How Associations Grow and Manage Newsletter Subscriber Lists

Just as important as newsletter content and design, is the audience on the receiving end. Building a subscriber list is the best way to build a relationship with your prospective members and maintain it with current members. It’s been said to be one of the most effective ways to showcase your brand messaging and increase engagement with your association.

How associations can grow their email list

We’re often asked how to grow subscriber lists and while there’s multiple scenarios on how to do this, we’ll touch on one that's important – promotion. Your industry audience won’t know about your newsletter unless they’re told. Are you showing off your newsletter?

Effective promotion tactics include:

• Website promotion: Showcasing the newsletter prominently on your website

• Onboarding: Including newsletter opt-in as part of member or subscriber welcome packets

• Social promotion: Promoting the newsletter across social media channels

Member vs. non-member distribution strategy

Promotion of your newsletter is only successful if your newsletter is not an exclusive member-only publication. We recommend sending your newsletter to both members and non-members because the benefits are undeniable.

You’re not only giving your members the information they want and need for the industry, but you’re also able to see what your non-members are engaging with. With this feature, you can see if the non-members are clicking on your association CTAs, which in turn tells you that they’re wanting to know more about your association and what’s going on within the organization and industry. This is your warm lead to reach out to that individual for membership.

Using demographic data to segment and personalize newsletters

Now, let’s talk about demographics within your distribution list. The more information you have on your audience, the better. This allows you to personalize and segment the newsletter for your own marketing initiatives. For example, personalization allows you to target members that are coming up for joining, renewal, or are past due with paying their membership dues.

Because there is no “standard”, you can include as much info as you’d like or use this capability to target around any capacity. It doesn’t need to be specific to membership, although the example describes renewals. 

How subscriber data supports advertising and sponsorship value

Like membership renewals, you can use the demographic data your association has on the subscribers, you can target non-attendees and promote conference registration, discounts, webinars, etc. Really, as long as you can provide the data/fields, the opportunities are endless.

Demographics are also an important benefit for advertisers, as they’re more likely to purchase if they know the type of audience they’re reaching (i.e., job titles, geographic locations, etc.). 

How often to update and maintain subscriber lists

How often you should update a subscriber list is based on how often your list changes internally. If you’re getting numerous sign-ups/members on a weekly basis, then update the list each week. Otherwise, the best timeframe to update your list is monthly. This ensures that your editor has the most up-to-date information for your brief. 

Improving deliverability and long-term list health

List maintenance is key when working with subscriber data and working with email marketing. Make sure to pay attention to your bounce rate, as it will tell you what your team needs to clean up within the subscriber list. There are many reasons why an email can bounce, but here are the top 7:

1. Mailbox full: Your recipient’s inbox is full, so the server won’t allow any more emails to the mailbox owner.
2. Message too large: Occasionally, the content in the message or an attachment exceeds the limit of the recipient’s server. It’s recommended to send email messages with smaller file sizes. 
3. Blacklisted: When a recipient’s email server is blocking inbound emails, it’s called blacklisting. The most common reasons for a block are:
   • The address you replied/sent from is blacklisted
   • One of the IPs you replied/sent from is blocked
   • One of the domains an email is sent from is temporarily blacklisted
   • The server that receives emails only accepts white-listed senders
4. Known spammer: The recipient’s email server might be marking sent email accounts as spam depending on email history and reputation.
5. Undeliverable: If bounced emails are in the undeliverable category it means that the receiving email server is temporarily unavailable, overloaded or cannot be found.
6. Email Block: An email can be blocked by the recipient if they wish to no longer receive emails from the individual.
7. Invalid: In this category, the recipient email server is unable to deliver the email because the address was spelled incorrectly or has invalid characters within it.

To help your recipients receive your newsletters to their inboxes, recommend having them whitelist your sending email address, essentially marking it safe to send. This will also prevent your emails from potentially going to the spam or junk folders of the recipients’ email inbox. Each mail client has different processes for adding a sender to the safe list, so if they're unaware, have them reach out to their IT team. 

No matter where you are in the stages of upgrading or building your email newsletters, know that your subscriber list is the lifeline to successful engagement.

At Multiview, we work with associations to support newsletter strategy, audience development, and distribution—helping teams strengthen engagement while making the most of their existing data and channels. If you’d like help strengthening your association’s newsletter program, Multiview is here to support your team—reach out to start the conversation.