1. Salutation (personalized)

2. Context

3. Ask

4. Reader Focused Theory of Change

5. Your Story (Ask)

6. Narrative Development [optional]  

7. Signature

8. P.S (if necessary, with an alternate ask)

Almost every mail client will let you do a custom mail merge field that includes the individual’s name (or Friend) in the first line of the email greeting. By including personalization, you increase the deliverability of your blast, and the likelihood that the person reading it will feel a stronger sense of affinity with your message.

Bulk email writing is difficult because you must simultaneously appeal to the lowest and highest information members on your list. The intro should include context that is brief, to the point, and (for bonus points) contain new information about a tension or crisis the reader will care about.

This can be as simple as:

“Something happening in the real world right now that could develop into a bad outcome or is a potential moment to achieve a good outcome.”

The ask is the part of the email where you are straight forward and up-front about what you need the e-mail reader to do. This is usually an action-related sentence, and is almost always the first hyperlink to your action. The basic ask is then repeated 2 more times in the email blast. We do this because the individual might read just the first two paragraphs, half the email, or the entire thing, and you want to be able to offer them an opportunity to take action regardless of when they decide to stop reading the blast.

Here are a couple of things you should keep in mind when developing your ask:

Set goals: Either for internal development, “Recruit 2 friends to the campaign!”  or external effect, “Help us make #YourCampaign trend in Canada”. Anything that increases overall engagement.

Deadline: Immediacy is best, the key to increasing actions is explaining why now is better than later.

The ask is the trigger for the rest of the Reader Focused Theory of Change that ends with resolution of the tension in the context.

This is a cause and effect sequence of events. It is triggered by the “ask”, which is typically something that the reader can reasonably do. This action then results in tangible, positive impact on the opportunity or crisis related to the context.

By sharing your story with your community, you transform a list of emails into a group that identifies with your cause, and your movement. You can do this in email format by giving an overview of:

Every good story has heroes and villains, think about your action and your campaign and try to find someone on the opposing side who is particularly vulnerable to criticism to target, or someone who is supporting and championing your cause to support. By generously lifting up your champions, and fiercely opposing detractors you also send a message to the outside world that there is benefit to supporting your community.

Develop Heroes: The Chair of the Agricultural Land Commission deserves our thanks for defending B.C.'s farmland and food security from oil and gas interests.

This is your sign off, try to come up with a simple, professional sign off and stick to it. Usually it can be as simple as thanking the reader for being part of the campaign, celebrating the reader for all the work they’ve put into the campaign, or anything that conveys a sense of respect and gratitude for reading the words you crafted.

After your sign off, you have the option of adding a PS, or a little message after the bulk of your email.

Studies show that the PS is one of the most often read parts of an email, even by those who skim the top and flip straight down for the action link. The postscript is way to split the ask by adding in a secondary action that you want people to do without undermining the main action.

Salutation

Hi (First Name or Friend),

Context

Every day, hard-working Canadian families are being asked to make do with less and less as the top strata of society coasts through life with more and more. Since 1960, income inequality has skyrocketed and our governments and financial institutions have been silently complicit, hoping that the vast majority of Canadians will remain too busy scraping together a living to notice what has been going on.

Ask

Across the country, many unions and large swathes of civil society have stepped up to issue the call “No Justice, no Peace”. Will you stand in solidarity with your fellow Canadians this May 1st?

Reader Focused Theory of Change

Imagine what Canada would look like if the vast majority of us didn’t just clock long work days and then go home to watch YouTube? It could be game changing. Together the majority of Canadian working people represent a bigger share of the economy than the Banks or the Government, and that’s because the economy only works if we do. That’s why we’re asking folks to band together on May 1st and support a Canada-wide general strike against the policies of austerity.

Your Story (Ask)

General strikes and labour unrest has been the primary method by which past generations of Canadians have forced the hand of increasingly repressive governments to do social good. We know that the weekend, the 40-hour work week, paid vacation and sick time weren’t just gifted to us by ideologically conservative governments: they were won in the streets and on the picket lines. In 2014, with the global economy sputtering from 20 years of disastrous neo-liberal policies, now is the time to strike while the iron is hot, and join the ranks of millions worldwide who are fighting these failed policies globally.

Narrative Development

Stephen Harper and his consortium of cruel capitalists would like nothing more than to break our last great hope at change by undermining solidarity between working people and unions. Let’s not give him the pleasure of dismantling the last tool that we have at our disposal to smash his tyrannical grip on power. We can push back, and really bring out the truly angry “Steamin’ ” Harper for all society to see.

Signature

To absolute victory through unlimited general strike, no compromise, no surrender!

All the best,

Signature

P.S.

Have you heard about Dogecoin? It’s a disruptive cryptocurrency that the government is fighting hard to keep down. If you have an account with one of the major banks, consider switching over to a hybrid credit union-crypto model. It’s easy and will hit global capitalism where it hurts: their wallet.

• Save common searches as Filters: after running a search, click “Save Filter as” so that you can save yourself from having to recreate it each and every time.
• Create custom workflows: Use page followers, point people, and follow-ups to get emails when things happen in your nation, and auto-assign responsibility for who needs to take care of it.
• Personalize the user experience: whether receiving emails or reading blog posts, no one wants to read something from the “Union Communications Department”. Use real names and be personable.
• Customize your contact types: create categories for your interactions that match what you actual do (by going to Settings > Contact Types).
• Manage your tags: tags are extremely useful for segmenting your people, but not if you have a bunch that each only apply to a handful of supporters. Trim your tag list, merge ones that are similar, and don’t make tags for things that NationBuilder already keeps track of.

• Keep subject lines short: 50 characters or less is ideal in the mobile era. Be concise and direct, and consider putting your request in the subject.
• Keep links separate: the first ‘ask’ link in an email should stand alone on its own line rather than embedded in a paragraph. Links should also be concise and direct (e.g., “Please help by signing our petition”).
• Include your ask/action multiple times: put your ask in the beginning, middle, and end to provide a number of opportunities for readers to decide to participate.
• Test your emails: You can split your lists with NationBuilder—allowing you to test email variations on smaller segments—by selecting a list and clicking Split. Try splitting your list into 3 segments (80%/10%/10%) and send an email with one small variation to the two 10% segments. Then send the better performing version to the remaining 80%.
• Target your non-opens: NationBuilder keeps track of those who didn’t open your emails. Lots of times the only reasons your supporters didn’t open your email is because they didn’t see it, so add your non-opens to a list and send them the blast again.