wishes.
If you want to use photos or news articles from around the web, make sure you have permission to use that content first.
Online photos and graphics are protected by copyright law. The good news is that most creators are happy for community and non-profit publications to use their content, so just email the website owner and ask.
If including an article from the web, always credit the source. When you use an email builder, there’s a dynamic web scraping tool to make this process super fast and easy. Simply paste the URL of the target article and the tool automatically populates all relevant information, including an image or video, title, description and, of course, the source URL for credibility.
Always double-check information before adding it to your newsletter.
If something is hard to prove, don’t add it, or make it clear there’s some ambiguity there. On the same note, don’t include anything negative about a person or business. It could be upsetting for them and if it’s not true, the claim could be illegal.
As a general rule, keep personal opinions to yourself. Use the newsletter as a space to spread positivity and keep the community together!
Keep the local community engaged with a regular community newsletter.
With so much to share, it can feel like a daunting task. However, with an email builder, you can build professional newsletters quickly. An extensive library of pre-made templates and an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor means you don’t need to be a professional designer or hire someone to create the newsletters for you.
Get a free 14-day trial and discover the fastest, easiest way to spread any word to your community.
