Check It out

[Mhayes]

Hi Everyone,

By now you should have received your OPR newsletter and also check out the home page as there is news about Nashville.

The OPR Forum is great, but it doesn't have the ability to reach out to all of the volunteers when needed. We have this courtesy of Vertical Response and a big thank you to Becky Sell for getting us in free because of our nonprofit status. I can't say enough good things about their customer service and their product. One of the really neat perks is that I was able to upload our 2,289 volunteer listing and send out the newsletter all at one time. We now have the ability to see how many open their email with the newsletter and what percentage click on the links. For those who opt out or for those whose emails bounce; this is all taken care of within the system and the list is updated to show those changes.

The newsletter is a work in progress, so give us some suggestions of what you would like in it and how often you think it should go out. On second thought, go easy on the latter.  ;)

Thanks,

Margie

[Tori803]

Great newsletter! I know it's a lot of work, so thanks very much!

Tori

[Mhayes]

Thanks Tori!

Margie

[Hannie]

The newsletter looks great Margie!
What about once every 2 months?
Maybe there can a request for volunteers to pick orphans from our gallery. 

:up:

Hannie

[glennab]

The newsletter is awesome, Margie.  How great that Becky was able to find a group to circulate them for us. I gather they track readership as well?

I've been trying to give OPR as much talking up as I can on Facebook, and am hoping to be back to working on restorations once my job hunt settles down a bit.  Several people who've read about us have been really excited about what we do.  The trick is getting them involved.

I actually have a "test" restoration for a web company that's as bad as some of our worst ones.  Am trying to finish that, so I can get back here more often.


Hope to "see" ya soon!

GK

[Mhayes]

Thanks Everyone!

GK, VerticalResponse was more than a place to circulate the newsletter. The newsletter was built there and except for a couple of days when I was trying to find an error in the code when I changed the color of parts of the layout, it went pretty smooth. Their 61 page PDF instruction Guide: Quick Start Guide to Email Marketing was all I needed to get this done. I could pick a layout that looked good and from there make it our own.

We are now able to track the response to our newletter by the minute, hour, days. To give you an example:

• 1. As of this hour, 1,008 volunteers out of 2,289 have opened their email.
• 2. 179 emails bounced
• 3. 19 volunteers asked to be removed
• 4. Within the 1st hour, 300 had opened their email
• 4. The ability to track how many click on links in the newsletter

I cannot say enough good things about this company and that they donate this service to different nonprofits makes them tops in my book. They also have where we can send out post cards from our list. This is not for us, but for a small business it is a great tool.

Hannie's idea of every two months sounds good to me and I think wishful thinking on the orphans, but we will try to entice some adoptions.

Margie

[glennab]

Wow, Margie,

You found a gold mine.  What a blessing that there are like-minded people who help groups like OPR.  And I gather that their templates make the newsletter much quicker to put together.  Incredible.

Technology is so beyond awesome.  Look at the tracking!

The next time you're in contact with VerticalResponse, please tell them how much one of OPR's "charter members" (on the 26th it'll be 4 years!) appreciates what they're doing for us.

GK

[Hannie]

Now if the other 1281 volunteers also open their newsletter email we will be very pleased!  ;)

Hannie