Writing It Right: Reflections on Seven Years of Neighborhood Newsletters

(Source: Stephen Phillips/Unsplash.)

It all started with a pawn shop. One afternoon years ago, I got an email that was making its way around the neighborhood. There was a notice posted on a nearby building, announcing an application for a pawn shop. It needed a conditional use permit and a variance, and the deadline to support or oppose it was only a few hours away, as the board deciding on the application was meeting that very night. 

Our neighborhood already had three payday loan places within just a few blocks of each other, and the last bank had up and moved years ago. We didn’t need another predatory lending institution; a pawn shop seemed like a step backward.

Beginning that day and over the next couple of weeks, my husband and I were part of a campaign of neighbors to stop the approval of the pawn shop. After many late nights of meetings and research, we went with a big delegation of people to city hall and successfully convinced the council to deny the application. It was the first time in my life I’d been involved in anything like that, and it was downright exhilarating. 

When we won our cause, we were keen to keep the momentum going. We met so many great people, made connections with other stakeholders in our area, and got to know our city councilor and provincial representative, all in just a few weeks. We’d had so many conversations about what change we wanted to see in our neighborhood, and it seemed a shame to stop talking now. This is how I found myself sending out an email to this collection of 20-odd people with the subject line: “No pawn shop—what next?”

Little did I know, that was the beginning of the neighborhood newsletter. That was in 2016, and I’m still involved as the editor and primary writer. The momentum from the pawn shop fight resulted in the re-establishment of a neighborhood association, which had been on hiatus for several years, and brought together a bunch of wonderful people keen to keep building up our community. So, for these past seven years, a couple of times a month, I fire up Mailchimp and craft an email describing neighborhood events, initiatives, news, and anything else that folks might like to know about. 

A lot of the way I approach the newsletter is simply an extension of the general philosophy of our neighborhood association. That is, we’re all about building connections and creating opportunities to get together and enjoy our community.

Our neighborhood association email newsletter consistently has an open rate of between 55% and 65%, which shows we’ve got an engaged readership (with over 400 subscribers, we estimate it reaches one in three households in the area). We’re doing something right! I thought I’d share a little about the approach I’ve taken with editing the newsletter over these past several years, and some of the key ingredients in the secret sauce.

The Goldilocks Test

Hitting that sweet spot of email frequency is always my goal. I never want someone to see an email and think, “Not them again.” I try to send emails frequently enough to show that we are active, but not so many that people start ignoring or unsubscribing.

A lot of work goes into planning neighborhood events and initiatives, and you want to make sure people know about them! My goal is that we email a minimum of once a month, to maybe up to three times per month. During busy seasons (or in the event of cancellations), we may need to send weekly updates, but I think it’s preferable to err on the side of slightly less often.

It’s All About the Tone

Keep it neighborly: friendly, accessible, helpful, conversational, and welcoming. 

If it’s an event, I try to provide details I would want to know—such as how long the event will run, if any refreshments will be served, and whether or not bathrooms will be open. You can’t anticipate every question someone might have, but you can create an inviting tone that makes readers comfortable asking for clarification.

Another big one: assume the best of people. Life in close proximity to so many other humans isn’t always easy! So often, online forums devolve into name-calling and accusations, but I believe most people want to be good neighbors. When communicating information about behaviors you’d like people to avoid, providing information and context can help.

Get Creative With Content

The sky’s the limit, but here are some ideas:

• Upcoming events and initiatives.

• Recaps of events with photos and attendance numbers (these come in handy when it’s time to assemble our annual report).

• Important notices from the city, like street cleaning, parking bans, public engagement opportunities related to our area, and pesticide applications.

• Events, programs, or announcements offered by other area organizations that have broad appeal (i.e., kindergarten registration).

• Neighborhood intel: for example, what to expect on Halloween night, when the ice is ready at the local outdoor rink, or a new “Little Free Library” that’s popped up.

• Calls for volunteers. 

• Neat historical photos or facts.

Make It Pretty

I try to include a graphic of some sort for each “chunk” of content, whether that’s a logo, a photo I took or someone submitted, or just a nice photo from Canva or Unsplash to accompany the text.

Ads or No Ads?

In the early days of the newsletter, we were approached on several occasions with offers of money in exchange for advertising. Some people felt very strongly that this was a no-brainer—we needed money for various things, and this was a straightforward way to get it. I resisted. My concerns were twofold: one, I was worried readers would get turned off. Two, it would add an additional set of tasks and considerations to the volunteer role of assembling the newsletter: the collection of money, getting ad copy or graphics, meeting deadlines, and living up to our end of the agreement. And we’d probably need to develop a policy for who we’d accept advertising from. 

I also felt it was important to stay politically neutral and never wanted to feel like we were beholden in any way to any advertisers, whether they were businesses, churches, politicians, etc. I held my ground and to this day, we have never had any advertising, from businesses or otherwise. I believe this is part of what makes our neighborhood newsletter successful.

Similar to this, we’ve had to figure out our relationship with local businesses. That has always been a tricky balance. On the one hand, we know that local businesses would benefit from exposure to a highly targeted and engaged local audience. On the other, we never want to give visibility to one business that we’re not prepared to do for them all. Eventually, we found a happy medium. In December, we publish a “local love list,” where folks send in their favorite local spots, and we host a local home-based business directory on our website. We also offer event sponsorship opportunities, so businesses can support us and get visibility that way, too.

Is Email the Best Place?

One thing I’m constantly assessing is whether or not the newsletter is the best place for a particular item. Some things are better suited to the Facebook group, like lost pets, business promotions (lemonade stands get a huge boost through there), and time-sensitive items. It is great to have Facebook as an option in those instances!

Above All, Respect Privacy

This means any information readers gave you when they signed up is only to be used for the email newsletter, not for general contact purposes. 

Those are my best tips for writing a newsletter that will have people looking forward to the next one and, with any luck, asking how they can get more involved in the neighborhood!

---

---